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I don't understand the NBA, or the Maverick's in particular:
They needed 3 pt. shooters, so they signed Rowdy, who was a well known sharp shooter, who also had other skills - defense & rebounding. THEN THEY ONLY PLAYED HIM IN 42 GAMES.  This year they only won 33 games and only averaged 34% from behind the arc. Rowdy topped the team (except for a guy who only attempted 11) at over 40%.  YET HE ONLY PLAYED IN 42 GAMES.   

That super for the guy. How were his season stats? 

I tried to find stats on the team website, to no avail.  Verdammt. 

Major losses to Xfers this year, with Smits going to Butler I'll say this utlimately shows where pride and tradition of bball is headed

Mark L will probably sit on his hands and wait until two years too late to fire Lottich.

It is a reeeeeeeeeal shame Valpo did not have a better AD in '05-'12 range.

This is not a loss.

To me, the big news in the broadcast was Todd's comment that he would be totally shocked if Bradford is seen in a Valpo uniform again. I hope this means another spot opens soon for an additional recruit or transfer.

I seem to remember saying, months ago, that MB will never play at VU again.

Overall, I'm not sure the loss is a net negative. His numbers may have, in fact, gone up. It's a big question as to whether that would have helped the team overall. The ball stagnated with him too much. He'd score but he'd also eliminate chances by stopping the ball too much. He wasn't either a great defensive player nor rebounder. In fact he was pretty poor at both.

Ignoring his raw numbers, which you absolutely should in most cases, Derrik was the best defensive rebounder on the team, gathering in 20.7% of the other team's misses.  Next highest was Lavender at 19.7%.  Overall, Derrik was 2nd on the team in individual defensive efficiency rating (just behind Sorolla by 0.1 PPP), and if you only look at conference play, was tied for 3rd behind Freeman and Sorolla.  He was one of only 5 Valpo players with a positive Box Plus Minus rating (essentially shows PPP above an average player on an average team), and was 3rd on the team in that category behind Freeman and Fazekas.

Was he a great player overall?  No, I wouldn't say that, but he was second on the team in offensive efficiency on what was a really bad offensive team (291st out of 353 teams), and at least statistically speaking, was a good defensive player as well.  His biggest issue was turning the ball over too much, but his turnover rate was actually better than average on this Valpo team. 

Ultimately how big of a loss he is to next year's team will depend on how well Gordon and Robinson integrate into the offense, and whether or not Fazekas can stay healthy, but I do think it's hard to say that he was a net negative in any way on this year's team when you had guys like Evelyn and Sackey who both played more minutes than Smits in conference play, and ranked 65th (Evelyn) and 67th (Sackey) out of 67 qualifying players (players who played 40% or more minutes on average in a conference game) in offensive efficiency.  Smits was ranked 29th, which was best among qualifying Valpo players in conference play.

Statistics tell a story, for sure, but not an entire story.   For instance, Smits missed so many lay ups that could have easily been dunks, if he would have tried. IMHO, as a fan who saw every home game and many televised away games, of his career, his PPG should have been higher if he would have dunked the ball more. At 7'2", if you have the ball 3', or less, from the hoop, DUNK IT. Another instance, is rebounding.  He looked like he never learned proper techniques of rebounding.  He was poor at getting into position to rebound - blocking out wasn't his strong suit.

He graduated with a Valpo degree, as did Sorolla, Bakari, and Golder.  They are Valpo alums, regardless of how we might feel about it.  However, Buck Futler, and choose one of the other 2.

According to the VU athletics website, Golder and Sorolla are Juniors this year.

Great post, Hoops.  I think that the Athletic Department should be in charge of administering the student section.  It is a crime what has happened to student attendance. 
I take exception to your comments about the chairback people.  I have sat there forever.  I do sit during the games - my age has earned that for me - but I do cheer and stand when warranted.

[Bradley]

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Why should any of us care? We are now all Belmont, Murray and Bradley fans. 
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Not ALL of us.

Smits transferring is only one half of the story.  He is declaring for the NBA draft - pause until laughter subsides - and if he changes his mind, will transfer from VU to play better competition.

A 7'1" center who doesn't know how to rebound (unless the ball bounces directly to him) nor dunk should get many offers.

If I were Micha I'd look at the Div2 teams in the nine states that have legalized weed He wouldn't have to put up with the Valpo POlice and their strong armed tactics

I predict that Micah will be gone.

Green slime

One of those battery operated toy cars that you can ride around in

An iPhone that transports persons up to 5 miles away like the Enterprise transporter. Beam me up, Scotty!

You didn't say it had to be about VUMBB.



A donor that pays for renovations to the ARC.

Since we're on the VUBB Forum, I took it for granted - my bad.

I'll start:
A center that can/will dunk the darn basketball. 

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Good to see ML engaging in the forum discussion! 
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He used to do it a fair amount.

I, and many others, have been complaining about the ARC's inaudible sound system for several years.  At the MOSTATE game, a strange thing happened:  The sound of the National Anthem, by the Phi Mu Alpha choir, into a wireless mic, was so clear, I couldn't believe it.  So this begs the question: is the problem with the mic that John Bowker uses, or are different speakers connected to the wireless mic?

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What do the media studies say about sound?
Still need a microphone for the press please! Very difficult to understand the questions asked by the press.
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So the arena isn't the only place with a lousy sound system?

I saw one of the giveaway basketballs go flying into the court right after the final horn. The Valpo Dinosaur actually picked it up with its tony little arms.

Me too.

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Oakland, when they moved up to D1[/quote]

I'm glad you remembered. I forgot for a few hours. Yes, it is Oakland University in Rochester, MI. The Pioneers became the Golden Grizzlies in 1998.

