Good Bradley defense but was Pettigrew 100%? His lack of production with Barnes not playing gave Servilas bigger minutes but we were clearly outplayed for most of the game.
No combination of Valpo players seemed to give us a clear exploitable advantage.
@justducky no he wasn’t. Listed as questionable on the gameday availability report update.
Agreed on the stats. Dead equal, difference was the free throws, our shot selection (to many long jumpers) and a seven minute stretch in the second half where they extended their lead. Powell decided not to go with JT in the second half prolly due to matchups with their guards, but our bread butter is getting JT to the block,(Indiana state game, other games). Justice played pretty well on both sides but Chaney needs work in the ball screens and a few blow byes by their guards. No containment. Rematch in the ARC soon.
Agreed on the stats. Dead equal, difference was the free throws, our shot selection (to many long jumpers) and a seven minute stretch in the second half where they extended their lead. Powell decided not to go with JT in the second half prolly due to matchups with their guards, but our bread butter is getting JT to the block,(Indiana state game, other games). Justice played pretty well on both sides but Chaney needs work in the ball screens and a few blow byes by their guards. No containment. Rematch in the ARC soon.
Let's get them back at the ARC in a few weeks. JT is banged up which is why he sat most of the second half. He just was not his normal self. With a quick turnaround for a winnable Friday game and then THREE games next week, resting JT when he didn't look right makes sense to me. Let's get a win Friday and make-up some ground in the standings..... UIC, Northern, SIU, and Drake all with really tough games on Friday night. We could/should see a shift in the standings should we take care of business on Friday.
Agreed on the stats. Dead equal, difference was the free throws, our shot selection (to many long jumpers) and a seven minute stretch in the second half where they extended their lead. Powell decided not to go with JT in the second half prolly due to matchups with their guards, but our bread butter is getting JT to the block,(Indiana state game, other games). Justice played pretty well on both sides but Chaney needs work in the ball screens and a few blow byes by their guards. No containment. Rematch in the ARC soon.
JT was listed as questionable before the game. Probably was dealing with some issues retroactive to the ISU game as well. With Barnes and JT at 100%....this was probably a different game
Part of the difference may have been the idea (that most coaches including Coach Powell subscribe to) that players can't play in the first half with two fouls. Giving your team the best chance to win should be the focus, not making sure no one fouls out. In virtually all cases, especially being the underdog on the road, you can't afford the feel-good move of keeping your key people on the bench. Even if JT couldn't play, Cheney could, rather than sit out the last 8 minutes of the first half. How is it OK to play with two fouls beginning the second half but not with 5 minutes left in the first half? And Dease (2 fouls) sat out the last three minutes of the first half, in addition to JT and Cheney.
Part of the difference may have been the idea (that most coaches including Coach Powell subscribe to) that players can't play in the first half with two fouls. Giving your team the best chance to win should be the focus, not making sure no one fouls out. In virtually all cases, especially being the underdog on the road, you can't afford the feel-good move of keeping your key people on the bench. Even if JT couldn't play, Cheney could, rather than sit out the last 8 minutes of the first half. How is it OK to play with two fouls beginning the second half but not with 5 minutes left in the first half? And Dease (2 fouls) sat out the last three minutes of the first half, in addition to JT and Cheney.
Hindsight, oh hindsight! Seriously, the depth Valpo has allows for extra precaution when aware that any game could go to overtime and, if that happed it might be playing without two stars which would obviously put your team behind the eight ball. Valpo was also playing a multiple number of lineups of course dictated by Bradley to a large degree. Bradley is a big team so Valpo was playing two bigs together at the same time. With JT not being at 100%, and another game this Friday, I don't think the move was unwarranted or ill-advised.
We've lost to Bradley 89 times in a row and rather than put your best team on the court you are worried about overtime rather than worry about playing without two stars when the game is being decided. The depth concept an illusion. Apart from McNair, what second-team people can score?
I no longer care how many Valley wins we post this season. I only care about having the team ready for St Louis. By rank we are only mid pack both in D-1 and MVC basketball but Roger Powell has somehow assembled a good sized, very deep roster with sufficient experience and no fatal flaws that could exclude us from a deep conference tournament run. If we can get to early March hot, healthy and confident then I like our odds even if they are only a 5% chance at winning it all!
We've lost to Bradley 89 times in a row and rather than put your best team on the court you are worried about overtime rather than worry about playing without two stars when the game is being decided. The depth concept an illusion. Apart from McNair, what second-team people can score?
The second team has so far provided 32% of our scoring and 28% of rebounds. As a unit, that is pretty impressive. They give the first unit a break. Look it up.
