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Nobody deserves to be verbally abused like Hinson reportedly was after the game yesterday, so let's get that out of the way first. Hopefully the culprits are on video somewhere and can be appropriately held up for shame.

As for an objective look at Hinson's record, the guy is merely an okay coach his entire career who has kept getting gigs because he talks a much better game than he coaches -- particularly the "molder of men" and "I'll teach these spoiled kids a thing or two" type of stuff that administrators and older, well-heeled alums eat up like a buffet. His teams were rarely good enough to win anything, but were never bad enough to fire him over. To be fair, at the P5 level, that probably gets you a handful of NCAA appearances and who knows what happens after that. But at the midmajor level, that gets you a program in purgatory. That's about as much as you can say about it.

Looking at the boxscore and trying to figure out how Loyola lost this game. They actually won most of the statistical categories, and committed 6 fewer turnovers than Bradley. Both teams missed 2 FTs and there were only 11 FTs combined in the entire game. Sounds like the refs allowed a wrestling match and there had to be a lot of coin-flip plays that went Bradley's way today.

The fact of the matter is that Lottich has turned in the only two back-to-back losing seasons that featured losing conference records since the 92-93 season. That's a quarter-century of success thrown away. After inheriting a completely loaded roster in season one. Anyone not at least asking the question as to whether we should make a change is someone who cares more about optics than results, or is too chummy with the people involved to view the program objectively (and this includes our local media complex, which has always had far too much deference to VU officials and coaches and have historically seemed to want to preserve access rather than asking tough or even pointed questions about accountability for the state of the program).

Our administration isn't serious enough about winning or investing in this program to cut their losses when they should, so I know we're going to battle with the same coaching staff next year. But if there's not a "win or else" ultimatum going into next season, we should just drop out of the Valley and go back to AMCU days. Because that's what we're on the verge of if this ship doesn't get righted in a hurry.

The goal right now should be to pull out all stops to keep Smits on board for next year. He's grad-transfer eligible and you know he has plenty of schools sniffing around him now that the season is over. Hopefully those P5 schools be a bit more classy and tactful about it than they were with Alec.

(That said, I have heard the fact that said P5 schools basically treated Alec like a piece of meat who'd automatically bail on his teammates because of the brand name on their jerseys was one of the things that helped to keep him at Valpo. So maybe we're rooting for P5 fans and coaches to be as crass and arrogant about this as they've always been).

Smits improved significantly this season and there's no reason to think he won't be a dominant Valley player next year. ML would be wise to put a full-court press on to keep him around.

Renovations of the ARC (or a new facility altogether) will go nowhere as long as VU does what it's done for the past 13 years on the issue -- discuss it in the abstract and then punt it because "hey when the ARC is full it's a tough place for opponents" and "we haven't had any donors come forward yet."

Put together a plan for a campaign - broad parameters are all that's necessary here, just say "we're doing this but how soon will depend on the support it gets". Then commission a couple artist renderings and put those front and center. Yeah, then your development staff needs to do their job, but typically, you'll know it pretty short order the level of enthusiasm out there for the project, and then you can get more granular in terms of timeline, specifics, etc.

Robbie's column was good, but there's another element here -- don't redshirt guys who are otherwise healthy or eligible. Playing an untested freshman is better than playing nobody, or having to go with seven or eight guys night after night through the grind of a conference season.

Ball State has seen their season unravel similarly this year due to injuries during conference play, and there's been a lot of criticism of their coaching staff on social media for choosing to redshirt their two incoming freshmen this year even as the roster grew perilously thin (one of the players being redshirted was an Indiana All-Star last year and almost certainly could have contributed enough to flip a few of their close losses this season).

Success is what it has always looked like in this program -- an NCAA tourney berth. Anything short of that is not successful.

You can say it -- they've given up.

Sorry, if Valpo can't win Arch Madness, then we should be rooting for Loyola to win it. Why? Because they'll get a seed line bump or two because of returning from the Final Four last year. Which gives them a better chance to win a first round game and bring more tourney units to the conference.

Which will make it more likely for ESPN to pick up more Valley games nationally next year.

It wasn't just Alec, it was Alec, and Jubril at least as well as potential recruits. I'd have to revisit those boards when this was happening but I think a lot of people were okay with a hire that kept those guys at the time.

The fear was that we could lose the most talented player and a solid senior right after a big run and there was little hope that any new coach could even begin to pick up the recruiting pieces.

