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Many great articles out there today about Dean Smith's life and his impact on college basketball and beyond.  Here's one with a Valpo connection.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/dean-smith-remembered-for-his-influence-on-others-away-from-court-174225241.html

Nice article from Paul Oren regarding Valpo's basketball "rivals". http://www.nwitimes.com/blogs/sports/valparaiso-university/does-valparaiso-have-a-rival/article_3e4a9204-2496-11e3-8b43-001a4bcf887a.html  He seems to argue that now Valpo is atop the Horizon League, they have no rivals.  But as a frequent visitor of this board, I think that Oakland is the new rival.  Thoughts?

http://www.loyolaramblers.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/032213aab.html

Interesting news, as I thought Loyola was starting to turn the corner.  The release doesn't mention what Cully plans to do ... assuming he's graduating this spring, he could potentially play his fifth year somewhere else.

If he does, it would be similar to the situation with Julius Mays at WSU.  I don't like the rule, but it's even worse when a program takes a transfer, invests in their development, then sees them leave.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/blog/eye-on-college-basketball/21799711/with-bryce-drew-in-uniform-seriously-ole-miss-takes-a-ghastly-loss

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/8736253/bracketbusters-event-discontinued-2012-13-season

ESPN discontinuing the BracketBuster after this season.  I assume that Valpo will still be required to return this year's game within 2 years, as well as host LMU in the return game from last year.

Who knows what will happen with Horizon League expansion, but initially at least, this means another game or two for Horizon teams to schedule.

The HL preseason awards come out next week.  Paul Oren shares his thoughts and ballot here ... http://www.nwitimes.com/blogs/sports/valparaiso-university/

Lazerus weighs in with his opinions:

http://blogs.post-trib.com/lazerus/2011/10/my-horizon-league-preseason-ba.html

Things are so wide-open this year that it's hard to argue with any opinion.  He does shed some insight in stating that he votes based on what guys have accomplished, not what he expects them to accomplish.  If that's the case, then they should just take the votes from last year's post-season voting and remove the guys who aren't coming back.

I've got no idea what to expect from tomorrow's poll announcement.  As Mark (and Dayton's Kyle Nagel) have pointed out, it's difficult to know what to assume about guys who are/may be away from their team for an extended period of time.  Per their message board, Detroit had three scholarship guys not in uniform for their first practice.  Overall, it's hard to argue with anything having to do with the preseason poll.  As Mark points every year, it's pretty meaningless.

I know nothing about this website, but it looks like a pretty objective analysis.  http://www.collegesportsmadness.com/article/691

With Valpo at #5 in the Horizon, I would guess that UDM, UWM, Butler and CSU will be the other 4 teams (not necessarily in that order).

Per his twitter, Triton HS shooting guard is heading to Valpo.