We are 2-2 against the bulldogs historically, last time in the ARC was 21 years ago (December 14, 2002), VU taking it in Double OT 87-79; In that game, Raitis Grafs scored 28. Valpo scored 20 points in the second overtime. Stalin Ortiz had 10, Ali Berdiel and Seth Colclasure each had 6 in the Overtimes. Stalin hit a layup with 0.1 on the clock at the end of the first OT to tie it. Valpo wound up 29-37 from the line. Shooting 71% from the field in the overtimes. Enough about living in the past...
This is not the same Samford Team.
They have not won a true-road game this year!
Bulldogs come in on a 9 game winning streak, after opening with two losses (@Purdue and @VCU).
Their 9-game win streak all at home include wins over Mississippi College 96-52, South Carolina State 89-72, Alabama State 99-67, Merrimack 79-71, North Carolina A&T 101-83, Louisiana 88-65, LaGrange College 128-82, Alabama A&M 118-91.and Belmont 99-93
While Valpo was playing CSU, Samford was hosting Belmont. Here's their recap of that win:
The Samford men's basketball team earned its ninth-straight win in a thrilling 99-93 win over Belmont Saturday afternoon in the Pete Hanna Center.
The nine-game win streak marks the longest for Samford since the 1998-99 team won 13-straight contests. Samford improved to 9-2 with the win. Belmont fell to 8-4 with the setback.
Samford had six players score in double figures in the win. A.J. Staton-McCray led the way with 19 points. Riley Allenspach had a career-high 15 points, followed by Achor Achor with 14 points, Rylan Jones with 13 points, Garrett Hicks with 12 points and Nathan Johnson with 11 points. Jermaine Marshall led the team with 12 rebounds.
"This was a good win by our guys," Samford head coach Bucky McMillan said. "We've got a lot of good players, so anyone is capable of going in double figures any night. I'm proud of our guys, we played our way, got up and down, won our way and that's always fun to do."
For Belmont, Cade Tyson led all players with 31 points, to go along with nine rebounds. Ja'Kobi Gillespie scored 18 points for Belmont, while Keishawn Davidson had 13 points and Malik Dia added 11 points.
Belmont jumped out to an early 9-4 lead with 16:31 left in the first half after two free throws by Tyson. Samford answered with an 11-0 run to take a 15-9 lead with 13:18 to go in the half following a jumper by Hicks. Samford extended its lead to 10 points at 24-14 with 9:06 left in the first half following a dunk by Achor.
The Bulldogs led by 12 points at 32-20 with 6:49 left in the half after a three-pointer by Johnson. Belmont scored the next four points to close to within eight points at 32-24 with 5:16 to play in the half after a layup by Brigham Roberts. Samford led by as many as 12 points down the stretch in the first half and the Bulldogs took a 44-36 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Samford opened up a 15-point lead at 51-36 with 18:09 left in the game after a layup by Allenspach. Belmont scored the next five points to close to within 10 points at 51-41 with 17:02 to play. Samford then went on a 12-4 run to push its lead to 63-45 with 14:32 to play following a three-pointer by Johnson. Belmont then went on an 8-0 run to cut the lead back to 10 points at 63-53 with 13:17 left after a three-pointer by Tyson.
The Bulldogs pushed the lead back to 15 points at 81-66 with 6:44 to go after a turnaround jumper by Hicks. Belmont fought back to cut the lead to eight points at 84-76 with 4:34 left after two free throws by Tyson. Samford pushed the lead back out to 12 points at 93-81 with 2:13 left following a layup by Staton-McCray. Belmont then went on a 12-4 run to cut the lead to four points at 97-93 with 11 seconds left after a three-pointer by Davidson. Two late Samford free throws by Hicks made the final score 99-93.
They are AVERAGING 91.5 Points per game
They have an average Margin of Victory of 14.3 and that includes a 98-45 beatdown by the Boilers... so they are winning big.
Shooting 48.8% from the field, 40% from 3 and 76% from the line.
Rebounding at 38.7/gm, assists 20.9/gm, and averaging 21.5 Points of Turnovers/gm
They have 11 players averaging over 11 minutes per game.