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Oakland started out as Michigan State University- Oakland.

While larger improvements such as seating,  concession stands, restrooms are understandably more ambitious projects, I still cannot understand why the scoreboards are not in sync....players currently in the lineup are usually never correct and late in being posted, on whom a foul was called, points are also usually not correct.   A few years ago I mentioned this to MLB and he acted like he was unaware of the problem.  He said that those type of problems should be corrected with the new board.  However they have never been corrected.  Whether it is a system problem or poor operators of the system, these problems should be addressed and corrected immediately.  The scoreboard at the west end of the ARC often has info posted before it ever gets to the big, overhead board.  One would think that the info should appear on all the boards at the same time.  Who is in charge?    Let's get it corrected.

Couple this situation with the pathetic PA system and you have a less than good experience at the ARC. 

I've been as vociferous an advocate for  facility upgrades as you're ever going to find but the more time I spend at games and the more I think about it, Valpo realistically can't have more than a few million dollars per year in revenue for facility upgrades across the department. So they have to fulfill as many wants\needs as they can with that money. They also have to consider the amount of time something will take. If and when there is a new ARC renovation we may not be able to play that season at home jeopardizing ticket sales. I'm sure the video board issue can be resolved by training someone or hiring that out but with all due respect who's constantly checking that instead of following the action on the floor? I know I'm not.

Yes, the PA system needs attention but we're acting like we don't have football soccer baseball tennis etc. with their own needs and we can't send the message that we don't care about their needs because they aren't basketball. We're a small private school in a small city with only one revenue sport and a reason we don't have money is because of attendance. Marketing is improving greatly we had an incredible giveaway the weather wasn't that bad the team is tied for first and we still couldn't fill 3\4 of the ARC. At a certain point it's not really on the department. The locals don't care. I didn't see anything wrong with the gameday experience Saturday that wouldn't require months of labor and millions of dollars to fix. At a certain point you either like basketball and want to be there or you don't and will make excuses not to go. It's easy to find coverage of Valpo basketball if you want it  It's even improving in the papers. At a certain point your non-attendance is on you.

As for other revenue streams we could opt not to play in top MTEs but then our schedule would suck and we'd all complain. We could take all buy games but then our record would suck and we'd all complain and people would think we suck and wouldn't go to games. Our best path forward is a concerted campaign to raise $100million or so for athletics to cover:

ARC Renovations
Renovations for other sports
The student rec Center
Solutions to the parking issue
A new practice facility
A better pool

Hopefully that's the next campaign after the endowment drive because it feels like most everything else has been nicely updated. It might finally be athletics' turn to receive the attention it deserves. Though I wouldn't be surprised if improvements to the engineering business and nursing buildings came first.

I'm sorry, but my wife and I, who aren't VU grads, have been supporting the Basketball team for over 30 years, and think that it would be nice if the total experience were available to us.  How many forms of entertainment do you know of where you pay admission, only to find that you don't get to see , or hear, or see everything? We just want to hear everything said by John Bowker, because something just might just be pertinent, interesting or educational.

While most on the board focus exclusively on basketball, remember that Valpo supports a bunch of sports and needs to properly fund those as well.  Mark LaBarbera's "AD insite" for this month mentions that Brown Field will be getting new and upgraded turf.  Based on about five minutes or research, my guess is that this will be a $500,000 expenditure.  He also mentioned that a second nutrition center is being added to the ARC via a cash donation and that video feed to the scoreboard, for replays had also been added.  Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes.

And yet we still have a sound system, in the ARC, which is so bad that many fans cannot understand much of what the announcer is saying.  And we have a video board that shows the players that are on the court, but there is such a delay in updating it that it is usually incorrect.  As an example, in the last game, one player's points jumped by 4, because his last 2 baskets weren't updated on time. I've seen instances where  players came in, played and went out and their name never appeared on the score board.  This can't be rocket science.

I hereby move that this thread be taken down forthwith.  Do I hear a second?

And you want the opposition preparing for the possibility of RF playing so that they aren't able to prepare as well. That Loyola team was well prepared already but shutting down our shooters was a huge part of it. Believe me, I met Loyola fans that read this board and have direct connections to the Loyola coaching staff. You never want to give away too much on the possibility of a player being in or out.

That is a very, very good team at Loyola. The game day atmosphere was tremendous and just communicating was tough.

One thing I was puzzled by was the referees called a total of 6 fouls in the whole first half and what seemed to me a physical game. Then in the second half they call some ticky tack fouls on Valpo and let other very rough play continue. Then the fouls start mounting because it seemed the refs had let the game start to get out of control and had to regain some control. In the end they called more fouls on Loyola but it was during the portion of the game when Loyola was really extending their lead that Valpo was getting called for the ticky tack fouls--Golder, Lavender, Smits, Sorolla, etc. Just an observation on my part.

Oh yeah, what is it with Sister Jean, world wide Loyola star praying to the Almighty for a Loyola win?

She also prayed for the ValparIso team.

No way anyone in the chair backs would get the Harry Potter reference.

You are correct, but we do know about Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds.

I looked at their ticket sales and seating chart Friday morning. Looked to be plenty seats still available. I'm curious how close to a sellout they come? Anybody going? As for their return trip to the ARC on Sun Feb 10, I checked that about Tues and we have barely made a dent towards what I was expecting. If both of these teams remain near or at the top of the league I would expect 4 to 6 hundred Loyola fans coming down (our best crowd) just like last year.

For the first time I will be taking the fan bus to the game and pre-game party. The pre- game get together is around 80 people and then we will be sitting in section 201. Come on and join us for a fun gritty time in Chicago.

I also will be a fan bus newbie.  Not too thrilled that sec. 201 is directly above the student section, though.