Game #2 - Trinity Christian Monday November 13 at the ARC 7pm

[oklahomamick]

1.  I would bet that Brandon Wood has more to do with Valpo than Michigan St.  What I mean is despite his constant moving around, I would guess Brandon would consider Valpo more home than the other destinations. 

2.  Yes, we are beyond the naia and Diii games.  Yes, its difficult to get Di schools for home games.  Yes, we need more home games. 
Answer is get Chicago St and IUPUI instead of North Park and Trinity. 

[valpo95]

2.  Yes, we are beyond the naia and Diii games.  Yes, its difficult to get Di schools for home games.  Yes, we need more home games. 
Answer is get Chicago St and IUPUI instead of North Park and Trinity. 

However, the Chicago States of the world end up being an RPI drag, but as far as I know the non-DI opponents do not count for the RPI.

What we all want is 50-150 RPI teams that would do a home and home, but there are only so many of those teams out there to fill in a schedule.

[VU2014]

2.  Yes, we are beyond the naia and Diii games.  Yes, its difficult to get Di schools for home games.  Yes, we need more home games. 
Answer is get Chicago St and IUPUI instead of North Park and Trinity. 

However, the Chicago States of the world end up being an RPI drag, but as far as I know the non-DI opponents do not count for the RPI.

What we all want is 50-150 RPI teams that would do a home and home, but there are only so many of those teams out there to fill in a schedule.

Ideally I'd love all teams we played to be Top 150 & up, which is a tall task to find willing opponents because all programs have different motives and sometimes geographically & timing wise you can't get schedules to workout. I just want to see us not schedule bottom feeding D1s during the Non-Conference. The schedule really isn't that bad this season but the home non-conference schedule can of sucks other then Samford, SELA & USU. It is what it is but hopefully we have a better home OOC schedule next season.



Random attendance note:
2017 (Trinity-Christian): 2,545 Monday night game
2016 (Trinity-Christian): 2,588 Saturday game

[VUGrad1314]

So much for bad attendance  And they said the fan excitement around this team isn't real We could push 3000-3500 for SELA and Samford and 4000 for Utah State especially if we're rolling at the time which is a possibility

[valpo64]

Let's be honest...who wants to spend money watching us play Trinity Christian and North Park?  I didn't.  That is about like watching an intra-squad game  at best.

[VUGrad1314]

It's not just the money it's a serious question as to whether or not the entertainment value is even worth the time you invest in going to the game For most D1s this isn't a question but for non-D1s it's another matter entirely

[valpo64]

Amen, Brother!

[justducky]

However, the Chicago States of the world end up being an RPI drag, but as far as I know the non-DI opponents do not count for the RPI.

In a year when we are projected to be a 140-150 RPI team with 0% chance for an at-large who cares? A few extra RPI points for a rebuilding year doesn't mean a pinch of  . And the HL taking us to court should not have stood in the way of an attempt for a home and away with several of their members. Yes because of our slim 18-19 at-large hopes we would have needed to host this year and played the return game away next year but did we even try for such an arrangement?

[VU2014]

In a year when we are projected to be a 140-150 RPI team with 0% chance for an at-large who cares? A few extra RPI points for a rebuilding year doesn't mean a pinch of  . And the HL taking us to court should not have stood in the way of an attempt for a home and away with several of their members. Yes because of our slim 18-19 at-large hopes we would have needed to host this year and played the return game away next year but did we even try for such an arrangement?

Most of these Home-&-Home series are scheduled well ahead of time. It would logistically be tough to schedule potential H-&-Hs with with Horizon League schools that likely had their Non-Conf schedules set well ahead of time just like we did. Probably a lot of the dates didn't work out even if the there were HL schools that wanted to play us. I'm sure Kampe called and wanted to schedule us because this is the best team he's ever had and we were are still probably a top 140-160 team in a rebuild year.

I could see us scheduling a HL team for next season, hopefully not one of their bottom feeding teams. Playing Oakland on a similar series as Ball State would make sense H-&-H every year. I would love to get a similar series going with Belmont because both programs would be guaranteed strong RPI opponents most years.

