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[Bryce Succeeding Pros:]

Oren Tweeted a good question.

[tweet]719641449483083776[/tweet]

Will you be cheering for Bryce this year? Or do you secretly hope he fails? Or maybe somewhere in between...

I've created a pro and con list for Bryce succeeding to help you guys with your decision:


Bryce Succeeding Pros:
* Name recognition to the Valpo program - Valpo will be mentioned frequently if he makes the tournament - he hit that one shot while in a Valpo uniform...
* He's an alumn - we're voting for Ginger on Dancing With the Stars, we should be cheering for another fellow alumni, right?
* Coaching trees. Valpo hadn't really produced a decent coaching tree because everyone has stayed at Valpo for awhile. Growing the tree could make Valpo a nice breeding ground for decent coaches.

Bryce Failing Pros:
* Karma - Rude not to at least say 'Thank You For Your Support'. He was one foot out the door, left before finally delivering a win in the NCAA tournament, left before Peters senior season, left open scholarships, and took our top assistant with him. Careful what you wish for Bryce...
* It might make coaches want to stay in longer their low-pressure situation, knowing they're adored and have a job for life doing what they love and still making $400,000 a year, and perhaps the grass isn't always greener on the other side.
* That court is stupid.
* Bryce 2.0 after he gets fired?

Bryce Failing Cons:
* Bryce 2.0 after he gets fired?
* Might make Valpo look bad - we're tied to him in the long run. If Scott and Bryce are both out of jobs, what does that say about the program?
* I guess he's a nice guy.

Bryce Succeeding Cons:
* The gold tie dress code is stupid, so that'll continue.
* More tireless "The Shot" references all tournament long.
* More press conferences that feature the word "umm"
* Wasting timeouts may become a national trend.

Who is responsible for recording individual player stats? Does this person work for the home university, or are they independent? Does anyone go back and review some of the statistics like they do in the NBA? I googled information about this, but couldn't find anything. I was hoping someone here would have some knowledge on this topic.

The reason why I ask is because it appeared Vashil keeps getting shorted out of blocks on the statsheet. Against Detroit, I counted 6-8 blocks, but only 3 blocks were registered on the statsheet. I realize "blocks" can be somewhat subjective, as it's possible that the ball may not have physically touched the defender's arm, but in that game, I saw Vashil touch at least 6 shots that weren't called fouls. There were another 2 that I just couldn't tell for sure. Jubril had 2 really obvious blocks, and I only saw 1 in the stats. Against YSU, I counted Vashil having 4 blocks, but again, he only was rewarded for 3 blocks. Perhaps this is going on all over the place in D1 basketball, but it seems like blocks are being grossly undercounted.

Maybe we can get whoever compiles stats for Valpo home games to over-count a few blocks?

http://fourlights.fm/hr/horizone-roundtable-1-theres-valpo-everybody-else/

Jimmy Lemke from PantherU and some dude that follows Cleveland State created a Horizon League Podcast. The first episode is pretty good, includes lots of Valpo talk, Horizon League, expansion, etc. I'm sure it'll only last a few episodes, like every project on the internet, but definitely worth a listen.

Since people have started filing back on here to discuss Detroit/NKU, I thought it would be a good time to post this.

I have simulated the 2013 Team and 2015 Team in NBA2K.

Here's the article: http://www.valpofanzone.com/2015/05/09/2013-crusaders-vs-the-2015-crusaders/

Let me know what you think.

http://thecatchandshoot.com/uic-fires-head-coach-howard-moore/

About time.

Hear me out.

Valpo beat Butler this year.

Butler, of course beat Stetson whom beat Marist.

Marist had a great win vs Jacksonville, who beat San Diego who beat Dayton.

Dayton, of course, beat Georgetown, who beat Holy Cross, who beat Morgan State, who beat South Carolina State.

SC State beat up on Bethune Cookman.

Bethune cookman beat FIU, who beat UAB, who beat Western Kentucky, who beat Bowling Green, who beat Indiana.

Indiana beat Mizzou.

