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I also thought it was amazing, given the relative proximity, that although Valpo and IU met on a neutral court in 2000, Valpo hasn't played in Bloomington since 1956. Also IU is the only one of the other 9 D1 schools in Indiana to have never played at Valpo - although Notre Dame hasn't since 1991, and likely never will again.

I should have added in my original post, that it did not apply to Purdue, who we have played 7 times since the year 2000. Including twice in Valpo.

I just checked some old schedules and even being familiar with the situation I was surprised to the extent Valpo has been frozen out by the big Indiana programs. This is not relative toward their play with each other, but rather relative to their scheduling of the other in-state mid-majors.

Butler has played 9 games against the other Indiana mid-majors (Ball State twice, Indiana State three times, IUPUI twice and Evansville twice) since they last played Valpo on March 3, 2012. Butler even played 4 of those 9 on the road - twice at Indiana State and once each at Ball State and Evansville.

Notre Dame has played 10 games against the other Indiana mid-majors (Ball State once, Indiana State twice, IUPUI once, Evansville once and IPFW five times) since they last played Valpo on January 4, 2003. Although UND did not play any of these on the road.

Finally, Indiana has played 17 games against the other Indiana mid-majors (Ball State six times, Indiana State three times, IUPUI twice, Evansville three times and IPFW three times) since they last played Valpo on December 29, 2000. IU even played 5 of those 17 on the road - twice at Ball State and once each at Indiana State, Evansville and IPFW.

Loyola's run has been awesome to watch and is great for the MVC and great for Valpo. They are a very good team (currently 30th in the KenPom ratings). It doesn't take anything away from them to recognize the reality that they have had an unusually easy path to the Final Four, based on the outcomes of other games in their region. Five other mid-majors have recently made a Final Four (George Mason - 2006, Butler - 2010, Butler - 2011, VCU - 2011 and Wichita State - 2013). All five of those teams had to play and beat the number 1 seed in their region in order to reach the Final 4. Three of those five had to beat the number 1 and number 2 seeds. Loyola didn't have to play either.

Here's another way to put that in perspective, the 2016 Valpo team had to beat a higher ranked KenPom team (#34 St. Mary's) in order to reach the NIT SEMIS, than Loyola had to (#40 Kansas State) in order to reach the FINAL FOUR! That is astounding. For reference, here are the KenPom ranks of the 5 teams that the other mid-major Final Four participants beat in their Elite 8 match ups: 4, 6, 17, 3 and 7.

It's impossible to say what the 2016 Valpo team would have done with a chance to play in the NCAAs. But it's easy to see that a slate of match ups like the ones Loyola had this year would make a Final Four run a lot more likely for anyone. As IrishDawg pointed out, unless you are a blue-blood with overwhelming talent, a considerable amount of luck, both in how your own games play out and in the match ups you get, will be needed to reach a Final Four.

Regardless, congratulations to Loyola. They seized the opportunity put in front of them, and that is all anyone can do. Here's hoping for two more wins this weekend!

Gets to go back home and maybe take over if the current coach doesn't work out.   Probably a dream situation for him.

I don't think he would get to take over if the current coach doesn't work out. Schools usually don't hire assistants off of staffs that haven't had success. For the heir apparent position to be appealing you need to believe that the current head coach you will be working for will be both successful and interested in moving on when success comes.

Yes, I noticed that too. It seems like it only rates each city relative to the team(s) specifically in that city. So it's only rating Kansas City on how strong its fandom for UMKC is and ignoring all the KU and Mizzou fans there.

I saw this referenced on TV during the NCAA tournament and checked it out. A website ranked every city in the country with one or more Division 1 basketball programs for "Best Cities for College Basketball Fans." They also include a detailed description of their methodology for the rankings (it's included in the link below).

Valpo comes in 80th out of 289 cities - and the best among the 10 MVC cities.

Valparaiso, IN - 80th
Cedar Falls, IA - 97th
Normal, IL - 102nd
Chicago, IL - 111th
Terre Haute, IN - 155th
Evansville, IN - 159th
Carbondale, IL - 176th
Springfield, MO - 211th
Peoria, IL - 255th
Des Moines, IA - 265th

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-cities-for-college-basketball/32944/

You're welcome Valpo89. If you want to know more you should ask ml next time you see him. They exchanged calls/emails a few times I think. Not sure if they ever met in person. setshot was an alum - class of '57 - and obviously cared a great deal about the University and the basketball program.