I agree. This looks like a dumb short-term decision in retrospect, but if Jubril and Alec finish the 2017 season even at 75 percent strength, we win the HL going away and probably go back to the NCAA tourney and no one's questioning that call in any way. You had a loaded team expected to return and that's one of the benefits of hiring internally (and something several top midmajor programs have used to sustain success). When you lose a coach because he got hired away, you keep your players around so that you can continue the momentum and you aren't starting from square one with the new guy every time.

Let's be clear -- hiring outside the system at that point was looking at an expected returning roster of Alec Peters, Jubril, Keith Carter, Skara, Tevonn, etc. coming off a deep postseason run (and a season where they were a Top 35 program in the entire NATION), and then saying "whatevs, if you go, you go." NOBODY in college basketball makes a call like that willingly. If none of Bryce's staff had been willing to stick around, it's a different conversation. But even looking at the lack of results, I choose to try to keep that team together for another season every day and twice on Sunday.

Having said that, the bad luck that kept that plan from working out early in ML's tenure shouldn't be used as a crutch to justify keeping him around if he's proving to be unable to put a consistently successful team on the floor or make in-game adjustments, etc. (And hoo boy, we better dress every player on scholarship next year. You want to not have a couple of injuries derail your season? Make sure you have more than 9 guys available in the first place).

That was a really great podcast. PantherU pretty much nailed the history of the HL and LeCrone's failures, and pretty accurately distilled the NKU AD's letter detailing their frustrations about the bait-and-switch of moving the tourney to IUPUI as being the official marker of NKU starting their search for a new conference home.

Home attendance in conference play thus far with 1 home game left.
3,818 Ill.St.
2,535 Bradley
3,160 UNI
4,160 Drake
1,333 MoSt. (Very cold outside)
5,148 Loyola
3,014 Indiana St.
2,371 in attendance this evening SIU
Evansville??? guess it depends on how we play the next 2 on the road.

Unless you throw out the MoState game attendance due to the extreme weather, an attendance average for this year's conference home games will be less than meaningless. That's what, the smallest attendance since the early 90s, save for another blizzard game in the 2000s?

How in the hell do these guys get a college scholarship without being able to shoot FTs? (Not just us, SIU too). It's a very basic (and simple, yes -- simple) skill, and coaches are dumb for not insisting on it.

Yes, yes, I realize some of them were contested and a couple of Smits' little shots in the paint fall under this, but the official scorer has Valpo down for seven (7!) missed layups in the first half. Yikes. Go to the damn rim already. 

Nothing wrong with Indy. It's pleasant enough as middle-tier cities go. But a commissioner screwing over 9 other institutions that pay his salary to keep himself comfy and unfairly advantage the local institution (not for the first time)? Well, that's a bold strategy, Cotton.

I've harped on this, but again, why our coaching staff doesn't look across town to VHS and implement the Virgil Sweet FT method is beyond maddening. Watching Smits and Sackey clang FT after FT last night was ridiculous. And easily diagnosed. On their misses last night, both of them were just flinging the ball at the hoop quickly without in any focus or aim. The "Valpo free throw" teaches you to pause, set, and not have any wasted motion as you repeat your mechanics and body positioning on every FT, regardless of situation. Our guys are not setting themselves and try to shoot a FT in a fluid motion while picking up the dribble. That will ALWAYS result in inconsistent FT shooting.

Why would Smits leave?  He has a lot of friends on campus and he has a chance to make 1st team all MVC next year.  He won't have to compete for playing time.  I just don't see the positives of transferring

All bets are off if he's eligible for a grad transfer, though. P5 teams will be circling him like vultures like they were with Alec.

How did KEY get 17 ft attempts?  I could only watch the game cast on the ESPN app...

We let him drive the lane at will because our defensive fundamentals are terrible and taking a charge is apparently not taught.

Lottich should consider himself fortunate. This would be a "fire everyone" loss at any school that's serious about basketball.

Silly fouls 35 feet from the basket. Nobody stepping up to take a charge on critical possessions. Poor FT shooting. A completely scattered final possession in regulation. Turnovers everywhere. This is all coaching. All of it.

Welp. That's that. It's time to admit the staff cannot get the job done. This is a game you cannot lose and we blew it.

8 missed FTs now. In one half. On our home floor. Will someone on the coaching staff address this already?

6 missed FTs in the second half alone. Argh.

Smits has his arm hooked on the entry pass, no call, then they call Smits for the loose ball foul. Ridiculous.

Jeez. Get a 5 point lead and the ball, give it back immediately because we can't execute a simple entry pass and Mileek decides to throw a difficult skip pass instead of taking an open shot. Those sort of sequences need to stop.