By WMBD-TV

NORMAL – It’s no secret where the troubles last year were for Redbird men’s basketball.

Illinois State was dead last in the Missouri Valley in scoring. They made just 29% of their threes as a team, also at the bottom of the conference.

Coach Ryan Pedon went to work to fix that the day the off-season began.

“I went with the full overdose in the portal of shooting and guys that have taken and made threes throughout their career bring in 356 made threes at a 39% clip between three guys,” Pedon told WMBD-TV’s Patrick Cunningham.

With those additions, Pedon also hung on to eight players from last year, second highest in the MVC

He hopes this creates stability that’ll avoid some of the lower moments from last season, such as being swept by a seven-win Valpo team.

“I’m very excited, genuinely excited about who we have and where this thing is headed,” Pedon added. “The reality is the path from where our program was at to where we’re going, it can be jagged at times. Sometimes you feel like you’re taking three steps forward and two steps back, and I think last year was that for us.”

With a sizeable chunk of the conference starting over, Pedon sees this season as a chance to jump up the league standings.

“In our league alone, 15 of the 16 All-Conference performers, they’re gone. You have five new coaching staffs, and as we all know, that means five new rosters. I see a a great window of opportunity and we it’s our job to seize that and jump on that. But the timing, I think, couldn’t be better for, you know, where we’re at.”