We've got absolutely nothing to lose , maybe we come out hot again and keep it close for awhile. They've thumped us both times, but who knows. We keep it close until the midway point of the second half. Line has moved in Valpo's favor from +12 to +10.5!
Unusual things happening at the MVC tournament. Other than the Illinois State vs. Indiana State game last night. Valpo won pretty easily last night. Both games today have been lopsided. UNI was really never threatened by Illinois State earlier today and so far, Loyola is dominating Bradley. In past years when I have been at Arch Madness, most of the quarter-final games have been tight down to the end. Not sure if you can apply the law of averages here, but maybe that bodes well for our game tonight to be close, since most have not so far. Will Missouri State be able to blow us out by almost 20 points for a third time this year? Let's hope not.
Maybe us having a game under our belts and used to the rims will help us.
Our defense on Mosley will determine the game.
Wow! Clay said something to Lottich after he made that 3 by the Valpo bench.
Man, Missouri State is quick. Apparently we also used up all of our 3 pointers yesterday.
Clay is a little p-a$$ b!tch. Someone needs to put him on the floor, with all of his glares after each basket.
I'll take down 7 at the half. We need to Sheldon to step up and have a monster 2nd half. Also, we should probably guard Clay better...
Clay can talk all the trash he wants, and he is shooting outside of his capability today, but he has no room to talk trash to Lottich. If you compare Lottich as a player versus Clay, he is just the little p-a$$ b!tch he is overall.
Mo. State just looks like a better team all around. Better players, better coached. We will have to play over our heads not to be blown out in the second half.
I think we may have given them our best effort to get down to 4. They quickly got it back to 11. They have to go very cold for us to have a chance.
Clay is being a classless punk but he's a kid, I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at the coach who has allowed this program to become this bad, and a school who is too cheap to buy him out.
Kobe with this hands up wide open on the right side constantly.
we are taking some good shots they're just not falling at all and Mosley is so good
Exactly. We've had a bunch of wide open misses. MoSt is making most of their wide open shots, even a BS bank 3.
This was a season of missed opportunities.
Good lord. We are the least clutch team in the league. Kevion misses a layup, Sheldon coughs it up in the lane, and Krikke misses a gimme put back. Story of the season.
Let the transfers begin.
See you next year.
Beacons extinguished but not blown out. At least we didn't finish last.
Sad that not finishing last seems to be the best we can aspire to anymore.
Good luck to Kevion in Europe. Thanks for coming to Valpo. You showed that you are a solid D-1 player.
Eron, thanks for sticking with the program through the last couple of seasons, even though this season was not what you planned.
Trevor, what could have been, but you were solid in the games that you played at Valpo.
Hopefully Kithier and King play another season, as we can build off each of them.
To the 1/2 to 2/3 of the rest of the team that transfers, I wish you luck wherever you land.
Five years of mediocrity (74-87 overall record and an average of 7th place in the MVC), and next year the conference will be tougher with Murray State and Belmont on the schedule. Unacceptable.
6 quick takes from the game/season
1. What else can you say about Thomas kithier, who's still not at 100% percent. He flashed his crafty scoring ability and gave a nice post option that had been sorely missing the back half of the season. Also his rebounding and post defense showed up in a big way tonight.
2. Once again Valpo had the chance to make it more interesting, as they hung in there and battled back to 6 points, but in the end they showed their inability to be clutch in the closing minutes where every possession matters. Krikke's missed put back was the game and a 5 point swing.
3. Preston Rudinger reminds me of a Kyle Guy type player. Plays under control plays good defense and doesn't try to force things. Wait until he develops as a consistent scoring threat from the outside and tear drop in the lane. Curious why he didn't play the last 10 minutes of the game.
4. Kavion Taylor was a pleasure to watch. The guy loves to play and improved on taking it to the basket the back half of the season. He didn't mail it in. He will make some money in Europe.