Weird Roster Cumulative Statistics... They have 18 different players with at least 3 games played for the year. 10 played against Belmont on Saturday.
#14 Achor Achor, 6'9" 227 lb, Jr From Melbourne, Australia, averaging 14.4/gm is their leading scorer
#5 A.J Staton-McCray, 6'5" Junior from Delray Beach, FL, scored 19, shooting 88% from the line, 45% from the field
#35 Riley Allenspach, 6'11" 247 lb, Freshman from Charlotte, NC scored 15 off the bench
#21 Rylan Jones, 6'1" Graduate transfer from Utah State, scored 13. Leads the team in minutes/game at 22.3 with an Assist/TO ratio of 51/17 that's easy to understand!
Another Starter,#12 Dallas Graziani, 5'8" Sophomore from Pembroke Pines, FL. with an Assist/TO ratio of 35/16
Another Starter #4 Germaine Marshall 6'6 225lb Senior, grabbed 12 rebounds against Belmont
And off the bench, they have Baylor transfer, 7'0" 240lb Sr #32 Zach Loveday... he did not play against Belmont
These guys are a scoring machine. Hoping our defense can stifle whomever they have to guard.
Samford and Son 74
Valpo 63 (less if Rollo plays PG)
Sanford: 76
Valpo: 62
Thought we just played Samford in the ARC in 2017 or 2018. Joe Burton had a big game, a big three towards later part of the second half.
Quote from: AB on December 17, 2023, 11:15:29 PM
Thought we just played Samford in the ARC in 2017 or 2018. Joe Burton had a big game, a big three towards later part of the second half.
'17 as part of The Savannah Invitational. Beat them 88-67. Unclear from the All-Time Scores whether it was at the ARC or in Savannah. But the game is listed as one of our two unbracketed games, so probably at Valpo.
SAMFORD U. 80
VALPARAISO. 71
My guess is that the rest of the way, the only way Valpo beats a decent team is if Stafford has a big shooting night. He apparently is the greenlight guy and thus will either shoot the team in or out of games and he's not good enough to shoot it well consistently.
For Samford, the odds are that he doesn't and Valpo goes down.
12-15 point differential.
This should be a good test of our VO2 Max, as Samford is number three in pace of play or possessions according to KenPom. I think 9 is enough for their winning streak. About time we play a good game on both offense and defense. If we go 10 deep again, I'd like to see some defensive intensity with those coming off the bench. Set the tone.
Valpo 79
Samford 77
This is a tough one to gauge, as they beat a solid Belmont team, but the rest of their wins are against similar crap teams as to those that we have beaten this season. I give a slight edge to Samford, but hope that we can somehow pull this one out:
Samford 73
Valpo 68
Just realized that this game is tomorrow and that I should be able to attend. :o Heck, I haven't even found the time yet to watch the Chicago St loss. ;)
Fred and Lamont Samford 81
Valpo 66
Quote from: talksalot on December 17, 2023, 06:09:57 PMWhile Valpo was playing CSU, Samford was hosting Belmont. Here's their recap of that win:
The Samford men's basketball team earned its ninth-straight win in a thrilling 99-93 win over Belmont Saturday afternoon in the Pete Hanna Center.
The nine-game win streak marks the longest for Samford since the 1998-99 team won 13-straight contests. Samford improved to 9-2 with the win. Belmont fell to 8-4 with the setback.
Just contested enough on a Tuesday afternoon with us working group at work to be another close loss.
Samford & Pun 72
Valpo streaking dark Beacons 69
History my man I'm gonna say it will be a close one and Valpo pulls a 3 point win out of nowhere :thumbsup:
-Why not!
Let's see how this new team/coaching staff responds after letting the Cougar game get away from them.
Quote from: VALPO LI on December 19, 2023, 04:49:55 AM
History my man I'm gonna say it will be a close one and Valpo pulls a 3 point win out of nowhere :thumbsup:
-Why not!
Let's see how this new team/coaching staff responds after letting the Cougar game get away from them.