Sadly, setshot is no longer with us. He passed away in September of 2015.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/islandpacket/obituary-preview.aspx?n=bruce-calvin-claxton&pid=175984457&referrer=2377

Unfortunately, the full obituary is only available for a fee now.

Sometimes it really is hard to believe that this was 20 years ago, and then you find out that Ansu Sesay's son is playing JUCO ball...

http://www.wcathletics.com/basketball/coyote-basketball/roster

I don't think anyone would have predicted this going into the season but all ten MVC teams currently have better KenPom ratings than Oakland (the MVC's worst, Illinois State, is immediately ahead of them at 161). The Golden Grizzlies (162) are third in the HL after NKU (91) and Wright State (138).

He's just a troll looking for clicks. Best to ignore him.

Our first 6 non-conference D1 opponents have an average KenPom rank of 239. Our next 5 non-conference D1 opponents have an average KenPom rank of 162. The nine other MVC schools have an average KenPom rank of 126.

Given that we had a young team with a lot of new players, that seems like a pretty reasonable progression to me.

PS - Always nice to talk Valpo hoops with you mj!

Andy Kennedy's base salary is 1.9 million dollars a year, times three years left on his salary means that Ole Miss will be paying about 5.7 million dollars to fire their all time winningest coach. Given that, they certainly won't bat an eye when their next coach asks for 80k-100k to buy out each of their games at Bradley and Illinois State. Too bad, those would have been great home games for the conference next year.

Trine's investments in facilities are clearly tied to an enrollment strategy that is possible for them as a D3 but not for Valpo as a D1.

As a D3 Trine has limited travel costs and zero athletic scholarship costs. They finance the facilities with debt to attract aspiring student-athletes to bolster their enrollment. This is why they sponsor so many sports (21 NCAA sanctioned teams, plus two club hockey teams, men's bowling, synchronized skating and e-sports). And have such large rosters (26 listed for men's basketball). Trine's total NCAA expenses are just over 3 million dollars for 684 athletes (compared to 14 million for Valpo with more than 100 fewer athletes). At the average cost to attend Trine that another poster found, they can finance their entire athletic department with the tuition from around 125 student-athletes (Valpo would need closer to 640). Every student-athlete they can attract above that is helping the school's bottom line, including servicing the debt on their nice new facilities that helped attract the students in the first place.

It's an interesting and apparently successful model (although their officially listed undergrad enrollment is just 1,700 or about half of Valpo's). But it is not really replicable at the D1 level because of the significantly higher costs to field teams via athletic scholarships, increased travel, increased coaching costs. etc

Sorry for the long post - but the short version is that the line from new athletic facilities to new revenue is much more direct for a school like Trine than it is for Valpo.

I think the number is 20% of games. However, that only applies to a medical hardship redshirt due to injury. If the redshirt is purely elective than even 1 minute in one game is enough to burn the red shirt. Unless Parker Hazen has an injury we don't know about, he can not redshirt this season.

On the other side.  We went 9-7 in the Horizon league Alec Peter's freshman year.  Imagine we would have been in the MVC that year....  How many conference games would we have won?   3 games? maybe 4?  maybe 5?   So,  perhaps it is a little early to be super hard on Lottich as Bryce would have likely struggled just as much as Lottich is currently struggling.   

Obviously you can't infer too much from one game, but it does add a little context to note that the 13-14 team lost on the road at Evansville. That Evansville team finished in 9th place in the MVC with a record of 6-12. The only team to finish behind Evansville was (current conference leader) Loyola at 4-14. It was the Ramblers first year in the MVC after moving from the Horizon.

Absolutely that. The exit of the Star Plaza leaves a gaping hole in the market for a mid-sized concert and event venue in NWI. There's a big piece of currently-vacant property adjacent to downtown Valpo where some creative minds could make a solution work for both the city/county and the university.

