Game #8 - #21/#25 Rhode Island Tuesday Nov 29 7pm in the ARC

[talksalot]

November 29, 2016
Valparaiso, Ind. (ARC)
Attendance: 4149

here's the full box

http://www.valpoathletics.com/mbasketball/boxscore/2016-17/5930/2125-rhode-island-vs-valpo-11-29-2016/

[agibson]

November 29, 2016
Valparaiso, Ind. (ARC)
Attendance: 4149

Interesting. I'd have believed you if you told me 3,000. I'm not sure the crowd was bigger than Southern Utah and the banner raising. But a _lot_ louder!

[agibson]

here's the full box

http://www.valpoathletics.com/mbasketball/boxscore/2016-17/5930/2125-rhode-island-vs-valpo-11-29-2016/

Also interesting that we attempted only 10 threes. Fewest in almost two years.

http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/boxscores/2015-02-13-valparaiso.html

[talksalot]

And you have to count the dozen+ NBA scouts; Jerry Palm from CBSSports and Adam Amin from ESPN in the house... AND a Kenny Harris sighting!

[hailcrusaders]

I love it when a guy watches 1 game and becomes a match-up expert: From the URI board: Forget last year. Two different teams. I watched their game against Ball St today. They came back to get the win but trust me, this Valpo team can not hang with us. Peters may get his but we will shut everyone else down. We will have a huge advantage at the guard positions and I think we will be just fine around the basket as well. Haas will do his best to contain Peters. They have very little depth. Our style of defense is going to wear them down. This game isn't a toss-up. We will win handily. Please note we will have to deal with a couple of real Valpo homers on the ESPN3 broadcast. Will be nice to shut them up with a resounding victory. Can you tell I'm confident in this one?

Anybody noting what this idiot has to say now?

Scoured their board and no word from him. Good call on his part though.

[talksalot]

Warren Nolan RPI updated...

Valpo jumps up all the way to #54
URI falls to #60

Conference RPI jumps to #16

Valpo in an 8-way tie for the second best record in D1.  There are 19 undefeateds left...and 8 of us are 6-1 (D1 only)

[govalpogo]

I had to laugh when Shane missed on the home run and we sent them to the line with a chance to tie...after giving up 4 points in about 2 seconds.  Felt the old curse creeping up! 

Great win. Great game.  Nice to savor it for a week as well before Kentucky. 

[agibson]

I had to laugh when Shane missed on the home run and we sent them to the line with a chance to tie...after giving up 4 points in about 2 seconds.  Felt the old curse creeping up!

It was more like 70 seconds. But, yeah, it was quick. And Shane had just traveled in the back court for a turnover, besides. 7 turnovers. Oof. Definitely good for him that we won!

To be fair, Rhode Island sniffed the home run ball coming. The pass reception was pretty well guarded - Shane did well to control it.

And Todd was quick to compliment his defense, all game long, in the post-game.

[agibson]

And you have to count the dozen+ NBA scouts; Jerry Palm from CBSSports and Adam Amin from ESPN in the house... AND a Kenny Harris sighting!

Count them at a hundred a piece, maybe.

But, yes, the "behind the camera" extended press row was nicely full!

[hailcrusaders]

I had to laugh when Shane missed on the home run and we sent them to the line with a chance to tie...after giving up 4 points in about 2 seconds.  Felt the old curse creeping up! Great win. Great game.  Nice to savor it for a week as well before Kentucky.

Todd mentioned this on the broadcast but Shane should have just dribbled to open court or found an open teammate once he lost position. Situational awareness goes a long way when you're gutting out a close one.

[govalpogo]

Felt a lot quicker than 70...There was that bad pass from Peters right after a layup that turned into 2 more (tip in off a missed three try I believe).  Pbp says 64-58 with :27 left,  64-62 with :21.  Eek.  So glad it all worked out in Valpo's favor!

I had to laugh when Shane missed on the home run and we sent them to the line with a chance to tie...after giving up 4 points in about 2 seconds.  Felt the old curse creeping up!

It was more like 70 seconds. But, yeah, it was quick. And Shane had just traveled in the back court for a turnover, besides. 7 turnovers. Oof. Definitely good for him that we won!

To be fair, Rhode Island sniffed the home run ball coming. The pass reception was pretty well guarded - Shane did well to control it.

And Todd was quick to complement his defense, all game long, in the post-game.

[agibson]

Felt a lot quicker than 70...There was that bad pass from Peters right after a layup that turned into 2 more (tip in off a missed three try I believe).  Pbp says 64-58 with :27 left,  64-62 with :21.  Eek.  So glad it all worked out in Valpo's favor!

Yep, my bad. Reflecting, during the game, on how quickly the lead dwindled I'd checked a time stamp on Twitter. But clearly got it wrong! Maybe emotionally I was connecting with the 6 point lead at 1m44 rather than the 6 point at 35s.

Scary stuff indeed. I didn't lose my moderate-late-game confidence. But, it was definitely shaken.

[a3uge]

Yeah that ending was terrifying. But kudos to Lottich for coaching up the guys on that last play. What a win for the program. In his first 8 games, Lottich has wins over Avery Johnson, Dam Hurley, and Dave Rose.

