Messages

This game is important for UWGB's NIT seed, so I expect a loss. We'll get them back at home though.

This is awesome! I will definitely be in line to get a jersey. Once the rink is build in Valpo I'll get season tickets for sure, but until then a weekend game or two in South Bend (quite a trek for a weeknight) will suffice.

Trying to figure out who on our team will guard their guys is a little bit of a mess. Donlon employs more line ups and odd rotation patterns than anyone I've seen. My guess for the start of the game is:

Karena<Vashil
Yoho<Alec
Hopkins<Tevonn
Thomasson<Darien
Arceneaux<EVic

Personally I'd prefer to see Hopkins guarded by EVic and let Tevonn neutralize Arceneaux's pick and pops that he's fairly good at. Hopkins seems to run the point when he's out there, and I think I'd rather EVic guard someone who isn't forcing you to run through screens on every play. In fact maybe throwing him on Thomasson might be our best option. He looks to drive to the lane more than anyone else on the team and gets to the line the most.

I keep on thinking of George Castanza's desire to be nicknamed T-bone.

So we should call him Coco?

Kind of ironic that we wondered if he would get suspended days before our game? I guess it was a few weeks after instead.
[tweet]555786514714886144[/tweet]

The #1 thing that stands out is Alec's production between wins and losses. When we lose, Alec looks like a very average player. He doesn't take as many shot and his 3s drop quite a bit. Keith is also lesser of a player, and his shots tend to trend upward when we lose. It seems as if teams force players besides Alec to take and make shots. Obviously 3 games is a small sample size, but it looks like there's a playbook on how to stop Valpo and the teams who successfully did it won.

Vashil is another player who goes from good to less than adequate. His rebounding drops (by 2 boards a game!), his minutes fall, his blocks plummet. Surprisingly his TOs are immune to wins or losses.

Skara sees a bigger roll in losses and it doesn't quite suit him. His shooting goes up, but his turnovers sky rocket.

Tevonn is fairly split proof, his numbers stay consistent, but he goes from being the #2 option to the #1 option which we don't want.

Jubril shoots more and less accurately when we lose. He becomes a top option as opposed to a supporting player when we lose, again because teams have eliminated Alec.

The other player who suffers is Darien. His turnovers drop (again small sample size) but his shooting. He takes 2 more threes per game and shoots horrifically from beyond the arc. He should probably cool it on the threes to begin with, but it seems (ala last game) he needs to get a few bad shots out of the way and heat up in the later parts of the game.

Max, Nick and Chadwick don't see enough action in losses to have comparable stats. Maybe we should play them their usual minutes in wins and we'll win every game? #superstition

[In Losses]

In Losses

Rk	Player	Pos	G	MPG	FG%	FT%	3PT%	True%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	A/TO	PPWS	eFG%	Pts40	Eff	Eff/Pos	PPG
1	Walker, Tevonn	G	3	29.0	48.0	53.8	33.3	53.7	1.7	1.3	1.0	0.0	1.0	1.1	52.0	15.2	7.3	0.1	11.0
2	Carter, Keith	G	3	34.3	32.3	0.0	23.8	40.3	3.7	3.3	1.3	0.0	1.4	0.8	40.3	9.7	6.3	0.1	8.3
3	Peters, Alec	F	3	31.7	30.0	100.0	21.4	37.2	6.0	0.3	1.3	0.0	0.1	0.7	35.0	9.7	4.7	0.1	7.7
4	Walker, Darien	G	3	23.7	25.7	50.0	11.1	29.3	2.3	1.7	0.3	0.3	5.0	0.6	28.6	11.8	2.0	0.1	7.0
5	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	3	16.7	46.2	77.8	33.3	59.0	1.0	1.7	0.0	0.0	1.3	1.2	50.0	16.0	5.0	0.2	6.7
6	Skara, David	F	3	20.3	54.5	100.0	25.0	63.1	2.7	0.7	0.3	0.3	0.3	1.3	59.1	9.8	4.3	0.1	5.0
7	Fernandez, Vashil	C	3	22.3	54.5	25.0	0.0	50.9	4.7	0.0	0.3	1.0	0.0	1.0	54.5	7.8	5.7	0.2	4.3
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	3	25.3	30.8	66.7	0.0	38.4	6.7	1.7	0.7	0.3	2.5	0.8	30.8	6.3	7.3	0.2	4.0
9	Joseph, Max	G	2	5.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	0.0	0.5	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	-0.5	0.0	0.0
10	Chadwick, David	F	1	4.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	-2.0	0.0	0.0
11	Davidson, Nick	G	1	1.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
					36.5	60.0	20.9