Might want to look into some stats about how much production goes down when the minutes go up. Guys may want 30 plus minutes a game. But it wears you down more than anything. Part of having such a deep bench is being able to give that first team the much needed rest they need to operate at 100% for 40 minutes. Dang my face on a new order I wouldn't even say that the rest is because of getting two fouls in the first half. It's more so because of what was outlined above. To the comments about the secondary. I would even go as far as to say the strong secondary production from multiple sources. Mine I'd add not just McNair, is part of the reason why Valpo has been able to win so many games and keep so many games close.
In the 5 conference wins Valpo has averaged more than 30 free throws per game. Tonight they had just 10 and only made 4; Bradley made 11 and won by that 7 point spread. All other stats in the box score were almost dead level: each team made 27 field goals and 7 3-point shots; the rebound difference was merely 1, as was the total of bench points, the steals, the turnovers, and the points off turnovers. All were plus or minus 1, and it is hard to imagine a more even game. The simple formula is that VU wins when they get to the line and make the free throws.
This is correct for sure, Valpo is 51st nationally at points distribution from the free throw line at 23%. Calculating that out of their 71.09 scoring average comes out to be 16.3 free throw makes a game on average. Only scoring 4 points at the line was a huge deal when the game plan focuses on generating those opportunities. That's 12 points missed off the average.
Part of the difference may have been the idea (that most coaches including Coach Powell subscribe to) that players can't play in the first half with two fouls. Giving your team the best chance to win should be the focus, not making sure no one fouls out. In virtually all cases, especially being the underdog on the road, you can't afford the feel-good move of keeping your key people on the bench. Even if JT couldn't play, Cheney could, rather than sit out the last 8 minutes of the first half. How is it OK to play with two fouls beginning the second half but not with 5 minutes left in the first half? And Dease (2 fouls) sat out the last three minutes of the first half, in addition to JT and Cheney.
Coach Powell has shown a willingness to go deep down his bench. In my opinion this is partially because this is a Valpo team with some but not a ton of drop off as you go down the bench, it also seems that someone on the bench is going to give a boost to the team but outside of Justus it can be a bit of a surprise as to who that player will be on a given night. The second reason I believe is that our players all bring various attributes and skill sets that provide different looks. Sometimes I wish 2 foul utilization was higher but with guys like JT and Rakim that is more of a risk with their freshman experience, a player like Brody might be given more of a leash due to years of experience. Powel has a 9.7% 2 foul usage rate which is 318th nationally. If you pick up two early fouls on this team you are more than likely going to the bench for the remainder of the half.
Part of the difference may have been the idea (that most coaches including Coach Powell subscribe to) that players can't play in the first half with two fouls. Giving your team the best chance to win should be the focus, not making sure no one fouls out. In virtually all cases, especially being the underdog on the road, you can't afford the feel-good move of keeping your key people on the bench. Even if JT couldn't play, Cheney could, rather than sit out the last 8 minutes of the first half. How is it OK to play with two fouls beginning the second half but not with 5 minutes left in the first half? And Dease (2 fouls) sat out the last three minutes of the first half, in addition to JT and Cheney.
Coach Powell has shown a willingness to go deep down his bench. In my opinion this is partially because this is a Valpo team with some but not a ton of drop off as you go down the bench, it also seems that someone on the bench is going to give a boost to the team but outside of Justus it can be a bit of a surprise as to who that player will be on a given night. The second reason I believe is that our players all bring various attributes and skill sets that provide different looks. Sometimes I wish 2 foul utilization was higher but with guys like JT and Rakim that is more of a risk with their freshman experience, a player like Brody might be given more of a leash due to years of experience. Powel has a 9.7% 2 foul usage rate which is 318th nationally. If you pick up two early fouls on this team you are more than likely going to the bench for the remainder of the half.
I can touch on the 2 foul sitting pattern last game. As I mentioned, JT is banged up. He wasn't himself out there and got 2 quick fouls so he sat. Rakim plays a ton of minutes for a freshman and we certainly saw him hit a freshman wall early in conference and he appears to be coming out of it. Part of that is rest. I presume all have noticed that Brody is playing more pg, this allows Rakim to sit a bit more while not having to play Brown or Keyonte. Our production is better and Rakim has been better with a few more minutes rest. With 2 fouls in the first half and a deep team, sitting is a no brainer.
Justducky is spot on. The goal here is to ideally peak in march. For that, we will need depth whether we have to play 3 games in row or 4. So we may as well continue to push our bench, we will need them when it really matters.