[agibson]

Scary stuff indeed. I didn't lose my moderate-late-game confidence. But, it was definitely shaken.

I should not forget the egg they laid, however. Hassan Martin, one of their studs, missing the front-end of the one-and-one with 17 s to go...

[M]

I showed up at half time with about 4 others...so add five to that total!

What a fun night in the ARC. Had Shane played average this wouldn't have been close. Time to go get Big Blue Nation!

[bbtds]

Notre Dame 1988 can now officially fade into history.

Except that it is part of the intro video before the Valpo players are announced.

[agibson]

Valpo up after the break, right now, on ESPN2 CBB show.

[vufan75]

Rhody Nation message board in disbelief it seems. Few props for Valpo and "the sky is falling" mentality for the beloved Rams. Only player we have is AP. They are so much better everywhere else. Last year losing Matthew's was the excuse for the loss to Valpo. This year it is their Coach Hurley's fault and only 3 guys came ready to play. After back to back losses to Valpo in last 2 seasons, one would think we might have earned a little respect from their fans. Guess not.

Have a drink and calm down Rhody fans. You will win a lot of games this season. It is early and this WAS your teams first real road game. Hope the series continues. Great for both schools.

[agibson]

I had completely forgotten that the last time I saw Rhode Island play in person was in 1998. In St. Louis. Not long after our last won over a ranked opponent. Appropriate.

And our third ranked win *ever*. Man.

Quite a start for Coach Lottich and his signature defense.

[agibson]

Have a drink and calm down.

Was Dragon's Milk bourbon barrel aged stout for me. And I've got an 8 AM class!

[valpotx]

Awesome to hear that Kenny Harris was in the building.  That kid worked extremely hard to lose weight once he joined our program.  He would run with us at our 5 am workouts, and would be working with Bob Brooks on strength and conditioning drills.  That kid could have been something special for our basketball program, if he didn't have that health incident.  Extremely nice guy, too.

Great win, and it is good that we still get wins when we don't play our best.  I kept refreshing the Rhode Island board throughout the game, as I could tell that we were going to win with them not hitting their 3s, and I wanted to bathe in their tears lol.  You would think that Rhode Island was Duke with how much they thought they would whoop us.  When they lose, instead of it being the fact that we are a better team again this year (as well as the 3 prior times we have played them, now sitting at 4-1), it is because of refs, and we just got lucky.  I have news for the Rams fans that may be lurking, but you were never going to come into the ARC and beat us by double-digits.  Absolutely 0% chance of that happening.  Also, we have 3 or 4 guys that are better than their RI counterparts, not just 1.  You basically had 1 guy that showed any type of ability, since there is obviously something wrong with Matthews.  Hope you enjoyed the loss, and go win some games so that it looks better on our resume .

[wh]

https://www.twitter.com/AliBerdiel/status/803791340110745600

[a3uge]

This is actually a pretty tough spot for Rhode Island. It's their first road game of the year, and Valpo will be highly motivated to beat their first ranked team since the 90s (although Valpo has beat teams that were eventually ranked). There's much more to lose for URI, as this would move them out of the top 25 and damage their at-large resume (but hopefully not much at all [emoji4] ). I would assume Vegas is going to have URI favored by 4 or 5, but that's going to be a tough one to figure. On paper, URI has more talent, but this is basketball where home teams like IPFW can beat IU. It's just asinine to make declarations like "this one won't be close." Okay dude.


Also, the hot take that the game will hinge on guard play is fairly suspect, especially after EC Matthews just went 1-6 against Belmont (not exactly known for their defense). They still won easily. URI's clear advantage is Hassan Martin and without Vashil (who had an awesome game last year), Valpo will need to have Jubril play much better on defense than he's played all year.

Bam! I thought this was right on - Hassan had 16, but Jubril played his best defensive game of the year to limit him. Terrell played a great game, but EC Matthews struggled again. The game was won in the trenches, not with decent guard play.

[vu84v2]

So I was not the only one that enjoyed reading the Rhode Island message board? I agree that they just need to relax and recognize that they have a really good team that had a tough night playing their first road game in a challenging place to play. I would not be surprised to see Rhode Island string 10-12 wins in a row fairly soon. Lots of talent.

The one point that the Rhode Island posters made that does seem valid is that Rhode Island didn't adjust their defense to reduce Peters as an offensive threat. Alec has been quite effective this year against the double team, but there were too many possessions where one guy was struggling to defend Alec. Give Alec credit though...and that fadeaway 17 foot jumper for the last field goal was a big time shot.

[SanityLost17]

So I think we can add Rhode Island to the list of solid mid-majors that are never going to schedule us again. 

Butler - Beat them 4 games in a row.  (I guess they are high-major now, but I will include them)
Rhode Island -  Beat them 2 years in a row.
Murray State - Beat them 3 years in a row.
BYU - Beat them 2 years in a row. 

We are going to run out of people to schedule.  We split with Belmont last year, maybe they will go ahead and keep scheduling us.  We only beat Saint Mary's once.  Maybe they want to make it 2 in a row before they decide to never schedule us again.