I do believe the coaching staff is trying to get it through to this Valpo team how to pull out late game wins but it hasn't gotten through to them yet. It does take a maturity, a maturity that players like Alec Peters, Rowdy Broekhoff, Bryce Drew, etc. had from the beginning of their college careers that this Valpo team doesn't have as of yet.
I think it's time for Palm to exist the starting line up. His minutes are diminishing and we're struggling to get going out of the gate. I feel we should start with our best foot forward and he isn't wearing the shoes.
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Quote from: truth219 on December 19, 2023, 09:04:33 AM
I think it's time for Palm to exist the starting line up. His minutes are diminishing and we're struggling to get going out of the gate. I feel we should start with our best foot forward and he isn't wearing the shoes.
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I think you are trying to show
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Palm_Avenue_exit_from_southbound_Interstate_5_in_South_San_Diego..jpg)
the Palm exit.
Samford full court presses the entire game and created a bunch of early turnovers vs Belmont. But Belmont figured out the press in the last 10 minutes. Also Belmont went to a zone d ti slow the game down. Darius will have his hands full and Coach will likely need to play him and Jahari together a lot. We need a big game at both ends from Cooper and our other bigs. We need to beat the press to score to win this one.
Quote from: historyman on December 19, 2023, 10:24:56 AMthe Palm exit.
Jerome played his way to the end of the bench under Lottich and he appears to be doing the same thing under Powell. Lets at least give him an A for consistency.
We're gonna get owned! Please let me eat my words in 150 minutes.
Sam 84
Po 71
The Palm exit is happening lol, Sepp with the start !!
Decent start ! Up 5-0 with 15:56 to go ! Sepp is smart . Doesn't look to score , making heady plays with this full court press !!
So tired of watching off balance jump shot after off balance jump shot. Get to the flippin basket!
Get Weatherspoon out of the fking game ! Bad shot after shot , he needs to learn how to play team basketball , just bad!!
We're not gonna win if we shoot 13% from 3. Just missing wide open looks. Ugh.
Seems like a game just crying out to played on weekday afternoon TV.
Ok, I'll shut up about Weatherspoon! 2 3's in 90 seconds
Well that was ugly. Lost by 18 this year after losing to them by 30 last year. Progress?
I thought that Coach Powell had a young team ready, for the most part, to break the Samford press. Last year's team would have lost by 40.
OK guys, we all know this is going to be a long season and in part because are guys are gassed, mainly because they have 18 and 19 year old bodies. Other than DeAveiro, we got 13 minutes from someone not a freshman or sophomore. We started two freshman and two sophomores. Add the constant pressure they were under and you get tired legs, terrible shooting and the resulting score.
This roster has some major holes.
I put this loss on the coaching search committee dragging their feet on the hire of Powell, to not give him and his staff enough time adequately recruit.
There is a lot of high upside young talent, but this Team has some glaring roster construction needs that the staff didn't have adequate time to recruit for in the offseason...
I've mentioned is before but I wouldn't mind if Palm and Barrett didn't use their final year of eligibility at Valpo... sounds harsh but we could really use those scholarships elsewhere
Quote from: mj on December 19, 2023, 02:52:44 PMI thought that Coach Powell had a young team ready, for the most part, to break the Samford press.
Our ball handling was good against an excellent full and half court defense! :thumbsup: BUT!! We played 40 minutes with no true center scoring threat. AND!! WE couldn't stretch their half court defense because we have too few experienced and confident players who who can even hit open 3's let alone those which are highly contested.
Quote from: VU2014 on December 19, 2023, 04:07:40 PMThere is a lot of high upside young talent, but this Team has some glaring roster construction needs that the staff didn't have adequate time to recruit for in the offseason...
Sad but true.
Quote from: VU2014 on December 19, 2023, 04:07:40 PMI've mentioned is before but I wouldn't mind if Palm and Barrett didn't use their final year of eligibility at Valpo... sounds harsh but we could really use those scholarships elsewhere
Also sad but true! Even with good health and average year to year development their just isn't much program upside to seeing either return for 24-25. Lastly but obviously, these two are not great fits for the Roger Powell style of play.