And of course Mizzou beat Arkansas, who beat Ole Miss.

Ole Miss beat #1 Alabama.

So it's really illogical to NOT consider Valpo for the College Football Playoff, seeing as they basically beat the #1 team in the country.

https://twitter.com/NWIOren/status/483334521870237697

Per Oren's tweet, Yeo is leaving the program to play at Bethel University.

Sad, I was excited to see Clay mold into a great player - he could catch fire and play hard defense.

He just needed to put on some  muscle to get playing time. I guess this helps our excess guard situation a bit.

Alec Brown has been drafted by the Phoenix Suns with the 50th pick of the NBA draft. Hope he owns a lot of sunscreen.

Milwaukee 18-13, 7-9 Horizon
Valpo 18-14, 9-7 Horizon

Logistics:
Time - 8:30 CT
Place - Resch Center, Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin
Season Series - Valpo 2 Milwaukee 0
Line - Valpo -3.5
TV - Horizon League Network
Stream Link - http://www.horizonleague.org/live/11244
TV Half Time Entertainment - 10 minute Lavonte Dority "FAMILY" spot
Valpo's Record When I Start Game Day Threads - (1-0)

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Anyone else going?

[Valparaiso]

Valparaiso
Record: 11-9, 3-2 Horizon
RPI: 208 (link)

Youngstown St
Record: 12-8, 3-2 Horizon
RPI: 142 (link)

Horizon League Network Link: http://www.horizonleague.org/live/9685
ESPN Link: http://espn.go.com/ncb/preview?gameId=400507123
Valpo Athletics Link complete with horrible layout/hashtags: http://www.valpoathletics.com/mbasketball/news/2013-14/13304/crusa.../
Enemy Thread: http://ysupenguins.com/forum/index.php/topic,8763.0.html

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Also, important development: Bobby Capobianco is NOT a thug!

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/24379680/colorado-transfer-jenkins-will-land-at-detroit

Colorado transfer Chris Jenkins is headed to Detroit... and he could potentially start playing in time for conference season. He's a redshirt freshman that decided to transfer in November. I'm not sure if the NCAA will make him sit out until next season, but they'll probably end up doing something incredibly inconsistent with what they've been ruling. I guess he transferred because Colorado wasn't going to play him and he'd be a starter in his hometown Detroit... either that or he got confused that Colorado STATE was the program with the crazy coach that drinks at college parties, not Colorado Boulder.

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bracketology

After Wright State sat in the 13-seed spot for over a month, Lunardi finally updated his bracketology projections. He has Green Bay as a 15 seed playing Marcus Smart and Oklahoma State in San Antonio. This is probably not going to happen, as Milwaukee is a tournament host this year and Green Bay would likely get seeded in the Midwest. I want to predict Green Bay as a 14 seed playing Michigan State in the first round in Milwaukee... but anything can happen. Predicting seeds and locations is about as easy as guessing which player Brian Wardle is going to berate next.



On the Mid Major Top 25 front, Green Bay is 15th, Milwaukee is 22nd, and YSU received a fair number of votes.



Using RPI Forecast Expected RPIs because UMKC is like 120 RPI.

Green Bay's top 3 wins: H Virginia (45.3 RPI), N Tulsa (159.8 RPI), N Pepperdine (189.7 RPI)
Milwaukee's top 3 wins: H Northern Iowa (103.4 RPI), @ Davidson (202.2 RPI), H Bradley (229.2 RPI)
YSU's top 3 wins: N Eastern Kentucky (144.8 RPI), H Robert Morris (189.3 RPI), N FIU (199.2 RPI)

For the record, Valpo's top 3 RPI wins are: H LMU (155.7 RPI), H UCF (168.0 RPI), H Murray State (214.4 RPI)

So nothing spectacular all around in the league. Like I've been saying, unless a bunch of mid majors lose their conference tournaments, the Horizon League is going to output a 15 seed, with 14 being the ceiling. Green Bay only has one non-conference game left and it's against Fairfield. If they lose only a couple conference games, they could jump up to a higher seed, but I bet they lose 4 or 5 games on the road this year.

