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Four schools were competing for the national championship at the ARC yesterday.
Valpo, Notre Dame, Purdue Polytechnic, and Ohio Northern University.
Unfortunately, we came a bit short of winning the title. We beat Ohio Northern in the first round and lost to ND in the finals.

I watch a fair share of MAC games. Michael Weathers is a stud. He was only a freshman on a terrible terrible team. It is not surprising that he has that many TOs.
He is not a great 3 point shooter but he can get to the basket at will.

It is very interesting how this thread quickly evolved into a religious history discussion. I personally, do not feel that this is the right platform for such deep topic, so I will pass.
However, I want to point out that Muslims are only a very small minority of the people who find the crusader mascot to be inappropriate. The event on campus was NOT organized by Muslims and only one of the several speakers in it was a Muslim. The admission recruiters who reported issues were recruiting not only in the middle east, but also in the midwest, China, India, etc...
What I am trying to say is: this is not a Christian vs Muslim issue.

The Mascot is only a Mascot, it is supposed to help your brand, not the other way around. If you are losing "business" because of your Mascot, something is going wrong.

If you own a restaurant and you know that some customers like your food but will not eat there because of an art painting on the wall in your restaurant. Wouldn't you remove it? Even if that painting has a historical significance to you, would you be so stubborn to lose the business for a painting?

I find it interesting that the ones who propose that others should not be easily offended are the ones who are themselves offended that this conversation simply took place! Feel free to vote whichever way you want and let others do the same.

Feel free to believe that crusaders have nothing to do with wars, but that does not mean that others must feel the same way. In fact, you should consider that the catholic church (the entity who actually started the crusades) have issued an apology for the crusades and said that it was a dark stage of its history. Being more royal than the king? 

On another note, we have not been the crusaders for our whole existence, we were the Uhlans. Only during WWII, in a frantic move, we became the crusaders simply for the sake of distancing ourselves from the german fighters.

The conversation on campus was initiated by admission people and international recruiters. Admission staff members have reported that in admission fairs, some prospective students are skipping over their booths and making comments that they don't want to be crusaders. International recruiters have explicitly asked for brochures and pamphlets that do NOT have any crusader references. Do you not think that these reports should trigger this conversation?

After all, the University is a business with a brand and a budget. Mascots are used to improve the brand and help with a balanced budget. Shouldn't we check our ego  for the sake of maintaining a balanced budget in these challenging times? Keep in mind that getting 20 more students/year is equivalent to around $1M/year in revenues.

I was originally thinking that a move to the MVC is certainly a move up. I was also thinking that the travel will get much worse.
When I crunched the numbers, I found out that if Valpo replaces Wichita St., none of these two arguments is true.
Look at the map below. Horizon teams are marked with Blue pins while MVC teams are marked with Red pins. If Wichita is out of the picture, the distances look to be almost the same.
Similarly, looking at the RPI numbers, the average RPI for the horizon is 184.8 compared to the MVC's 171.8. But if Valpo replaces WSU, that RPI becomes 175.7.
Is it really a step up if the average RPI improves by 9 points?

I found this story from a couple of weeks ago:
https://www.vcuramnation.com/2017/03/vcu-wichita-state-dayton-join-uconn-memphis-others-aac/

If Wichita State truly leaves for the AAC, would we be invited to join the MVC? and if we are invited, is a Wichita-less MVC attractive?

I got seats in section 134 with a buddy of mine...anyone have seats close??

I am in section 134, row 3.

Unfortunately, the ambiance at the Joe was not that great last year and I am not sure if it will be better this year.
However, I do understand why the conference made the move. I cannot blame the commissioner for being ambitious and aspiring that his conference championship game should be watched by more than 5000 fans in the arena. Therefore, even though I am in the minority here, I am glad that the HL tournament is no longer played on campus sites.

No one is asking for forgiveness. We are simply asking for a reasonable penalty. 2 games suspension, 5...how about 10?
The whole year? seriously?!!!!
NCAA 

Seeing how we graduate 3 guards next year (Tevonn, Max, and Lexus), and seeing how our incoming class already includes 2 big guys (Mileek and Hazen), I understand if our coaches feel that they need to focus on smaller, faster, ball handling guys with the remianing scholarships.

I do not have any information, just speculations.

A lot of the endowments talked about in the recent campaign are commitments rather than instantaneous gifts. My understanding is that some (most?) of the donors commit an amount of $$$ in their will to Valpo's endowment. That money, however, is only transferred after they are gone.

So three years ago, at this time of the year, we had 4 open scholarships and we heard about two Canadian guards (T. Walker and Max Joseph) that were verbally committed to Valpo.
Only in May did we find out that a Croatian wing was also coming. Around a month later, D. Walker was added as a JUCO transfer.
I think that we may end up with a similar situation with an international recruit and a transfer.

How is it possible that the two 7 footers we have combine for a total of 1 rebound the whole game?
Rebounding doesn't take speed, athleticism, or experience... it is just effort and willingness to box out and fight. Ask T. Walker, he is 6-2 and had 7.

Let's keep our eyes on the prize!
The goal is to win games, NOT to have a high shooting percentage.
Just keep winning baby! 

Episode 3?

Thank you guys for the help. Sound cloud worked great!

I have an android phone. Is there an easy way to get the podcast?
Searching for union street hoops on nwi.com doesn't return any results.

Welcome back Valpo Dad!
I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's foot. Here is for a quick and painless recovery.

It is almost done and will be ready for Fall move in.
Here is a picture of one section that was recently tweeted last week by Valpo Greek life account.

I cannot believe I forgot about Shane. Thanks for keeping me honest VU72.
Now I have more reasons to believe that we will be fine this coming year and that the year after that will be Coach Lottich's big test.
I really hope we can get a decent transfer or a JUCO this summer.

I think that we will be ok this year. With Alec, Jubril, and Tevonn, we have a great nucleus that will get us to compete this year and maybe win the league (considering how weak the league is going to be).
Once Jubril and Alec graduate, I am afraid that Tevonn will be the only starting quality upperclassman. It may be too early to worry about that, but that's my thought.

Why are we still in this thread? Last time I checked, Neither Maravilla nor Skara were associated with Valpo basketball.

I was at commencement today and I was surprised to see Jubril Adekoya getting his bachelor degree  .
I am glad no one is talking about him transferring out.

Jake Hutson was on the team but he graduated in December.
This last team included the following engineering students:
John Guilford, Alex Kozlowski, Aaron Brunner, and Branden Slattery.

If Tonagel was really interested in being a D1 coach, he should have accepted Lottich's invitation to join the staff.
If he can really recruit and things go well, Lottich will move up in a few years and Tonagel will be HC. Otherwise, people will always wonder if he can recruit D1.