Good handling of the press for the majority of the game, but we are a team that thinks that they have a lot of good jump shooters, who are not really good jump shooters. For any of you that have tried to point out the difference in team quality/competition during the MVC years versus our dominant Mid-Con years, one of the glaring differences is that we made the majority of our wide open shots back then, and completely brick them over the last few seasons. There was one open shot that Edwards took in the last 10 minutes, that wasn't even close to the rim. It was moving closer to the FT line versus anywhere near the rim. Edwards needs to be a mid-range and around the basket guy, as he is extremely athletic. Stafford needs to have a shot maximum moving forward, as we can't waste 15 shots each game, in the hope that he hits that one hot game. Sepp and Schwieger need to be more involved in the offense, as they take high percentage shots and seem much more in control versus others. Weatherspoon should play more, based on today, as well. I do remain optimistic, but our play is just so frustrating, that it makes it hard to see our path back to having a respectable team. We were very spoiled in 20 of the last 27 seasons.
over under two more wins the rest of the season? lol
Samford is a good team and if they get the right match up they could win a game in March Madness as a 14 seed or something. They have a clear identity and better talent. You can see they played with a lot of confidence in their system, and knew they were gonna make shots to stem Valpo's mini runs. They had answers every time. Valpo was chasing a lot in the half court defense in the second half and our guys got tired.
Yes will be a long season and we can only speed up development so much. Barrett is a shot maker and needs to keep shooting but his footwork on defense is so bad. Only criticism I have today, is they needed to get Cooper a lot more shots/looks in the paint. Dude could have put up 25 easy.
Wow, this is going be a grind. But we all know we hired the right coach and he needs two years of full recruitment time. I am so sad to be nearly right about predicting an 81-65 loss.
The tired legs would certainly affect shooting. However, I think the first half shooting has been really bad too. Do we simply not have enough inside threats to make defenders run back and forth to double the bigger guys and also guard the shooters? I think that might be a bigger factor?
We had quite a few wide open shots in both halves, so I don't think we can blame anything on tired legs. We had a few close misses, but also some that you just wonder how a D-1 basketball player can miss so badly. Lubos Barton has to be wondering what the heck is going on with some of our misses, as those should be drilled.
What a tough game to watch for VU fans. Two things stand out to me: DeVeiro should not be the point guard getting the most playing time if others are available. Other teams are now on to the fact that pressuring him takes him out to the game as he cannot get to the bucket and finish or get off a shot in close. The increased pressure appears to making him more prone to turnovers. While he has been getting some assists now and then and a bucket every once-in-awhile, he is VERY inconsistent. Because of his lack of weight and size a good offensive player can take him inside and he then is overmatched.
My second point is that in addition to having a young, inexperienced team, we also have a relatively young inexperienced head coach. I am not saying Powell should not be our Coach, but he also has to grow into the job of running a complete Div1 team and all that it encompasses from Recruiting to game plans and how to finish a close game.
This will be a long season of learning for us all so we need to be patient as tough as it may be.
If we play like the last five games we'll be lucky to get three wins. If we can play like Illinois, Southern and much of Drake, we could win 6. I'm not seeing the improvement over the last 5 games I was hoping for with this coaching staff.
I didn't watch the last game, but looking at the stats and it comes down to 3 point shooting and defending. If we hit at NCAA average and defended to same average, we have a tie game. I think we are getting good looks in the games I've watched, but seem to be more than a bit off. I'm with Tx - Barton must be shaking his head.
I'd be interested in seeing what the stats for when Schweiger, Stafford, Williamson, Sepp, and Ajiboye are on the court together. After not being in rotation for a few games, Sepp has really contributed into a starter. Palm needs the same energy when he enters games now - defense and rebounding with intensity for every minute he is out there.
I sporadically watched the Samford game or resorted to Game Tracker. What jumped out at me (no pun intended) was the number of times there were 3-4 freshmen on the floor together.
Even with that, we held Samford to like 12 points under their average (remember, they beat Belmont 99-93).
