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Each round was best-of-three. 2001-02 team won the first game, 2010-11 team won the next two.

I completely agree. Was very surprised by the results. Lubos Barton just didn't shoot the ball enough times in the three games, always deferring to Milo Stovall. I wonder how it would've gone had I taken Falu off the roster.

Brandon Wood scores five points in final 27 seconds to lead 2010-11 Crusaders to upset victory over 2001-02 team.

http://www.nwitimes.com/blogs/sports/valparaiso-university/

Down to the semifinals in the Valparaiso Historical Bracket.

No. 1 2001-02 vs. No. 5 2007-08
No. 2 2010-11 vs. No. 6 2003-04

It was kind of interesting reading the play-by-play of the final game in the 03/04 vs. 00/01 series when Freshman Joaquim Gomes put up the 00/01 team by two, only to have senior Gomes hit a game-winning 3-pointer on the next possession. I suppose he got better as he got older.

Should be some interesting matchups in the semis.

http://www.nwitimes.com/blogs/sports/valparaiso-university/

"We all heard the questions asked during the press conference, and frankly I was a little disappointed."

I laughed out loud at this.

Other than that, good questions. Just not sure I'll be asking Homer about getting sandwiches named after him at the next press conference.

It seems that a few of my latest blog entries at the NWI Times website aren't updating, so I thought I'd post these last two in order for you all to follow along with the Valparaiso Historical Bracket Challenge. Interested to hear your take on who you think will win.

Bracket Challenge Intro
http://nwitimes.com/app/blog/sports/?p=5257

Results Thread (Updated through Game 1)
http://nwitimes.com/app/blog/sports/?p=5510

Funny you guys should bring this up. I'll have something interesting on my NWI blog in the next day or so about looking at some of the past teams. We may very well see how Oppland and Grafs would fare against each other. Harris against Nelke. Wood against Falu.

Ole Miss may have a MBA Masters program in straight Finance, but they might not have an MBA with an emphasis in Finance. Is the difference small? Yes. Is it big enough to matter? Sure. That's why this rule is lacking intelligence.

Regardless, Bogan has announced his graduate program while I don't think Brandon Wood ever announced one when he transferred.

He went from Southern Illinois to a junior college to Valpo and now Michigan State in five years. Until this past season, Brandon had never had the same coach in consecutive years since 7th grade. Moving from Valpo to Michigan State falls in the category of "normal" for the amount of times he's switched schools.

As a fan, I wish Brandon the best of luck next season, but I'm glad he'll be taking his talents to Michigan State. I think Valparaiso has a pretty solid team coming back next year, a team with multiple scoring options and a team where one guy doesn't need 20 shots a night. Brandon may have needed (or possibly taken) 20 shots a night. I don't think Broekhoff gives a damn if he scores 30 a night or 15, as long as the team is successful. That's not to say that Brandon didn't want the team to be successful, but for what he wants for his future, he would've needed to be this year's version of Norris Cole. Cleveland State rode that guy until the very end. If their season-ending loss to Charleston, there wasn't even another player who thought about shooting. I fear that's what would've happened next season and that's not the way to win games. (I don't think)

Now, one can argue that Brandon won't be a Norris Cole at Michigan State, but as he told me today "they don't have a dominant scorer and I hope I can fill that void." I wish him the best of luck, but I'm happy to take a starting lineup of Buggs, Harris, Kenney, Broekhoff and Van Wijk into next season.

Izzo weighs in.

http://nwitimes.com/app/blog/sports/?p=5238

What I'm saying is that Butler (and every other Horizon League school) don't have permission to contact Brandon per what I've heard from those involved. The coaching staff is/was able to limit which schools they granted permission to contact and per my understanding, Horizon League schools were excluded from the list. If Brandon ended up at Butler, I believe it would be because of contact that was not allowed or condoned by the Valparaiso coaching staff. I could be totally wrong on this, but this is how I believe it works.

Stop looking at Butler. He wasn't released to speak to Horizon League schools.

I was at the game and the Panthers were employing a full-court press in which the Crusaders were considerably struggling with. Drew called a timeout to discuss how they were going to break the press.

If you want to harp on Drew for calling a timeout with 10 seconds left and up double digits, then you have to harp on Jeter for employing a full-court press with 10 seconds left and down double digits. It was an unfortunate situation in the game and if Drew had any negative karma coming his way from it, then that karma was most certainly repaid in the officiating during the Horizon League semifinals.

I find it interesting that I haven't found Brandon Wood's name on an NBA Draft Early Entry list yet.

For my money, Wood won't be in the NBA next year...or playing at Valpo. Just my two cents.

Ben Boggs, not Ben Botts. No IPFW needed here!

Some nuggets that didn't get into my story from tonight.

* Broekhoff has been very sick and lost 11 pounds during the last night (not all of it from his hair). If you looked at him close enough during the game, you could see that his face had definitely lost some weight. It was noticeable enough for me to ask Homer about it in the postgame and he responded with the 11 pounds.

* We asked Homer about Brandon Wood and why he played so little and Drew responded that Brandon was struggling with a back injury that limited him.

Eric "Always Strapped" Lemon
Update: I am no longer enrolled at Valparaiso University. It was a great school but it just wasn't for me. I am now at Ferris State. I love you all. -#1 on the field, #1 in your hearts

Greetings. Salutations.