Rk	Player	Pos	G	Min	FGM	FGA	FTM	FTA	3FM	3FA	OReb	DReb	TReb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PF	Pts
1	Walker, Tevonn	G	3	87	12	25	7	13	2	6	2	3	5	4	3	0	4	4	33
2	Carter, Keith	G	3	103	10	31	0	0	5	21	3	8	11	10	4	0	7	9	25
3	Peters, Alec	F	3	95	9	30	2	2	3	14	4	14	18	1	4	0	7	11	23
4	Walker, Darien	G	3	71	9	35	1	2	2	18	2	5	7	5	1	1	1	4	21
5	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	3	50	6	13	7	9	1	3	1	2	3	5	0	0	4	6	20
6	Skara, David	F	3	61	6	11	2	2	1	4	2	6	8	2	1	1	7	9	15
7	Fernandez, Vashil	C	3	67	6	11	1	4	0	0	4	10	14	0	1	3	3	10	13
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	3	76	4	13	4	6	0	0	3	17	20	5	2	1	2	9	12
9	Joseph, Max	G	2	11	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	2	2	0	1	0	2	3	0
10	Chadwick, David	F	1	4	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
11	Davidson, Nick	G	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

[In wins]

In wins

Rk	Player	Pos	G	MPG	FG%	FT%	3PT%	True%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	A/TO	PPWS	eFG%	Pts40	Eff	Eff/Pos	PPG
1	Peters, Alec	F	16	26.9	54.1	83.9	51.1	69.3	6.3	1.1	0.6	0.3	0.9	1.4	65.9	30.0	19.4	0.4	20.1
2	Walker, Darien	G	16	26.8	40.1	58.3	39.1	50.6	4.4	1.9	0.8	0.3	1.1	1.0	49.0	15.9	8.8	0.2	10.6
3	Walker, Tevonn	G	16	25.9	42.5	68.9	22.2	51.6	3.3	2.1	1.2	0.2	1.3	1.0	46.3	16.0	8.8	0.2	10.4
4	Carter, Keith	G	14	27.9	55.7	57.9	51.2	66.4	4.1	3.9	1.5	0.3	2.0	1.3	66.5	14.3	13.3	0.3	10.0
5	Fernandez, Vashil	C	16	23.2	65.7	66.7	0.0	68.1	6.7	0.3	0.7	3.4	0.3	1.3	65.7	12.9	13.1	0.3	7.5
6	Skara, David	F	16	19.4	47.9	81.8	30.8	58.1	3.6	1.8	0.5	0.4	1.7	1.2	53.4	12.3	7.9	0.2	6.0
7	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	15	14.8	39.7	67.7	14.3	47.6	2.4	1.9	0.5	0.2	1.0	0.9	41.3	13.2	4.2	0.2	4.9
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	14	20.4	50.9	38.5	50.0	50.4	4.2	0.9	0.6	0.3	1.1	1.0	51.8	9.4	6.1	0.2	4.8
9	Chadwick, David	F	9	10.9	50.0	30.0	37.5	53.0	1.7	0.2	0.0	0.4	0.7	1.0	56.8	11.4	2.8	0.2	3.1
10	Davidson, Nick	G	11	7.8	38.1	100.0	42.9	59.2	0.7	0.5	0.3	0.0	1.0	1.2	52.4	13.0	2.4	0.2	2.5
11	Joseph, Max	G	14	11.6	38.1	50.0	33.3	47.9	1.4	1.1	0.5	0.1	0.9	0.9	45.2	6.4	1.9	0.1	1.9
					48.6	66.6	40.1

