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Another silver lining to the tournament run!


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Woo! Don't change your mind this time

Valpo playing in the MVC finals is not the Shot 2.0 lol. There's virtually no exposure from losing. I had to look up who played Bradley last year... It was UNI. The year before it was Illinois State. Sure, it's nice, but Valpo is still far away from a Sweet 16 run.

We had no business being in the tournament. Unfortunately Bradley didn't either, having gone through 5, 8, and 7 seeds. Too bad UNI lost their first game.

Btw, even though I have been a big Kiser buff for a few seasons now, when did he become much more athletic?  He looked like he had Matt Kenney-like hops today!

Him nailing a crutch step back three after crossing over his defender is something I never thought I'd see a few years ago. His game has really improved every year.


Also, everyone is going to brush away that last call on Krutwig was to give him free throws... That would have been a brutal way to end the season.

Going through our usual stink it up period. Hope it ends before half (it didn't). JFL doesn't look like he has any energy. Maybe being constantly held, slapped and grabbed without getting a call has something to do with it.

And the mono...

Apparently, no one listened to Todd's postgame interview with Luke Gore, where Todd asked Luke about that last play. They drew up 2 options. The first was designed to set up Eron for a corner 3 (I forget the second), but Loyola blew up the play and Daniel was forced to take the 3. The way he explained it sounded perfectly logical to me, it just didn't go as planned. Just like the play Bryce designed to set up AP to take the final shot against Maryland in the NCAA tournament blew up and KC was forced try to throw up a crazy, off-balance 3 at the buzzer. Decisions are split-second in situations like that, and they fail far more often than they succeed, especially when the other team knows all they have to do is guard the 3-point line, and so they place all 5 defenders at the arc. Judging from some of these hypercritical, over-reactionary comments about our coaching, it appears to me that we've got too many posters that stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Keith Carter was fouled

Well JFL and Clay for starters... Then you've got Robinson (at least for this year and next) but yeah everyone else has been pretty inconsistent at best.

JFL might make an MVC all 1st team, but the rest are role players. There's nothing resembling an impact player that has a chance to play in the NBA one day. It's not like this is a roster of 3 and 4 star recruits straight from high school.

I hate to say it but losing Lottich would likely do more bad than good. He is a heck of a recruiter and without him we probably don't have most of these players that make this team have the potential that is does.

What talent?

and this morning's RealTimeRpi... top 5

Rank    team     D1Rec   ####     SOS    SOS ###  Conf.   Conf.   W-L
1     Virginia    2-0    0.9688   1    0.9583     Acc   1-0
2     Evansville    2-0    0.9375   2    0.9167     Mvc   0-0
3     Illinois St.    2-0    0.9375   3    0.9167     Mvc   0-0
4     N. Carolina    2-0    0.9167   4    0.8889     Acc   1-0
5     Michigan    2-0    0.9062   6    0.8750     Big10   0-0

Valpo climbed from 59 to 54, with SOS #87

North Dakota is #153
Eastern Michigan is LAST at #354.

MVC jumped from #16 to #10 in the conference ranking  16-10 against D1 opponents.  Indiana State is the only MVC team without a D1 win, they go to Muncie on Saturday.

Our former conference fell to #29... 6-12 against D-1.

There is a good lesson here for anyone who tries to generate conclusions from a small sample size.

Also, RPI isn't even a thing anymore.

Smits line score for the Butler win over IUPUI:    DNP - coach used a 7-man rotation.
Smits line score for the Exh game with UIndy:    5 minutes, 1-3 shooting, 2 points, 0 rebounds, 0 turnovers, 0 assists.

hope that's what he intended.

Smits was unavailable due to a knee injury.

It's flat out time for someone in Athletics to take responsibility for the pep band situation. There is NO excuse for such a vital part of the game day experience to be MIA when the students are in town. Now I do not blame the students for this, serious musicians in a quality program like ours can and should place certain functions above athletics, and I imagine the Duffy's gig brings funds into the program.

But for several years now the numbers have been dwindling and I can't remember the last time I heard a new song. The pep band used to be 30-40 strong and loud as heck. If it gets any smaller they will have to be mic-ed up.

I thought some really nice improvements in the game day experience were present last night (no in game commercials, on floor host running promotions) but man this is a big one for me. A loud, raucous pep band IS the college game day experience as much as anything that doesn't actually happen on the court.

This may have changed in the past 5-10 years, but the crossover between Jazz Band and the pep band is almost 0.

What a win! Toledo definitely looked more talented, but Valpo gutted it out and fought harder. A breath of fresh air after painfully watching Bakari and Smits half-ass it game after game the last few years.

Morgan and McMillan are clearly the anchors... Why not go back to the Dutch guy?

Hey guys!! Took a long sabbatical from the board... Don't know why we're trying to rush the pace. I'm okay with setting the pace, but we're trying to be quicker than what we should be. I don't know enough about Toledo, but the MAC is a conference that doesn't see a lot of classes separate. Most of the guys recruited to the MAC get playing time all four years, so they truly develop into solid pros overseas.