Edit: also, CBS Sports has a bracketology, but they do a pretty poor job: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology They have UWGB at a 13 seed.

Via Valpo WikiLeaks - We're finally getting a track around the football field.

I was having a hard time picturing the master plan in my mind based off of descriptions, and even the school's map was hard to grasp what was currently in each location. So hopefully this post will help people picture the plan a little bit clearer. If these maps aren't accurate or a decision has changed, let me know so I can update it!

Here's the plan off the pdf on http://www.valpo.edu/masterplan/
http://www.valpo.edu/masterplan/assets/docs/VU%20MP%20Exec%20Summary_final.pdf



I made an more interactive map here:
http://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/ValpoMasterPlan

and it converts to a google map here (good for zooming and street view):
http://goo.gl/maps/N9jwW

Legend for the map:
Red - athletic/all purpose buildings
Blue - housing
Pink - acedemic
Green - fields/athletic fields
Yellow - parking structures/new roads
Light Blue - ponds



It'll be interesting to see how fast these dorms go up - 6 planned to be done by 2032 when there hasn't been a dorm built in a long time. They also have 3 ponds in their maps... it'll be interesting to see how gross those things get in the early Spring.

[a3uge's solutions]

I've ranted on here before about flipping the student sections when Valpo hosts the Horizon League tournament. The spot where the student section normally sits is taken by the opposing band/students. Valpo students (what's left of them after our ridiculously early 2-week spring break) are left with makeshift bleachers that may or may not collapse at any given point. So instead of having a home-court advantage with a full student section, we have a larger looking away-team section and a packed in Valpo student section that looks rather embarrassing. If you fill 200 seats of the makeshift bleachers, the section still looks tiny. 200 away fans spread out makes it look large.

This may have been more evident last year. Detroit and Butler brought 2 buses of students and made the section look larger than Valpo's student section. After a while they even stopped jamming Valpo fans into the bleachers and they had to sit awkwardly on the other side.

So everyone on here always chimed in that it was against Horizon League Tournament policy to have the away team on the same side as the away team fans. If that is indeed a legitimate rule, than I wholeheartedly disagree with that idiotic decision that gives the AWAY TEAM an advantage on certain court configurations. There's a reason why they give the #1 seed home games. Are they trying to pretend they aren't home games? If they aren't home games, why does every RPI website count them as home games? It's not a neutral site, and nobody thinks of it as a neutral site.

I did a bit of research and found this:

Wright State - 2007 Horizon League Champions

2007 Horizon League Championship Game at Wright State.

Are we getting screwed? Wright State has the SAME court configuration. From the TV camera's perspective, the away team's student fans are on the left, the home team's student fans are on the right. The home team bench is on the left, the away team's bench is on the right. In the second half, the away team was shooting at the basket the home team's student section was in! Why the heck didn't Wright State have to abide by this rule? Was this rule made just last year?

It might not seem like that big of a deal, but if Wright State hosts the tournament again, I hope to god the Horizon League gives Wright State the same punishment as they're giving Valpo right now.

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Okay, so given this decision against us probably won't get reversed as long as we're in the Horizon, I think it's time to get off our butt and do some proactive things to make things a bit more reasonable.

a3uge's solutions

1. We need full-time part-time bleachers for tournament time. The bleachers would span the width of the bleachers on the other side, and go all the way up to the wall.  These could easily be used for other big games. Heck, instead of sectioning off E for students in regular season play, only allow students in the bleachers on either side, then sell all the tickets in E. Poof Valpo, I just made you just made some more money with a small bleacher investment. This would force the concessions to move to a more legitimate area. Why are the concession stands 10 ft from the court anyways? They should be in a hallway like a normal stadium.
2. Collapse the existing student section bleachers and put in another makeshift bleacher for the away team. Make it unstable so away team fans don't get too excited.
3. Flip the benches around if that's really the problem.
4. Leave the Horizon League for the Great West.

/rant