Iowa state fans aren't really the sharpest knives in the drawer. It's year 1 for a head coach going up against a ranked opponent. I don't see the reason to critique a coach in years 1
It was an impossible task to begin with. The woman probably had 40 pounds on our biggest player as well as an inch or two. If you try to double her she would most likely still make the majority of plays or decide to pass the ball to an now open 3 point shooter. They have been making around 9 3's per game. We gave up 4.
Look at the bright side. Valpo made my social media feed. Probably not for the reasons we'd like but Valpo's there.
Audi Crooks has excellent feet technique - teams should evaluate and learn from this.
as for the Iowa State fans, they are correct, and Boyd made no adjustment to defend. It was actually sad and boring. Boyd should be critiqued, it’s D1 hoops.
At this point in would appear we have a chance to go winless. It is somewhat understandable as our top 7 players either graduated, transferred or is injured. Does anyone know the prognosis on Rhodes. She is listed as injured. I expected Raye-Redmond to miss time. I doubt there is a team that shoots worst than we do.
Kudos to our 2 6-3 centers are they are combining for about 12 points and 12 rebounds a game. Those 2 and Connelly are the only somewhat consistency we have.
And who came up with a schedule with only a couple of pre conference home games?
It’s mathematically really hard to go winless in a season and there are some really bad teams besides Valpo in the MVC. But, I noticed in the Cleveland State game that had a whopping 33 turnovers and scored 41 points! Crazy stat man!
AD first two hires 2-19 in portal level instance success era…
Evans was a terrible women’s coach and required a firing. 33 turnovers is unheard of.
As for Fox, what an enigma.
AD first two hires 2-19 in portal level instance success era…
The fact that you think that portal era = instant success. Especially for 2 first year coaches at the D1 level. Just shows how much of a Fox fan you are/were
@azvalpo Rhoades had surgery after last season on her hip, she is back at practice now according to TV/radio comments, and Raye-Redmond is still recovering from her Achilles tear but is on a similar timeline.
As for the portal comments, I don't know but maybe we should start having future hires for basketball be made earlier than April? Boyd's first signing was not until mid-April, and maybe because of that she wasn't able to get anyone with more than 30 minutes of D1 playing time (Nenadic). After that, and with the two injuries plus Nuala Connolly's injury, it became pretty evident this year was gonna suck, to the tune of a couple of athletic department higher-ups' X posts along the line of "no matter how hard this year is, we have your back" kind of stuff.
The shooting is very bad, hopefully it improves post-injury recoveries, but our rebounding at least is way better than under Evans. The turnovers though...yikes.
@rezynezy all about who you hire. Drakes last
men’s coach already at Iowa. All about who you hire. Let’s hire D1/high D2 people
Forget about higher profile men’s sports for a moment. Let’s focus on DI women’s teams.
Valpo offers one of the most attractive small college atmospheres in all of Division I in the midwest. The beautiful campus, smaller, more personal and family-like vibes and the opportunity to play DI sports at a pretty high level should be a magnet for most female athletes. Why? Because it is a fact of life that for most women their athletic careers end upon graduation. So ……Why not spend your four years before you go out into the big bad world in a place that nurtures you, enjoys your presence and values you for more than just being an athlete?
Bottom line, and this is not sexist cuz I raised a daughter who competed at a pretty high level and we talked about this very thing, there is more to the female athletic experience than just the level of competition. To most, in my opinion, it is that AND the atmosphere in which they live that is important. And Valpo offers that atmosphere. But for some reason (Budgets??) that message is not getting through to the athletes we need.
Carin Avery, it seems to me at this point, has been and still is the only women’s coach who has over time grasped how this works, and it’s reflected in the record she has produced. Imagine if she had more resources at her disposal.
Ya know, that with half the investment we put into FB, BB and Baseball invested in women’s Soccer, Volley Ball, Basketball and Softball, the return on that investment in terms of more easily achieved institutional recognition would be so much greater than what we are seeing to this point.
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not advocating slashing men’s sports in favor of women’s. I’m saying throw some more (scholarship?) money toward key women’s sports and let’s see what might happen.
62, you may have forgotten about John and the woman’s soccer program. Long standing and successful. Keith Freeman got to the NCAAs a couple of times and was let go. Big mistake. As for other sports, Tennis seems is a good space, the new softball coach can’t do any worse and the new basketball coach seems to have a personality that was missing in her predecessor. I think overall the women’s programs—other than golf, are headed in or on the right path.
It is too early to slam Hosmer as AD. She has a limited budget and working at a university trying to stay afloat. Evans was a terrible coach and should have been fired earlier, and currently the talent level is way below par. Besides Powell’s efforts and reasonable results, I am not sure I agree with @vu72 that VU athletics are in the right direction basically because of the limit data points. However, I love the dude’s glass half full attitude and if I feel incompetent or depressed I want to meet him for a beer.
For whatever reason the payoff move to the MVC has really not paid off. When I was in school (12-16) we had a top of the line Men’s Soccer, Women’s Soccer, Softball, Baseball , Volleyball, Men’s Basketball program, a more competitive women’s basketball program. And the football team really struggled.
I usually stay in my lane on the football side of things. But now it seems outside of the norm for any of our teams to be above .500.
Seems to be the common denominator is the MVC move. It is a step up but is it THAT large of a step up? Baseball team went 10-40 last season. I would imagine those results if we moved to the Big10 not the MVC.
I think there’s a very real argument that our talent is actually down since the move up across the board and the competition is up. Men’s basketball is the best example
I wouldn’t say that’s the right direction
