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Man, inconsistency is even worse than being flat-out bad.

But, as someone predicted we'd be saying... This team has real potential to string together 3 wins when it counts.

Unfortunately it's looking like they might need four, not three.

Another missed opportunity for Lottich to get fiery. That was a travel before he even went out of bounds.

Mileek has to be playing scared...make one mistake you're out...meanwhile other guys eff up time and time again and continue to get more and more pt.

I cannot like this enough times. If next year is supposed to be our year, they need to give Mileek more minutes to prepare. He can definitely score, but he needs to get more comfortable at game speed. If he can give us 20-25 good minutes at the 4 next season, it's worth his mistakes this season.

Would love to see Lottich get T'd up here after a bad no-call and a bad offensive foul call.

I mean, it's not like we're gonna win, might as well show some fire.

Proud of Golder trying to draw the foul in that situation, but as usual the rest of it was awful basketball for the final possession of the half. But at least we got lucky this time.

Who's ready for Bakari to dribble the shot clock down to 7 seconds, dribble into a double team, and take a long, off-balance, fade-away 2 pointer that results in a Drake fast break layup tonend the half?

Btw, I need a ruling from one of our board lawyers: If we're down double digits at halftime is it too early to start drinking?

IANAL, but I did go to law school and it is not too early. I already started.

Low effort, low energy basketball. Sad!

But in all seriousness, if we give Lottich another year, we risk putting the program in a deep hole for a long time if he doesn't improve fast.

I hope the whole team is running suicides at this very moment, one for every turnover and missed free throw.

Man, this team is really close to being great. Excellent defense tonight, some really good stretches on offense as well. If they can learn how to close out a game, they can win 12+ in this league.

My big concern is that the closer might not be on this roster... Or maybe he is, but he's hidden by coaching choices.

WHY IS BAKARI IN THE GAME

We have to stop running down the shot clock at the end of the half. It's a wasted possession every time. Better to score and play defense than give up the fast break every time.

[Crazy coaching move that just might work:]

Box Score from last game:
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=401089274

1. We let them shoot over 50% from 3.  Obviously can't let that happen again.
2. Sorolla/Lavender/Bakari/Kiser were basically no-shows. Obviously can't let that happen again.
3. We let their freshman, Kaifes, play one of his best games of the season.  He lives and dies by the 3, he must be pressured. 
4. We let their sophomore Uguak have one of his better games of the season.  This is where a healthy Fazekas would help at the 4 spot.   
5. Smits only played 19 minutes with foul trouble.       

With Williamson out the big issue for Loyola is depth.   Uguak and Kaifes are "the other 2 guys" after the big 3.  We at least need to stop them and if they are going to beat us it is because Krutwig/Custer/Townes.   I can live with their big 3 having a game and beating us.  I will be upset if they win because their supporting cast lights us up. 

Crazy coaching move that just might work:
Krutwig is playing 27 minutes a game.   Start Sorolla instead and insert Smits in a pattern of when Krutwig is getting tired and towards the last few minutes of his typical shift and about to sub out.  Have our best offensive post player play krutwig when he is tired or against his backup.   Let Sorolla take care of the defense when Krutwig is fresh to start the game and when he comes in off of breaks.     

Kind of like the idea of starting Sorolla and bringing in Smits to play against a tired Krutwig and his backup.  For this to be successful we would need to kill it from outside since we would get zero inside scoring from Sorolla. Still whatever our strategy was last time failed miserably, so why not think outside the box? Of course this probably means that it will never happen since real basketball people will see a fatal flaw that I am to dumb to recognize.

The potential problem I see is that Smits plays the majority of his minutes with our bench guys in this scenario. I'm not convinced Bakari or Lavender can make the entry passes Smits needs to be effective.

Of course, you could totally rearrange the lineups to avoid that problem... But then you're playing unfamiliar lineups, and the defense against the Loyola starters will be poor, inviting a scenario where Smits vs Loyola's second team has to work perfectly just to keep the game close.

He was celebrating those 3s more than you generally see in Valley play, especially from the visiting team. That said, it wasn't egregious. He also stared down the Redbird who fouled him on the breakaway dunk, but it was a bad foul, too late to affect the shot, so that was definitely justified.
I think it's more sour grapes than anything.
On another note, I'd like to see Kiser keep a lot of his minutes when Fazekas returns. His play tonight was outstanding.

Forget the student section, I'm surprised the cheerleaders even show up anymore.

Lottich is making the least of this team's talent. If no one has a strong individual performance, they lose. It's not a team, it's just a group of players.

I keep hoping that there's some coaching in reserve for conference play, but I know I'm going to be disappointed.

I hate to be a downer, but that felt lucky and I fear the coaches will instead think it was a good offensive game. Hot shooting is nice, but we still only have one answer for when the perimeter game isn't working - and if Smits gets doubled low in a game where Bakari and Fazekas are cold, we lose by 20. Still need to see the offensive system mature more.

But it was nice to get a road win 

I was trying to think of something to say, but NativeCheesehead pretty much captures it. Still no shooters on this team somehow.

The win on Sunday was in December. I agree with 4-2 on the month, losses on the road at A&M and a random bad loss to a hot-shooting team on a night when we can't make key buckets. But 5-1 seems possible ... 🤔

Fazekas now 1-9. As our depth improves/gets healthy, he needs fewer minutes. Coach needs to pick his spots and see if he can get Fazekas to relax into a more productive role off the bench, and rebuild confidence.

At what point do we admit that Fazekas just isn't a good shooter? Frustrating to hear him referred to like he can score when he's playing this poorly

Prediction:
Valpo 58
IL State 67

The last 8 points are all scored by Golder and Evelyn in guardbage time to make it seem closer than it was.

I'm starting to think I know why our student section isn't filling up... 

I've been hoping all year that the offense would eventually start to click, but I'm finally coming to grips with reality: none of these guys is a true scorer. This is a very athletic team, but we need to find some basketball players to put in the mix.

Game is blacked out for me - anybody got a non-ESPN feed? 

Nice of the Valpo MBB beat reporter to finally confirm what I reported a week ago w/r/t stress fracture

Also: This #^*%ing sucks. But hopefully he's healthy/reliable enough that this doesn't hurt Peters' draft stock, he's got a lot of potential ahead of him yet.

Hearing second-hand (someone I know asked Mark LaBarbera) that Peters has a stress fracture.