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I didn't realize Vujic was at Northwestern (DePaul befoer that?) - cool!  Nor that he didn't graduate, but finished his degree while an assistant at Valpo.

As an example, students must now have a minimum of a B average to even apply.  The class will be larger also.  What the exact numbers are I don't know, but they should be released shortly I would think.

Interesting!  I guess the deadline for accepting financial aid is May 1. Even if there still is rolling admissions after that.  So, I suppose we might see some numbers in a few weeks.

Trolling around the admissions site, I didn't see anything about a B average requirement - I'd be curious to know what the story was there.  I think I'd oppose a hard cut there, but would be happy to hear that e.g. average GPA was high, or rising, etc.

95 offices!  Wow - that must be a quarter of the faculty.

Off topic, but, okinawa, your post reminds me.  How do the admissions numbers look?  I guess it's about that time of year? 

And how did Valpo opponents fare in the end-of-season polls?

Butler 1st in the mid-major poll (to think they were behind Oakland in the previous poll!), second nationally.
Kansas fourth nationally (I notice the Morris twins hired an agent).
Purdue 17th nationally.
Oakland 8th in the mid-major poll.
Missouri State 9th in the mid-major poll.
Cleveland State 12th in the mid-major poll.
Milwaukee 20th in the mid-major poll.
Iona effectively 26th in the mid-major (after losing in the CIT final to Santa Clara).
Valpo itself, effectively 32nd in the mid-major.

The coaches' poll updated something like April 6.

Butler moved up from receiving _zero_ votes, to taking second overall.  (The last Horizon League votes in that poll were for CSU, I think, a couple of polls prior.)  VCU went from zero votes to sixth overall.

In the RPI (from WarrenNolan) Valpo ended up 81st.  Butler 19th, and not quite enough to put the Horizon back in front of the Valley.  So, the Horizon League finished 12th.  (CUSA 8th, CAA 9th, A10 10th, Valley 11th, Horizon 12th, WAC 13th, WCC 14th).

And here's the final mid-major poll, from April 5.  Valpo effectively in 32nd.  4th among Horizon League vote-getters.

 1.    Butler (31)    28-10    775    6    Horizon League    
 2.    VCU    28-12    744    14    Colonial Athletic    
 3.    George Mason    27-7    704    3    Colonial Athletic    
 4.    Old Dominion    27-7    664    1    Colonial Athletic    
 5.    Wichita State    29-8    649    9    Missouri Valley    
 6.    Belmont    30-5    636    2    Atlantic Sun    
 7.    Gonzaga    25-10    585    4    West Coast    
 8.    Oakland    25-10    552    5    Summit Leagye    
 9.    Missouri State    26-9    495    8    Missouri Valley    
10.    Princeton    25-7    485    10    Ivy League    
11.    St. Mary's    25-9    480    7    West Coast    
12.    Cleveland State    27-9    359    11    Horizon League    
13.    College of Charleston    26-11    357    12    Southern    
14.    Harvard    23-7    349    13    Ivy League    
15.    Morehead State    25-10    287    21    Ohio Valley    
16.    Fairfield    25-8    254    18    Metro Atlantic    
17.    Long Island    27-6    247    15    Northeast    
18.    Long Beach State    22-12    242    17    Big West    
19.    Kent State    25-12    213    NR    Mid-American    
20.    Milwaukee    19-14    207    19    Horizon League    
21.    Bucknell    25-9    187    16    Patriot    
22.    Santa Clara    24-14    161    NR    West Coast    
23.    Northern Colorado    21-11    86    20    Big Sky    
24.    Coastal Carolina    28-6    61    22    Big South    
25.    Woffird    21-13    58    23    Southern    

OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES:  Iona 54, Drexel 31, Akron 28, Indiana State 28, Hampton 27, Hofstra 18, Valparaiso 13, Creighton 9, San Francisco 7, Vermont 6, ESTU 5, Florida Atlantic 3, Murray State 2, Boston University 1, Jacksonville 1, James Madison 1, St. Peter's 1, Texas Southern 1, UC Santa Barbara 1.

Thanks!  I didn't realize there were two cutoffs.  But, now I gotcha.  No workouts until after the deadline to submit paperwork.

But there is a (short) window for workouts between the signup deadline, and the last date to withdraw to retain eligibility.

I think as a junior, somewhat off the radar, Brandon wll need to really impress at tryouts and those can't start until the cutoff date which, I believe, is May 2, although I'm not sure. No team can contact him until all can as this would be viewed as tampering.  So Brandon doesn't at this point have any workouts scheduled.

I'm confused.  Everyone, including the media, was talking about how the whole point was the workouts.

I'll chalk it up to inattentiveness!

Has the connection between the Post Tribune and the Sun Times been changing at all in, say, the last twelve months?

Wikipedia claims that Hollinger/Sun Times took over the paper in 1998.  And that it's been printed in Chicago (instead of in Gary) since 2007.  But, this year, I've noticed the domain name changing (posttrib.suntimes.com) and now I notice the masthead on the web page mentions the Sun Times (Post-Tribune: An edition of the Chicago Sun-Times).

Is any of this recent?  Or am I just noticing it recently?  Has it had an impact on staffing or reporting?

Driving by some of the new apartments on the lincolnway/laporte corridor, it seemed like most of the commercial spaces on the first floor were still empty.

I like the notion of pulling that corridor more firmly into the campus environment with higher quality residences, and hopefully some businesses.  We'll see how it goes. 

The university seems to like the idea of cooperating with developers to build housing.  I think the notion is that since it's a commercial enterprise, they can find companies to help foot the construction bill.  Beats having to raise it all yourself.  It seemed to me that the dorms were in a whole different economic world than the rest of Valpo (very expensive compared to the surrounding community, not much to show for it in terms of amount or quality of space) - perhaps the injection of a capitalist spirit will help here too.  If prices don't go down, perhaps quality will at least go up.