5. Krikke needs to hit the weight room, conditioning and work on lateral quickness on defense.
6. The development of Kobe King, Keondre Young and Sheldon will be interesting next year.
What is there to say other than this was a disappointing season filled with what-could-have been.
Hopefully Lottich can convince everyone to stick around. We might have a fighting chance next year if that happens.
A big shout out to Todd for another great season broadcasting Valpo basketball. He's one of the main reasons I keep tuning in on game day. Hopefully PO can become the permanent color commentator, they make a terrific team.
Hopefully Lottich isn't around to convince anyone to stick around. We need a change ASAP, and needed it like 1-2 years ago
If the whole team came back next season, we would still finish in the bottom third. We just don't have the talent. We started bad and ended bad this season. We have no studs or future studs. I wouldn't be surprised to see Preston transfer. He's going to be good, this team isn't. I think players leave because this coach can't win. I'm not hating, I'm just observing. Trevor Anderson sucked. We have season tickets and when I would bring friends I would describe Trevor like "he's like Grayson Allen but can't shoot drive or pass". Our best player was Sheldon Edwards, and he will be gone. Truth be told, if the people on this board were on the team, we would want to transfer too. It feels like we're in a house that's burning. Until we get a new couch, it's a total loss.
I don't know what you were watching, but Trevor was a top notch PG. He brought a scoring aspect that Preston and Darius do not, had a solid Assist/Turnover rate, didn't foul, and could body up on the defenders without losing his composure.
I'd be willing to bet if Trevor would have went down in the first exhibition loss, our end of the season record would have been with in 2 losses +/-. Not an impact player at all.
Quote from: truth219 on March 04, 2022, 10:19:04 PMI'd be willing to bet if Trevor would have went down in the first exhibition loss, our end of the season record would have been with in 2 losses +/-. Not an impact player at all.
The roster has no impact players that we saw play this season. Anderson is a role player who was the best point guard on a roster without any other options to speak of.
The rest of the roster - Kithier who was a grunt guy which teams need I guess. Edwards wants to be an impact player but isn't...at least in the direction Valpo needs as he probably played them out of as many games as be played them into. King I"m not sure he wants to be an impact player. Krikke who can score but I'm not sure his defensive abilities don't take every point he scores away from him. Taylor was effect but he's now gone. The bench including Ruedinger was pedestrian at best.
Everyone's worried about transfers. The question is why. There's likely just as good a chance that the transfers in will improve the situation as the chance that the tranfsers in are worse than this crew.
So what's the best case for next year? Krikke, Kithier, and King come back. Edwards comes back. Maximus comes in and contributes as a freshman big. Ruedinger gets a scholarship, but is he the answer at point? I see his ceiling as Trever Anderson when he's a senior. Does that get us to upper tier MVC with Belmont & Murray State coming in? I don't see it. None of our freshman showed the kind of ability that gets us there. I know, we had a couple of guys redshirt, but who knows what their ability level is compared to the MVC talent level at the top tier of the conference. We have some nice role player type players and no doubt they are great kids, but we don't have one let alone two of the type of player talent we need to compete for MVC championships. Without that level player we are settling for mid conference level finishes at best. Maybe we just got lucky with Bryce and Barton and Grafs and Rowdy and Peters. Maybe it was just a fluke and our recruiting is just returning to the norm for a little private school with below average facilities and above average entrance requirements. But if we don't figure out how to hit a couple of home runs in our recruiting and KEEP THEM FROM TRANSFERRING we will be reduced to being just another school that fills in the lower level of a good mid major conference. That will not keep me interested.
Speaking of transfers, I caught a couple minutes of the DePaul win over Marquette the other day. In the few minutes I watched, JFL had three turnovers and missed three shots including two airballs where he went one on five while his teammates stood around with their thumbs up their asses. But I'm sure he will have a great career in the NBA, something I care zero about.