[VUGrad1314]

Projections should be used as a guide and a suggestion nothing more You don't turn down quality opponents just because you're not projected to do well and I wouldn't exactly call our at Large hopes slim next year I think we're going to be deep Experienced talented and dangerous I think we have a great chance at an at Large if we just schedule well  I like the idea of series with Oakland and Belmont (of course there's another way we could play the Bruins quite frequently but it would require a certain private school in the South to ante up for the first time in it's history and act like the quality mid major they are)

[VU2014]

Projections should be used as a guide and a suggestion nothing more You don't turn down quality opponents just because you're not projected to do well and I wouldn't exactly call our at Large hopes slim next year I think we're going to be deep Experienced talented and dangerous I think we have a great chance at an at Large if we just schedule well.

I'm in agreement. I think if we can get the right matchups next season and we win the right games and have a very strong conference record without any glaringly bad losses we can be an at-large next year. I'm obviously projecting that this team grows into the team we all hope they can be. With the addition Fazekas and hopefully Javon Freeman-Liberty can be a reliable SG his freshman year and maybe Golder plays more G next year and can be a strong defender at that position.

[a3uge]

Keep in mind Valpo has to compete with power conference teams when scheduling lower tier opponents in the first few weeks. Valpo is never going to outbid Iowa and Purdue for a buy game against Chicago State. Power conference teams will rarely come, and decent mid majors are also looking for only home games. Scheduling is tough, but I agree, two consecutive non D1s isn't good.

[FWalum]

Doesn't anybody remember that the move to the MVC caused us to lose a D1 non-conference game with Indiana State? Maybe some of us should go back again and listen to the Union Street Hoops episode where Coach Gore explained this years scheduling situation.

[oklahomamick]

I've asked this question before but never received an answer.

Are the Purdue and northwestern games buy games?

Are they paying us to come and play?

[bbtds]

Doesn't anybody remember that the move to the MVC caused us to lose a D1 non-conference game with Indiana State? Maybe some of us should go back again and listen to the Union Street Hoops episode where Coach Gore explained this years scheduling situation.

To be honest does it really matter what the excuse is? The result is the same. Valpo fans are disappointed in the home non-conf schedule. I'm really hoping the close contested conf games make up the difference.

[vu84v2]

I don't want to ever play non-D1 schools or schools like Chicago State or SIU-E. RPI is part of it, but the bigger reason is that playing these games adds zero value to the program. People here talk about wanting greater attendance, but the main things that drive attendance are excitement about the program and quality opponents.

However, while this year's non-conference schedule is awful and is unlikely to build as much enthusiasm as it needed to for Valpo's first MVC season, Valpo has done a good job of scheduling in recent years. My hope is that this year's schedule is just an isolated case. I would recommend not providing a return home game for UC-Riverside or SIU-E if better games can be found. And I would never ever schedule Chicago State.

[VUGrad1314]

If all of these coaches ADs and fans  that I've heard over the years constantly complaining about how hard it is to schedule spent less time whining and more time talking to each other to schedule games they would solve so many of their own problems. There's enough quality among the mid major conferences to offer ample opportunities for any legitimate at large contender to build a tournament worthy resume with the few P5 opportunities everyone gets mixed into their schedule. It's a matter of how badly you really want it. Yes the climate is against us and the climb is getting steeper but we at this level still have a choice and some say in how this goes. We can either be afraid of losing to a fellow mid major with tournament aspirations and instead choose to fatten up on games that do nothing; thereby hurting ourselves in the process by weakening our schedules and working against our best interest or we can all man up and play each other and show the Power 5 that we're not going away without a fight no matter what they do.  I for one choose to keep fighting in spite of the tough climate and  I sincerely hope everyone at Valpo and every Valpo fan is with me on this. Those who aren't and support the status quo (and there are  a few on here and a few more that I've talked to in my day to day life) need to really take a look at your mindset because that's a defeatist low-major mindset. And that mindset isn't Valpo. That's not what I was taught being a Crusader was about. I'm not asking Valpo to constantly play unwinnable games against top 10-20 teams and get beaten up on a nightly basis but a few tough tests then some games against quality mid majors so that the schedule is made up of consistent top 150 or above games  and no more non-D1s or Sub-250 RPI drags isn't an unreasonable thing to ask, or at least it shouldn't be. A challenging at-large caliber schedule should be the goal every year regardless of where Valpo is projected to finish and we as fans should expect nothing less.

[VU2014]

https://twitter.com/CherylBGore/status/931956035732074496