Another thing that the stats revealed, that was also kinda obvious in the video when you think about it, was the number of offensive rebounds we gave up to them - sometimes 2-3 put backs. We have got to learn to box out under the boards or else it undermines any good defensive play leading up to a shot.
Quote from: VULB#62 on December 20, 2023, 03:07:05 PM
Another thing that the stats revealed, that was also kinda obvious in the video when you think about it, was the number of offensive rebounds we gave up to them - sometimes 2-3 put backs. We have got to learn to box out under the boards or else it undermines any good defensive play leading up to a shot.
Oddly, the box score shows both teams with 13 offensive rebounds, and Valparaiso actually won the second-chance points battle 13-4.
Pal, when I saw your corrective post, I said no-way. I checked the final box score and you're right about the ORBs. TBT, I was going by the trend that I was seeing on GameTracker early in the second half or so and just extrapolated. My bad.
But in doing that review, I noted that Samford shot almost 51% from the floor and went YIKES :o.
Valpo should have problems on the boards. They're skinny, young and flatfooted or some combo thereof in the front court.
As everyone has noted, we have major holes in this roster, particularly a lack of a "Mid-Major-D1 Big man", whether that be a true PF or a C. The more game film other teams have on us the more they are going to exploit that.
Don't take that to mean the team is not improving. On a man to man level individual players have definitely progressed as the season has gone on but a lot of that progression has been taken away from coaches having game film on us and exploiting the holes in our roster.
Every freshman and sophomore has had moments of showing their potential. Some of that potential would show through more with a complete team. You put Brodie from Drake on our team and all the sudden every single one of our freshman and sophomores look better as some of the pressure is taken off them and they get more open looks as Brodie stretches the defense and pulls the occasional double team.
Also, somebody help me out here. After this season the average age of the college athlete should drop, right? Or is next year the last year for COVID extra eligibility? It is a tough time to be a freshman right now. This team would be doing better 5 years ago when they were not encountering as many 5th or 6th year seniors. Just a thought.
Also, somebody help me out here. After this season the average age of the college athlete should drop, right? Or is next year the last year for COVID extra eligibility? It is a tough time to be a freshman right now. This team would be doing better 5 years ago when they were not encountering as many 5th or 6th year seniors. Just a thought.
Next season is the last. We have two that are eligible, Connor and Palm.
Quote from: VUBBFan on December 21, 2023, 11:02:42 AM
Also, somebody help me out here. After this season the average age of the college athlete should drop, right? Or is next year the last year for COVID extra eligibility? It is a tough time to be a freshman right now. This team would be doing better 5 years ago when they were not encountering as many 5th or 6th year seniors. Just a thought.
Next season is the last. We have two that are eligible, Connor and Palm.
The NCAA's decision to award an extra year to players before even knowing how COVID was going to impact the 2020-21 season was ridiculous. Connor and Palm have been on scholarship for 4 seasons and have had an opportunity to play for 4 seasons. Valpo doesn't OWE them a 5th year. If they want to continue playing, put your name in the transfer portal. Truthfully, I highly doubt anyone in the country will bite, which means it's time to get on with your life, like everyone else in the world. Roger didn't recruit these guys; he inherited them. Look how Rick Pitino cleaned house at St. John, or Prime at Colorado. If they weren't worried about blowback, why should Valpo? Speaking of which, our image couldn't possibly get worse than it is now. Roger has been handcuffed enough by the complete mess he inherited without making it worse than it already is.
Universities are under no obligation to provide a roster spot or scholarships for athletes who gained a year of eligibility because of COVID. Thus, those decisions should be based solely on merit and fit.
Quote from: wh on December 21, 2023, 12:36:10 PMIf they want to continue playing, put your name in the transfer portal. Truthfully, I highly doubt anyone in the country will bite,
If Conner gets healthy and back in shape he might draw a bit of interest. Never say never but it is harder for me to imagine Palm continuing in D-1 basketball.
If Trey Woodyard can succeed at the D1 level with New Hampshire, Connor would be available to find a similar level home.
Great find TX. Started 15 games last season and has started all games this season. Leads team in a couple of categories. UNH just beat URI. They are decent. Glad he found the right home.