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Travel, in today's college athletic scene, is just part of the deal.  Think of Butler traveling to Georgetown, in all sports.  Closer to home, think of Valpo in the Mid-Con, traveling to Utah, Louisiana and Tulsa. It has to be more than travel.  Belmont would be a great fit and the upward move in conferences and potential NCAA pay days will make the difference I would think.

Also think of the Big East and how much more money they bring in from TV/NCAA revenue. That's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

One of the reasons we got OUT of the Mid-Con was to eliminate a whole bunch of travel. It was a huge deal - we were spending a fortune on plane tickets and kids were missing far too many classes. Belmont would be a great fit...if they were 500 miles north of where they are. I do believe that one day we will look at them, but if the HL is adding just one school at present, Belmont shouldn't be the one. They should be looked at only if they can be paired with another school that sits to the south of the current HL footprint.

Belmont would be a tough sell for any athletic department to its president/chancellor/whoever makes that final decision. It is a 5 hour trip by bus from Nashville to Dayton (with Wright State being the closest school). To ask Belmont's student-athletes (and remember, we're talking about ALL sports here, not just basketball) to make a five-hour minimum drive every road trip, and each HL school would have a new "longest" trip, with the exception of maybe Green Bay. The travel budgets for many teams would increase significantly...and money is tight right now. For example...teams that usually travel home right after a Saturday night game may have to stay another night, simply because their bus driver can not legally be on the road long enough to get them home. That's not cheap.

The HL should be looking within - or very close to - the current league footprint for team #10. If further expansion were occur, then it would be a far stronger argument to look outside the league footprint, as long as you were adding two teams in the same general area who could be travel partners.

Using the Northern Kentucky idea...
Milwaukee/Green Bay
UIC/Valpo
NKU/WSU
Oakland/Detroit
CSU/YSU

That's very nice for travel, and it would get basketball schedules (especially the women) back to a "normal" routine. Thursday-Saturday in normal weeks, Friday-Sunday when TV requires. This is better for the teams, the coaches, the players, and most of all, the academics.

I hope he stays like everyone else wants, but if he leaves I would lose a lot of respect for the guy.

Why would you lose respect for him? He would have spent time here and built the program back up to what it is today. There's a reason that coaching contracts have buyouts for both sides. Would you also lose respect for an AD who fires a coach who isn't performing? Or should he stick with someone who can't win games because there are years left on a contract?

Valpo pride and affiliation aside, I know that at some point Bryce is going to move on. That could happen this week, or it could happen in five years. When he does, I trust that he will have thought long and hard about the decision and that he will be making the one that he feels is appropriate at that time. If he looks at DePaul and sees a place where he can build something from the ground up (much like Scott did), in addition to having a brand new arena on the way, and chooses to make that move, then we should all be happy that he is doing something that he feels strongly about. Who are we to tell him where he belongs?

I also trust that Bryce will not leave the Valpo program in a tough spot. While it wouldn't completely surprise me if a couple of players left (or even followed him), I believe that he would encourage every player on the team to stay and try to keep the program pointing in the right direction.


There's no way for me to know what Bryce's thoughts or motivations are. But, God has a plan for each of us, and if that plan is for Bryce to move away from Valpo to build not only a new program, but his own growing family elsewhere, then we should all feel blessed that we got to call him our coach as long as we have.

Tyndall is out at Tennessee officially. Texas may be open as well. I think Marshall (Wichita State) would jump at Texas, leaving WSU open. That job would draw a ton of interest from coaches of smaller schools.

Since we are on the topic of coaching changes all around here, I will throw out that Alabama is expecting to make a strong push for Gregg Marshall from Wichita State.

The school is prepared to offer $3 million as a starting offer, plus discuss facility upgrades that an incoming coach would like to see happen. Nick Saban is also expected to be part of the pitch. One other perk the school may have is that the school owns the multi-million dollar home that Saban lives in, free of charge (he doesn't pay any maintenance charges either, according to reports). It was built to Saban's liking by the school, funded by boosters. That would be one hell of a perk for any incoming coach...."Here's your new house, just the way you wanted it. And, its free as long as you're the coach...or as long as you do a great job and we are happy with you when you retire."

That would leave Wichita State open...which would be an extremely intriguing position on a national level.

Quote from: valpotx on March 21, 2015, 11:43:01 PM
Does the NCAA make apologies for such a blatantly missed call on a last second shot, or do they just ignore it like it didn't happen?  Also, that SI article mentions an interesting point about Dorsey being a Big 10 referee for several games.  He was the ref standing just a few feet away from Ram's foul on Keith, and swallowed his whistle...



I'm okay with ref's not calling every bit of body contact at the end, but you can't foul a shooter like that. In real time I didn't think it was a foul (clearly it was). There were missed calls on both ends, but we should have been on the line at the end. TBH, I doubt he hits all three, but you never know.

Dorsey is also the official who had the block call and the charge call on Alec. I have yet to watch the TV broadcast of the game, but neither seemed right in person. Especially the fact that he gave Wells shots on the first one. Wells had thrown the ball 20 feet into the air well before he hit Alec it seemed.

But again...we had many chances to not be in that position, so anywhere we look has to start with the mirror.

The call on Skara was questionable, but its ALWAYS called. The non-call on Keith is not. It was a foul.

As far as the technical, it appeared he said something to Skara on the floor and stood over him. I wish more officials would call this, to be honest.

That said, I don't think anyone here is blaming the officiating. We had a chance and didn't execute.

There were two possessions in particular...both of which we were down one. On the first, Darien took a terrible three and got yanked, on the second, we didn't block out and Wells got the and-one.

Those were the key points, to me.


[Photos by Kirk Irwin/Getty Images]

There is also a young lady from iowa (can't recall her name) who was the player of the year in her class. I believe her school is in the second biggest class.

It's been a long time since I've posted, but since I live in the Columbus area, I'd be happy to answer any questions or provide suggestions for any fellow Crusaders fans that may be travelling here for the game.

How many couches do you own?    (Kidding, of course...I'll be traveling down on Friday morning)

Well, here we go...

Tip time will be approximately 4:45 Eastern time.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/eye-on-college-basketball/25109286/ncaa-tourney-tip-times-and-announcing-teams

OK, these are the numbers before today's games. I don't think there would have been a ton of change, perhaps only to the teams who played.

There's a lot of info on here, so take your time.

RPI = RPI Rank (all teams, not just NCAA teams)
RPI Seed = Where teams would be seeded if tournament was based only on RPI
Actual Seed = Team's actual seed
Seed List = The Committee's final seed list
List Seed = Where the team would be seeded if the teams were perfectly bracketed by the list (which this year they were...the actual seeds are exact)

If the tournament had been seeded straight by RPI, we would have been an 11. Us and Wofford would have gone straight into a game against a 6 seed, while UCLA, OK State, Iowa and St. Johns would be in the First Four


(click to embiggen)

I think the real question here is how can a number 8 team become a 4 seed? 

Because the polls are the opinions of coaches that don't watch all the games and sportswriters that don't either.

Hoops.  Would love to see a table showing seeding versus RPI.

I have the table ready. Just need the NCAA's new RPI numbers following today's games. Will update either tonight or tomorrow, depending on when they are posted.

So if we are the top 13 seed (as Bracketmatrix predicted) then why are we playing arguably the best 4 seed?

Geography. The committee principles state that it should be the first concern.

And, before someone roasts the committee for that decision, its the schools (AD's, presidents, coaches) who decide what the committee should be using.

Yes, they might move up past us but if they start doing that we may also move up past a coupe of teams with very similar RPIs but from conferences much worse than the Horizon, namely the Southern and Southland--Wofford and SFA.  Still should be a 12

I do think we have a chance to jump Wofford. I don't know that we can jump SFA though...the RPI gap is significant. Honestly, I think who goes where among about 6 teams is really down to geography.

I will be curious to see the NCAA Seed List when all is said and done to see where we ranked before they built the bracket.

Ron Hunter coaching against his son in the final.  Dad wins, but is injured in the celebration - helped off the floor!

Ron Hunter coaches his son. Does not coach against him.

Currently sitting above 17 teams that have already clinched in RPI. Sun Belt should provide an 18th, and UCONN could possibly be a 19th. If we are ahead of 18 teams on the final seed list, we would be a 12 if the bracket slotted in perfectly.

I still think Wyoming goes above us, and UCONN would as well with a win. Still thinking 13...but I hope I'm wrong.

Last update for the evening. Apparently, its nice out and the idiot golfers want to remember how terrible they are at the game, so someone has to be there to get them range balls...

I will update tomorrow with fresh RPI numbers. The more I look at these and other numbers, the more I'm convinced that we will be a 13 seed.

Update following MAC title game.

Root for Sam Houston State and Montana tonight.

Hoops, I understand and agree that we won't really know till tomorrow.  The committee might be faced with a similar situation should SFA win tonight.  Let me explain:  Wyoming has an RPI of 80 versus our 51.  A difference of 29.  As you point out however, they play is a better conference--not WAY better but better.  In the same way, if SFA wins, their RPI will be about 35 versus our 51, a difference of only 16, and, we play in a WAY better conference.  They may have some issues...

Exactly. Wyoming will probably end up moving up 10 spots or so in the RPI tonight...I'm basing solely on opinion that I think they will fall ahead of us...SFA will be close as well. I really think in the 12/13 area, its going to come down to geography quite a bit (especially given those three teams being from vastly different areas of the country). And, undoubtedly, there will be a 12 seed who plays a 5 seed they don't match up with well, while at the same time there is a 13 that really likes who they get.

What I was considering is whether Wyoming's win might perhaps affect the play-in seeds in a way detrimental to us.  I'd been assuming a single 12-12 play-off game, leaving three 12 seeds open to bottom-filler automatic qualifiers.  Perhaps Wyoming could push a second pair of at-large teams to another 12-12 playoff, leaving just two 12 seeds for AQ's.

This is one of the biggest areas that it seems many folks don't understand.

There are a finite number of spots in the tournament...and every "auto bid only" team fills the bottom of that list. A team stealing a bid DOESN'T knock teams down the seed list, it knocks a bubble team off of it.

Because of where we are, we count UP from the bottom trying to figure out our seed, rather than a team like Duke who counts down from the top. All Wyoming did is add another team to that mix and knock a bubble team to the NIT. For our purposes, just forget about the at large teams and where they get seeded...we just need to fall ahead of as many as possible.

Automatic bid teams can not be placed into the play-in games unless they are the bottom four teams. The "Last Four In" are placed in Dayton, usually as 11-13 seeds, wherever they fall in the bracket.

We will not be playing in Dayton.

Wyoming Wins!!!  You have GOT to love those brown and gold unis!!!  Inching closer to a for sure 12!!

Wyoming will be a very interesting case. A champion from a larger conference. The MWC is the #11 league, while the HL is #16.

Valpo: 3-1 vs. Top 100 (three games vs. Green Bay, Murray State)
Wyoming: 5-3 vs. Top 100, and all of those games are against teams in the top 42.

I have to think Wyoming will be higher than Valpo on the Seed List...unfortunately, I don't think this one helps us.

Well, up to this point you have based everything on RPI.  Ours is lower.

That's why I keep saying "if the Seed List was based strictly on RPI". If it was, we are certainly ahead of them, but I think they will get slotted higher than us.

I just chose to use RPI as my metric of choice because it's readily available, and rather than guess, I just sort by the numbers.

Wyoming Wins!!!  You have GOT to love those brown and gold unis!!!  Inching closer to a for sure 12!!

Wyoming will be a very interesting case. A champion from a larger conference. The MWC is the #11 league, while the HL is #16.

Valpo: 3-1 vs. Top 100 (three games vs. Green Bay, Murray State)
Wyoming: 5-3 vs. Top 100, and all of those games are against teams in the top 42.

I have to think Wyoming will be higher than Valpo on the Seed List...unfortunately, I don't think this one helps us.

Update following the Ivy final. Still looking like we will be straddling the 12/13 line. If the seed list was based strictly on RPI, we would need to "beat" 18 teams to be a 12, and right now, we are ahead of 13 teams that have clinched, with a couple more to fall in behind as well.