Rk	Player	Pos	G	Min	FGM	FGA	FTM	FTA	3FM	3FA	OReb	DReb	TReb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PF	Pts
1	Peters, Alec	F	16	430	111	205	52	62	48	94	29	72	101	17	10	5	20	28	322
2	Walker, Darien	G	16	428	61	152	21	36	27	69	11	60	71	31	12	5	27	21	170
3	Walker, Tevonn	G	16	415	57	134	42	61	10	45	18	34	52	34	19	3	26	31	166
4	Carter, Keith	G	14	391	54	97	11	19	21	41	8	50	58	55	21	4	27	28	140
5	Fernandez, Vashil	C	16	371	44	67	32	48	0	0	50	57	107	5	11	54	16	38	120
6	Skara, David	F	16	311	35	73	18	22	8	26	17	41	58	29	8	6	17	31	96
7	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	15	222	25	63	21	31	2	14	12	24	36	28	8	3	28	23	73
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	14	286	28	55	10	26	1	2	22	37	59	12	9	4	11	30	67
9	Chadwick, David	F	9	98	11	22	3	10	3	8	4	11	15	2	0	4	3	8	28
10	Davidson, Nick	G	11	86	8	21	6	6	6	14	3	5	8	6	3	0	6	3	28
11	Joseph, Max	G	14	162	8	21	7	14	3	9	5	14	19	16	7	1	17	19	26

[Overall]

Let's have some fun and take a look at some Valpo stats. Because I like numbers, and you should too! We're in the middle of a week of no games, so what better time than now? These categories are from BBState. PPWS Is points per shot, Eff is efficiency. Both are self explanatory, the higher the better.

Overall

Rk	Player	Pos	G	MPG	FG%	FT%	3PT%	True%	RPG	APG	SPG	BPG	A/TO	PPWS	eFG%	Pts40	Eff	Eff/Pos	PPG
1	Peters, Alec	F	19	27.6	51.1	84.4	47.2	65.5	6.3	0.9	0.7	0.3	0.7	1.3	61.9	26.3	17.1	0.4	18.2
2	Walker, Tevonn	G	19	26.4	43.4	66.2	23.5	51.9	3.0	2.0	1.2	0.2	1.3	1.0	47.2	15.9	8.5	0.2	10.5
3	Walker, Darien	G	19	26.3	37.4	57.9	33.3	46.9	4.1	1.9	0.7	0.3	1.3	0.9	45.2	15.3	7.7	0.2	10.1
4	Carter, Keith	G	17	29.1	50.0	57.9	41.9	60.5	4.1	3.8	1.5	0.2	1.9	1.2	60.2	13.4	12.1	0.3	9.7
5	Fernandez, Vashil	C	19	23.1	64.1	63.5	0.0	65.9	6.4	0.3	0.6	3.0	0.3	1.3	64.1	12.1	11.9	0.3	7.0
6	Skara, David	F	19	19.6	48.8	83.3	30.0	58.7	3.5	1.6	0.5	0.4	1.3	1.2	54.2	11.9	7.3	0.2	5.8
7	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	18	15.1	40.8	70.0	17.6	49.7	2.2	1.8	0.4	0.2	1.0	1.0	42.8	13.7	4.3	0.2	5.2
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	17	21.3	47.1	43.8	50.0	48.1	4.6	1.0	0.6	0.3	1.3	0.9	47.8	8.7	6.3	0.2	4.6
9	Chadwick, David	F	10	10.2	47.8	30.0	33.3	51.1	1.5	0.2	0.0	0.4	0.5	1.0	54.3	11.0	2.3	0.2	2.8
10	Davidson, Nick	G	12	7.3	38.1	100.0	42.9	59.2	0.7	0.5	0.3	0.0	1.0	1.2	52.4	12.9	2.2	0.1	2.3
11	Joseph, Max	G	16	10.8	38.1	43.8	33.3	46.4	1.3	1.0	0.5	0.1	0.8	0.9	45.2	6.0	1.6	0.1	1.6
					46.7	65.9	36.8