Our defense is looking really pathetic. Yes, Toledo is running on us, but we should probably be playing tougher.

What is with the phantom charge calls? The Toledo defender is never set. Is this a MAC officiating crew?

I, for one, welcome these new fast paced overlords.

Nothing was worse than last year's anemic low post offense. This team seems a lot more fun.

3-5 with some really ugly low post games.

Doesn't seem like he's on a summer league roster, which isn't good.

This came out of the Other Sports board. I am wondering why Valpo is having trouble with insufficient cash. Are they budgeting appropriately? are they being frugal to a high extent? Could it be the new tax code where you need more deductions to itemize?

I might say it's because our president has scared away many of the foreign students. But I won't. And that is a problem because the administration set it up for Valpo to be successful by inviting more and more foreign students just before a time when the US government was openly not encouraging foreign students or at least putting limits on their numbers. At least that was the result of the US government's actions.

And I won't say how utterly ridiculous it was to set a student growth goal of 50% in a declining market (lower birth rates, dog-eat-dog market, nation drowning in student debt), and naively thinking it would grow to unbelievable levels based on student cash cow funding from Saudia Arabia and China (of all places). Donald Trump may have a magic wand, but Heckler and your Trustees certainly don't. I could say that books and white papers will be written about the level of ineptitude of college administrators that bought into this nonsense, but I won't. Universities are not institutions of higher learning. They are medium to enterprise-level businesses that require high-browed strategic business minds at the helm in order to maximize results and sustain success. Promoting your best automotive mechanic to service manager became passé in the business world in the 1990's.

Most Universities are basically hedge funds that happen to have a school attached to it.

Please cancel the show and never air it again.

Yeah, that ending was a travesty.

The broader question here is 'Why Valpo?'. This answer varies greatly across disciplines and the students in those disciplines.

I was an engineering major at Valpo. Very difficult program by pretty much anyone's definition. I lacked maturity and discipline when I started college and didn't figure things out until well into my Sophomore year. If I had gone to Illinois (where I had a large scholarship), I would have flunked out - no question. But at Valpo, the faculty cared...a lot! They didn't just let me pass or make it easier, but they stayed with me and encouraged me. For me, Valpo was worth every additional dollar (that admittedly my parents spent). I have had successful careers and that engineering degree was the foundation for that success.

But if i had been more mature and / or studied a different discipline, I might not feel the same. USC4Valpo: my guess is that might be what your daughter is thinking. She is likely more confident in her ability to succeed in a program than i was and, perhaps, more confident than many other students her age. I imagine that you are rightfully proud of her and my guess is that she will do well.

I had a similar experience. I started in engineering, but wound up in computer science. The faculty directed me to that career and cared about my success, even though I was floundering. I would have failed out of a state school. I'm now in pretty good shape with my career. I don't think Valpo is for everyone, but YMMV.

This makes me feel old today.


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He's 30, not 40. He wasn't 32 when he graduated Valpo.

Valpo Loyola games would end 25-24.

[Texas Tech - 4 transfers - NCAA championship game]

Schools with 4 or more outbound transfers in 2018 that appeared in the NCAA or NIT tournaments this year (data per Verbal Commits):
Sam Houston State - 6 transfers - NIT
Iona - 5 transfers - NCAA
LSU - 5 transfers - NCAA
New Mexico State - 5 transfers - NCAA
Buffalo - 4 transfers - NCAA
Campbell - 4 transfers - NIT
Dayton - 4 transfers - NIT
Montana - 4 transfers - NCAA
Murray State - 4 transfers - NCAA
NC State - 4 transfers - NIT
North Carolina Central - 4 transfers -  NCAA
Northern Kentucky - 4 transfers - NCAA
Texas Tech - 4 transfers - NCAA championship game
Washington - 4 transfers - NCAA
Wichita State - 4 transfers - NIT

2020 Valpo national championship game confirmed.

Looks like a fun player that can shoot. Keep the international pipeline going.

Lipscomb is WAY better than us (last year).  They can really rebound.  Great win last night.  They would be a very good Valley addition.

Lipscomb's budget was 258th in the country, and below the smallest MVC budget (Indiana State at 213). Factoring in additional travel costs, it doesn't make a ton of sense. Lipscomb doesn't have a lot of sustained success - this year was their first year in program history with a positive SRS (this was Valpo's first negative SRS in 9 years).

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Grand Canyon could be a good spot for Derrik. It is in a conference ranked above the MVC. The coach is a well-known former NBA player. The school is close to his family's new home. Verbal Commits shows no centers on the team. Great facilities. They have won more than 20 games each of the past three years. The game atmosphere is considered one of the best, and the student body turnout is legendary: see below. Makes me want to transfer there, or at least wish that Valpo's atmosphere was like this!

Which ranking places the WAC above the MVC?