Congrats!

What's the winning bracket look like?

What was the largest correct number of final four teams picked?

I don't think we discussed the Post Tribune article?

http://posttrib.suntimes.com/sports/4580225-556/vus-wood-to-test-nba-waters.html

A couple of quotes from Brandon, including the one in this section

Wood discussed his intentions with VU coach Homer Drew before the last season even started, and said he had the full support of the coaching staff and his teammates.

He also said he'd likely return for his senior season should he pull out of the draft.

"At this point I'm not thinking overseas at all," he said. "That would be a last resort."

You can make a couple of trips, expenses paid and workout with pros, with good honest feedback.

Expenses _not_ paid, according to the NWI Times article.  Presumably it would violate his amateur status.

Yah, wouldn't have hurt.  But, he's talked about that game, in particular, elsewhere on the board.  And is anyway notable for following the women's game.  And the Baylor men are sitting out the post-season (also discussed on the board), while the women are one of the top teams in the country.  

So, anyway, call it an insider's comment, if you'd like.  All the cool kids got it.  

And, back to the thread, congrats Butler!  Two more games!

What would it take for Whelliston to exempt them from mid-majority coverage?  He has a list of criteria, and discussed it recently - maybe even for Butler in particular. Past exemptions have included the likes of Gonzaga, Memphis, and Xavier.

A better TV deal would be one factor.

http://blogs.post-trib.com/lazerus/2011/03/on-horizon-league-scheduling-t.html

Drew said he believes the BracketBuster -- which was wedged in to that final stretch of games -- is no longer worth screwing up the schedule so badly that late in the year. He wants out, but that will be a league decision.

"It hurt us this year because of all the games we had in that period of time," Drew said. "I think the BracketBuster was really good, and the intent was really good -- to get top mid-major college teams playing against one another and get them exposure on TV. But I think, with all the TV exposure we receive now, I don't think it's as needed as it was."

When I asked about moving the BracketBuster to November or December -- a chance to spice up a normally dull non-conference season without interrupting league play -- he was much more agreeable to the concept.

"I think that would be a very good idea," he said. "That'd be a lot better. With 10 teams in the Horizon, and as challenging and difficult as our league is, two games a week in conference is just the right amount. You don't want three or four in a week with the competition and intensity and physicality of our league."

Huh.  Looks like the AP poll didn't update this week.  The coaches' poll didn't update last week, either.  Maybe all the polls give it one more go, after the championship?

Looks like they might update the mid-major poll just once more this season, in two weeks.

But, later today we'll likely get to see Butler make their way back into the national top 25.

By the way, the Missouri Valley has now passed the Horizon in RPI.  They've had a _much_ better post-season run.  Many of their teams in the secondary, tertiary, etc. post-season tournaments are actually winning games.

Re the stuttering - here I did actually take advantage of the "every game is airing on some cable channel" feature.  I'd never heard of truTv (or whatever it's called).  But, sure enough, it's on my parents' satellite plan, and watching that over SlingBox was much higher quality than watching the stuttering MMOD live feed.   (Until my dad switched from Butler to WVA, or KY, or someone.)

Interesting to hear about the Chapel plans!

I'll be very curious to hear what they have in mind, aside from renovations/repairs like the side windows.

There's surely no shortage of worship space.  And, with the main chapel (now more or less permanently split
into a morning prayer section and a larger front section), Gloria Christi, and even the Gloria Christi sub-chapels there are plenty of options for worship space.  I suppose there might not be anything setup for, I'm not sure how to say it, how about "pop concert" style setup.  If you wanted lights, a sound system, sound board, etc. you might have to go to the VUCA. 

Or, the chapel has almost _no_ meeting space.  (Basically just the one medium-large room in the Undercroft, and a couple of offices.)  The dorms, academic buildings, and maybe now the Union have taken up the slack there.  But, perhaps they have some extra chapel-specific rooms in mind.

As noted, there is an archive - but they hardly go out of their way to advertise it.  And, it's difficult to get to it without seeing the score.

Maybe it's a French thing, but I found the site to be bandwidth limited during live games (I guess it was Butler - Old Dominion?).  Lots of starts and stops, pretty unwatchable.

The archive version was somewhat more reliable.

Yeah, if we think of it as a liberal arts building that helps quite a bit.

departments such as soc, psych, econ, and others that can't possibly be classified as humanities.

Ah, the social sciences.  I'll confess that, to this physicist, these do all sometimes feel like humanities

Admittedly, there are plenty of pscyhologists and economists who do work that feels scientific, or at least data driven.  Sociology I'm less sure of - I should probably better acquaint myself with the field, my best reference is probably Durkheim, maybe noone newer!

It was mentioned on other threads, if maybe not on this one - the CIT site already says the winner of Valpo vs. Iona will get a bye.

Cleveland State had ~1700 paid, and one writer claimed ~2500 in attendance, for their NIT victory.

Pomeroy has the Gaels at #60 overall, to Valpo's #105.  He has the next game in his computer already, picking Iona to win 74-73, winning with 56% probability.  Should be a good one!

Realtimerpi has a prediction up as well.
http://realtimerpi.com/bin/rtr/rpi/scouting?team1=281&team2=253&gender=1&home=&date=03-16
Valpo 78 - Iona 75, Valpo with a 57% chance of winning.

Will we try to outrun them?  We might be able to beat them at their own game, but it feels less certain. 

Or, can we bring back some of the tough defense we've seen at times this season?

And I notice one Vegas line.  PK.  Even bet.  Flip a coin.