So either we have good talent or Matt is a great coach. It can't be both. We took Loyola to overtime at their place and beat Northern Iowa. Sure the season sucked but the whole injury/high number of transfers in and out clearly made jelling as a team very hard.
As for next year with Tom, Kobe and Ben back and presuming that they are and stay healthy, we have the core of a competitive team. Preston and Darius clearly showed that being a freshman playing big minutes in the Valley is pretty hard. As for the rest of the team, Max is a big who can really stretch the floor as he is more of a perimeter player than a banger. Remember the hype around Slim. The kid is 6'8" and can shoot and rebound and Cam is another big guard at 6'5". The mystery about Connor continues and Trey is a really good shooter who can't get a shot off. ???
I would thing the staff will be out scouring the transfer portal for a grad transfer who can rebound. I think we have one open slot pending transfers. Hope springs eternal. ::)
72 - you bring good stuff to the table. However, this program is certainly not meeting expectations and won't for at least a year. This team needs an enema and Valpo is not ready to perform this.
Quote from: vu72 on March 05, 2022, 09:47:08 AM
So either we have good talent or Matt is a great coach. It can't be both.
Wrong. Even if he was a good Xs and Os coach, occasionally able to over accomplish with bad talent, he's still the one recruiting bad talent. College coaching has that extra element where you have to be good on the whiteboard AND recruiting to be a good coach in the long term.
My opinion without being able to see into the program is that he is a bad Xs and Os coach with bad team management skills, who is somehow able to convince some good talent to come play for him. We don't have as much length and athleticism as MSU, but I also think they might be the most athletic team in the MVC. I don't think we lack talent, I think our talent is just too stacked at one position. Kobe and Sheldon are very athletic, our problem is we don't have athletic and agile bigs. Get abused on defense inside and on the boards. Just looked at Loyola. They have some athleticism, for sure. But let's not pretend they are Duke. Their starting point guard Norris single handedly beat us at 6'0 180. There are more athletic people on high school bowling teams.
Quote from: vu72 on March 05, 2022, 09:47:08 AMI think we have one open slot pending transfers. Hope springs eternal.
Unless there is a transfer, there are no open slots. Preston gets the remaining scholarship.
Quote from: nkvu on March 05, 2022, 12:38:48 AM
Speaking of transfers, I caught a couple minutes of the DePaul win over Marquette the other day. In the few minutes I watched, JFL had three turnovers and missed three shots including two airballs where he went one on five while his teammates stood around with their thumbs up their asses. But I'm sure he will have a great career in the NBA, something I care zero about.
Not sure that this is really related to the topic listed, but your comment about JFL in the DePaul - Marquette game is flawed by a small sample. JFL was strong for much of the game and was being guarded by last year's Big Ten defensive player of the year.
Quote from: vu84v2 on March 05, 2022, 02:06:07 PM
Quote from: nkvu on March 05, 2022, 12:38:48 AM
Speaking of transfers, I caught a couple minutes of the DePaul win over Marquette the other day. In the few minutes I watched, JFL had three turnovers and missed three shots including two airballs where he went one on five while his teammates stood around with their thumbs up their asses. But I'm sure he will have a great career in the NBA, something I care zero about.
Not sure that this is really related to the topic listed, but your comment about JFL in the DePaul - Marquette game is flawed by a small sample. JFL was strong for much of the game and was being guarded by last year's Big Ten defensive player of the year.
You're right. It was a small sample, and DePaul did win easily. Given the high percentage of his teams shots that he takes I'm sure he hit plenty of them. It just struck me in the moment, that's all.
For DePaul, what a difference a new AD and coach makes!
Umm, or it could be that JFL is back for the team, leading to wins again. He was out for 1 month during the conference season.
Quote from: valpotx on March 05, 2022, 04:03:59 PM
Umm, or it could be that JFL is back for the team, leading to wins again. He was out for 1 month during the conference season.
Yeah. They're a bit better this year but the main difference in their conference record is nearly directly aligned with JFLs availability this season over the end of last season.