The Star Plaza was located at one of the highest trafficked intersections in NWI (65 and 30) and presumably was not profitable (or else it's owners would have kept it open). I'm not sure why this experience would suggest that a facility located in Valpo would be such a money maker. In addition, there is a 2k-3k sized concert venue at the casino in Hammond, which I would guess can operate at a loss in order to draw people into the casino where the real profits are made. That would be extremely tough competition for any new venue in the area, and may have been part of the reason for the end of the Star Plaza.

a3uge is right. As far as the other Valley school's RPIs are concerned all that really matters is what we did in the non-conference. It's hard to believe now but we actually had the second BEST RPI in the league based just on non-conference results. You can see the numbers here on ESPN's RPI ranking under the column NCRP.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/rpi/_/groupId/18

[This is the worst team in well over 25 years that Valpo has put on the court.]

This is the worst team in well over 25 years that Valpo has put on the court. And there have always been rebuilding years. None as bad as this team.

Sure and a team that beat the snot out of first place Drake.  Let's see, 25 years...that takes us back to 92-93 when we finished 12-16  or perhaps you forgot about the 08-09 team that went 9-22.  We are struggling, that is for sure but we still have a winning record for Pete's sake.

I may have missed the 08-09 season but it remains to be seen whether we will have a winning record. I doubt it. Lost what? 10 out of last 13 games? Must be just a slump.

Even if you ignore the 2008-09 season, this year's numbers don't seem that different from our other down/rebuilding years since the start of our run of generally very good seasons in 1993-94.

2013-14
KenPom Rank: 163
Overall Record: 18-16
Conf Record (HL): 9-7

2009-10
KenPom Rank: 183
Overall Record: 15-17
Conf Record (HL): 10-6

2006-07
KenPom Rank: 148
Overall Record: 16-15
Conf Record (Mid-Con): 9-5

2005-06
KenPom Rank: 175
Overall Record: 17-12
Conf Record (Mid-Con): 8-8

2004-05
KenPom Rank: 196
Overall Record: 15-16
Conf Record (Mid-Con): 10-6

2017-18 (in Progress)
KenPom Rank: 160
Overall Record: 11-10
Conf Record (MVC): 2-6

South Bend Washington's first year coach is a Valpo alum.

http://www.sbpanthersbasketball.com/ClubStaff.aspx?clubId=54938&seasonId=49251&

For me the single best atmosphere (regardless of the game result) was the 2008 Butler game. It was the Bulldogs first visit to the ARC after we joined the HL. The game was on ESPN2, which hadn't happened for awhile at home and Butler was ranked. The building was completely packed - but what sets this game above the others mentioned was the number and involvement level of the students. They filled up the whole student section, plus section E and most of EE. In addition the students in E and EE actually stood and cheered the whole game as well. I think this game would have to set the record for decibel level in the ARC, and I was at the game M referenced in January of 2011, which was also packed, but not with as many students.

You can get a bit of an idea for the atmosphere from this old grainy highlight video. Pay attention to the crowd in the background and you can see the students standing all the way up into EE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lj8E6P5gjI

(Also visible in the background during the reporters' on camera time - my old intramural team in the process of being destroyed by Lambda Chi Alpha).

Just went back and looked - over the last three seasons Purdue is a combined 24-3 at home against other Big Ten teams. It is a tall order for anyone to go into that arena and get a W.

VULB#62, maybe this article will better answer your question about what makes a D1 school. http://www.ncaa.org/about/who-we-are/membership/divisional-differences-and-history-multidivision-classification
Looks like I was wrong and there is some minimum overall scholarship requirement, although the exact number is not specified. Also, it is not mentioned in the article, but I think the process for new members includes some stricter requirements than for existing schools.

D1 schools are required to field a minimum of 14 different teams. There are no scholarship minimums only maximums, this is why Valpo can offer no football scholarships but still be in D1. Maximum scholarship allotment is per sport, there is no requirement Department wide for total scholarships.
Outside of MBB and WBB and WVB it is pretty common for mid major schools to offer less than the D1 maximum for scholarships in some or all of their sports. FBS football membership does have some additional requirements above and beyond FCS or non-football D1 membership.