Rk	Player	Pos	G	Min	FGM	FGA	FTM	FTA	3FM	3FA	OReb	DReb	TReb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PF	Pts
1	Peters, Alec	F	19	525	120	235	54	64	51	108	33	86	119	18	14	5	27	39	345
2	Walker, Tevonn	G	19	502	69	159	49	74	12	51	20	37	57	38	22	3	30	35	199
3	Walker, Darien	G	19	499	70	187	22	38	29	87	13	65	78	36	13	6	28	25	191
4	Carter, Keith	G	17	494	64	128	11	19	26	62	11	58	69	65	25	4	34	37	165
5	Fernandez, Vashil	C	19	438	50	78	33	52	0	0	54	67	121	5	12	57	19	48	133
6	Skara, David	F	19	372	41	84	20	24	9	30	19	47	66	31	9	7	24	40	111
7	Nickerson, E. Victor	G	18	272	31	76	28	40	3	17	13	26	39	33	8	3	32	29	93
8	Adekoya, Jubril	F	17	362	32	68	14	32	1	2	25	54	79	17	11	5	13	39	79
9	Davidson, Nick	G	12	87	8	21	6	6	6	14	3	5	8	6	3	0	6	3	28
10	Chadwick, David	F	10	102	11	23	3	10	3	9	4	11	15	2	0	4	4	8	28
11	Joseph, Max	G	16	173	8	21	7	16	3	9	5	16	21	16	8	1	19	22	26

[How the Horizon stacks up]

How the Horizon stacks up

Rank	Team	BPI	SOS
66	Green Bay	71.0	48.0
95	Valparaiso	64.8	41.7
128	Cleveland State	59.5	52.7
154	Detroit	54.6	51.5
164	Wright State	53.3	50.1
220	Oakland	45.0	57.7
255	Youngstown St	40.9	41.5
302	Milwaukee	32.8	48.9
303	UIC	32.7	46.7

Notable teams on our schedule:
82   Murray State: 67.7
96   New Mexico   : 64.7
127   Portland: 59.6
132   E Kentucky: 58.9   
157   Missouri: 54.4   

Despite the downside of Keith (and Lexus) being unavailable I am kind of glad that Max and E.Victor are getting this "trial by fire" test that might serve both them and the team very well in the future.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but watching Max and EVic play makes me very excited for next season when Lexus comes back. We will legitimately have 4 guys who can play the point.

Our KenPom rating was at 77 after the CSU game, we went up to 82 yesterday and start today at 80. I haven't paid close attention to WSU's during this break but the score prediction has stayed at a steady 64-63 with a 52% chance of us winning. This has remained our 3rd hardest game according to chance of victory all season (@GB and @CSU being 1 and 2). If we win this I could see this boost us into the high 60s for KenPom and RPI into the mid 70s-low 80s (RPI Forecast has us at 88, RealTime has us at 90, and ESPN has us at 92).

This is why I don't like using RPI as a gauge of anything, WSU is 93 at ESPN despite having an 8-7 record. They put too much into strength of schedule and not enough into the quality of your play. If you play poorly against your tough opponents, it's just the same as if you played extremely well and still lost.

In my opinion, the worst call of the night was the missed travelling on Lee when CSU tied it up at 47.  I swear he took 5 steps through the lane before he passed the ball off to his teammate.

As for CSU, I've been saying all these things about them for 5 years now.  I'm still pissed about Kevin Van Wyck being flattened by Kamczyk at the Wolstein Center in 2012, essentially costing us the auto-bid.

Don't get that logic - we still won the regular season and played at home with a healthy Van Wijk. We just choked in the championship game second half of the championship game.

FTFY

Well, here we go.  But don't get mad at me.  (At least not for this!)

RAWR ANGER! UNABLE TO FIND PROPER DIRECTION TO EXPRESS ANGER!

But seriously, nice job. I love the pretty colors.

After having 4 games in 8 days, we get a nice week to relax, rest up, and hopefully heal some dislocated toes. After this 7 day break we get 4 games over a 9 day stretch. Then we get 5 more days off. The Horizon League: Where spacing our a schedule is non-existent. 

Wright State plays Cleveland St. on Wednesday, so we'll have a little bit of a better idea of this year's Raiders. They've beaten Detroit at home and YSU on the road while losing by 24 at Green Bay. I'd expect them to get a rightly pissed CSU so that should be a really good game.

I won't make a prediction right now because I want to see what happens in the CSU game, but this isn't going to be an easy game. When playing at Nutter the Raiders are 6-1 this season and 16-3 there last season.

We're a little over 24 hours until the next game and there's nothing up yet, so I'll take the opportunity to start one of these guys.

Gary Waters and crew come into town and I think we remember last time they were here.

Also I think I heard correctly when they said first 300 fans at the game get stocking hats? Seems like a cool giveaway but a very low amount.

if you go back and look at the monthly predictions, up to this point I had them at 16-2. Find me an unwinnable game on the schedule.

I can't find any unwinnable games but without Carter I can't find many that can not be lost. OK so you have to play the cards you are dealt and even with Keith out I would liken our situation to being dealt "kings-up" in a draw hand (good but not great). If Keith is out or badly hobbled for the rest of the month there is a fair chance that we finish January with at least 4 losses even if we play pretty well overall.

Injuries are always part of the game but getting any more could be devastating! I wonder if Bryce is out walking the VU hallways trying to scout out some potential walk-ons?

Oh I was talking about the games we've already played. I agree that we could very well struggle without Keith. I think Saturday will be very telling.

Valpo is 15-3 and 2-1 in conference.  Was there anyone out there that predicted that the team would be 15-3 at this point in the season?   

Hi, if you go back and look at the monthly predictions, up to this point I had them at 16-2. Find me an unwinnable game on the schedule.

Anyone else notice how bad Alec has played in conference play? Don't let him slide for the passing of his grandfather anymore. It's time to play.

Not sure what game you watched. In 25 minutes he put up 11 and 6 on 5 of 9 shooting. Did he miss 2 threes? Yes, but he dominated inside the paint and wasn't noticably poor on defense (or great really, he was there defensively). If you're looking for a super star performance every night, that's not Alec's game. He can take over a game when needed, but if others are getting off, he's going to let them take advantage of that.

We started the night at 86 in KenPom and moved up to 77. Getting a W never "hurts" RPI, but UIC certainly doesn't move the meter.

I love the idea of a conference challenge and I would like to see it expend to more than the one game that most conferences do. I'd love to see each school from their conference schedule 4 games against schools in our conference. You could even rotate it so you play the entire conference over a 3 year period. 4 games would allow you to split it so you have 2 home games and 2 road games. If you did a 5 year contract to do this with another 10 team league you'd have a home game against every team once the contract runs out. The scheduling makes so much sense that it will never happen.

I'd really like a match up against the CAA. I realize the WCC would be a step up in competition for us, it's just so far away from all of our schools that the travel would be reminiscent of our Mid-Con days. If the CAA isn't up for getting beat every season by us then the MAC, MVC or Ivy would be fun to play. I think I'd pick the Ivys to play first just because the legacy of those schools is outstanding and while they aren't known as basketball powerhouses, they've improved the last 4 or 5 years.

I was going to write this up and talksalot gave a great lead in for me.

If you look most of UIC's games they have shot between under 40%. Out of 351 Division 1 Teams UIC ranks 341st in 3P% and 338th in 2P%. Their effective FG% is 4th worst in the country. Their "tough" schedule includes only 4 top 100 KenPom teams and 6 teams outside of the top 225. Their "difficult" schedule is ranked 155th in the country and it's not like they played well against the tough teams. They are allowing 14.8% of their shots to be blocked, good for 341st in the country. We block 13.7% of the shots that go up against us (44th best in the country).

Here's the key to the game. Keep them off the free throw line. They hit free throws. Make they shoot 2s and 3s because they won't make them. 26.8% of their scoring comes from the free throw line.

Vashil I have one thought for you.

Man you guys are showing your age Both of those places are closed!

Ok, I need a little help.  Where is this East Side of Chicago?

I found a map of it: [
img width=695 height=900]https://climateillinois.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/michigan-basin-map-crop.jpg[/img]

Swimming with the fishes?

I totally screwed up the picture insert, but I've fixed it now!

My wife has taken to calling fouls even if it's on us. I have to remind her that we're rooting for Valpo and if the refs called fouls on us it wouldn't be good. She just wants fair calls on both sides.

Ok, I need a little help.  Where is this East Side of Chicago?

I found a map of it: