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Valpo Nuggets? Can I get those at Beef Mart with my Valpo Wings?

I think someone needs to remind Kampe that Al Davis didn't own THAT Oakland.

I'm hoping we win easily and this is a game where Max Joseph can see some run at PG. I'd like to see what he can do with Keith out. I think we start E. to run the point though. I really liked the way he played in the second half against YSU.

Nice story on Alec:

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150105/SPORTS/150109692/?Start=1

Alec Peters building a top-drawer resume at Valparaiso

http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150105/SPORTS/150109692/?Start=1

Guys did you see the story in the Peoria Journal Star on Alec?

Ugh I remember his story when he was released by Texas. Really talented player, but the kind of guy who should probably be playing cell yard ball, not appearing on a Horizon League court.

I'm not going to dispute the fact that the refs weren't great, they really weren't, but I want to point out to those who think Felder drew an inordinate amount of fouls from us, he draws an average of 5.9 Fouls/40 which is second in the league. Get ready to be mad at how many FTs Jay Harris gets Thursday.

Ugliest 15 point win ever? Quite possibly.

I constantly forget how goofy Hain looks in person but he is a load to handle and has some really good back to the basket skills. If only they had some complementary players around him, maybe a 6' guard who can create his own shots, scores about 21 points a game, dishes out around 4 assists and gets 2 steals on the defensive side. If he could be a solid rebounder for his size, say 3-4 boards per game, and could get to the free throw line, then I think this team would be competitive. (What I'm trying to say is I miss watching Kendrick Perry play because he was my favorite guard in the league)

Yeah while I probably have the most reasoned thoughts pregame, I will completely disagree with Petros as the best center in the league. That title belongs to Bobby Hain right now.

Oh and ESPN3 on my 4g phone worked perfectly fine while I had drinks at Franklin House. Not sure the complaint there.

To every one wishing for MVC refs please go to their forums and read comments after a loss. There aren't great CBB refs in the mid-majors.

That said outstanding game from Keith and I give this team a shitload of credit for the comeback and forcing it to overtime. They were clearly out of gas in OT and the loss was disappointing. But in a building we've lost in even as a tournament team, we've shown resiliency and heart. I still like this team to finish 2nd in the league

What's that say about the HL when the second fastest-paced team still averages only ~66 possessions per game.

I think it comes down to Oakland's 3 pt shooting. Valpo will score points, and if Vashil plays smart, Petros will have his hands full. If Oakland hits from outside, it'll be an 80-77 shootout. If they don't, Valpo by 15.

They are actually 3rd behind Detroit (48th in the country) and YSU (97th). They are ranked 147th and we are 256th (2nd slowest in conference).

I hope we get out on their shooters. We are ranked 236th in the country in 3P FG% allowed.

[Ranked:]

So we know who Oakland's main guys are right? Well let's take a look at what KenPom says.

Ranked: 199/351

What they do well: Offensive Effenciency: 106.1 (51st)
They don't really turn the ball over, they shoot a solid percentage, they got a lot of assists per field goal, and they make threes. That leads to an efficient offense, the best in the league.

What they don't do well: Prevent teams from _____
Seriously fill in the blank and teams do it well against them. Their effective FG% is ranked 332nd, turnovers is ranked 340th, blocked shot % is 340th, 3P% is 321st, 2P% is 321st, steal % is 281st. Hell teams shoot better from the FT line against them. Needless to say, their strength of schedule is 13th hardest in the country so some of these number might be skewed by the quality of opponent.

Who they have:
Kahlil Felder is their go-to-guy this season and if that shocks you then let me tell you bet you who Valpo's is. Felder plays 95.4% of the minutes available to him which is good for 4th highest in the country. When he's on the court (when isn't he?) he takes 25.5% of the teams shots. He's going to take 8 shots, 4 of them will be threes and he'll hit a Jordan Aaron-esque percentage. He's not the dead-eye that Bader was, but we still need to get a hand in his face. He also gets to the line, and he drains them when he gets them. Vashil be aware, he will try to draw you in, he will float it over your outstretched arms and you will foul him. Don't do this, stand there and take the charge.

Petros is their #2 guy obviously. He plays slightly less Felder (90.4%, 30th in the nation, 2nd in conference) and like him or not he's efficient. He has an offensive rating of 108.5. He shoots 59.2% from the field and he gobbles up 10% of the potential ORebounds that are available. His effective FG% is the same as his FG% which means he doesn't shoot 3s. Do not defend him if he's behind the arc. I repeat Vashil, do not go out and chase him, he is of no threat to you there.

So who replaced Bader?
The simple answer is to look at Felder, but it's not him. It's actually two guys. Dante Williams is outstanding inside the arc (55.3% from 2) and simply average from beyond the arc (35.5%) but that gives him an eFG% of 53.9 which is solid. He doesn't get rebounds or assists and has a lower TORate. Sounds like Bader huh? Well wait til you see Max Hooper's line. The kid who sounds like he belongs in Hoosiers has shot 2/4 from 2 point field goals this year, yet averages 6 PPG. How? Because he's taken 72 threes. I really wish KenPom broke it down to see how has the highest percentage of field goals from 3, but Max has to be the top person in the nation. I see these guys being guarded by Walkers and Skara all night, so hopefully they are ready to hound them at the 3 point line.

Do they have an X Factor?
Tommy McCrune is the third best player and the guy Alec will be guarding. He has more an inside game and he's an athletic tweener. He shoots a good percentage (54.5 eFG) and gets to the line (just over 5 FT/G) but he doesn't hit them too well (67.2%). His FT% seems like an aberration as he hit 82.4% last year  He had a big game against W. Michigan earlier this season and against us last year he had a solid 15 minutes of play with 8 points. I'd look for Kampe to use him to try to tire Alec out on the defensive end so that he's less effective when VU has the ball.

Bench? Sit on it.
Jalen Hayes and Femi Olujobi take their minutes when McCrune and Hooper sit. Hayes will take 2-3 shots while Olujobi eats minutes and turns the ball over (his TORate is about the same as Moussa's last season). These guys will get about 10-15 MPG. Ralph Hill has also seen action in every game and only gotten ~10 MPG. They seem to use a 7 man rotation occasionally sprinkling Hill in similarly to Max Joseph for us.

Key Match Ups
This is a battle of the Horizon League's best offense vs. the 2nd best defense. Unfortunately for them we also get to play offense and while the 3rd best offense is on the court, the league's worst defense is out there.  Does this mean high scoring? Hah, nope because while they have the 2nd fastest tempo in the league it still means there will be around 65-66 possessions and neither team is going to be running up and down the court. This won't be the slog that our game vs. Cleveland State looks to be (good god they are a slow paced team) but I see the score staying in the 70s.

Prediction: I said 79-77 earlier and I think I'll stick to that. Valpo squeaks one out as we have a 5 point lead with a minute to go and we hit FTs to keep it a 2 point lead with their barrage (and occasional  makes) of 3s.

I just need to win the lottery since I've already got an agreement with my wife to donate $10mil to the university for the construction of the new Athletics and Recreation Center (I would stipulate that the building still be called the ARC and the floor be named for Homer Drew). The wife would want to include a natatorium to the building and have it named after her so it's the most difficult center for swimming to pronounce ever.

[Year]

Guys, I hate to break it to you but this isn't going to be an easy game. I've said that before, but this time it's legitimately going to be a tough game. We have never gone to Oakland and won "easily" even when we had a tournament team.

In our last 10 games against Oakland we are 4-6 and 2 of those wins were on the road. One game was decided by double digits, January 2, 2006, a 31 point win at home for us (it should be noted we lost the rematch later that season at the O'rena 95-89). The average margin for the rest of the 9 games is 4 points. In 2012-13, our best year in recent history, we lost at the O'Rena to a team that finished 10-6 in a very bad Summit League and later went on to lost to YSU (7-9 in conference play that season) in the first round of the CIT.

I wouldn't be shocked if we lose this game, but I think we come out with a single digit victory and later in the season we say "How did we only win by 5 points". I say 79-77 Valpo.

Year	Day	Location	Result	Valpo	Oakland	Pt Dif
2014	Sun, Feb 9	Home	W	63	60	3
2014	Sat, Jan 4	Away	L	70	75	5
2013	Mon, Dec 17	Away	L	68	70	2
2012	Sat, Dec 17	Home	L	80	82	2
2011	Tue, Dec 21	Away	W	103	102	1
2007	Thu, Jan 11	Home	L	76	81	5
2007	Sat, Feb 10	Away	L	61	64	3
2006	Mon, Jan 2	Home	W	95	64	31
2006	Thu, Jan 26	Away	L	89	95	6
2005	Mon, Jan 10	Away	W	87	78	9

If we're looking at a Dougie McBuckets-esque player I really hope he takes the Frosh to Soph jump Doug did.

If Alec makes the jump here's what we're in store for. I think you'll like what I've found.

32.5 MPG 26.4
20.7 PPG 19.0
58.5% FG% 53.5
82.1% FT% 83.7
44.0% 3P% 50.6 !!!
2.0 3PM/G, 3.3 FTM/G 2.9 and 2.7
5.9 RPG 5.9
1.3 ORPG 1.5
1.3 APG 0.9
1.9 Fouls/G 1.9
4 Blocks (not per game total) 5 thru 15 games!
26 Steals 12 (right on pace)

Yeah, if he avoids the early conference slump he had last year and has the same late season push then he should be able to match the Doug-jump!

The Ill St. game was in the Virgin Islands. It'd be a long trip from Washington, IL to get there.

It's not like Old Dominion is that far ahead of us in the rankings. They are #50 in KenPom and we're #77. If we had won the Missouri game we'd be ahead of them for sure and possibly ahead of Green Bay at #42. Would have, could have, should have. Right now our schedule is lacking the key top 25 game they have, otherwise it's pretty similar. Trade Arkansas Pine Bluff for a San Diego St, SMU, George Washington or Butler and we've got practically the same SOS.

Now let's take a look at the scheduling for the conference.

There were 18 non D-1 home games in the conference. I can accept that as part of the scheduling, it's normal to get some non D-1s on your schedule, even the power 5 do it. We didn't lose any of these games which is acceptable. Any loss would be devastating for our conference's reputation. You don't lose at home to an inferior opponent.

There were 18 Neutral court games in the conference. That's pretty nice to get that many tourney/showcase invites for the conference. The average opponent in these games were 215. That kind of sucks since you usually expect a higher class of opponent in those games. We went 12-6 in these games with an average win of 232.8. The best win was Valpo's defeat of #104 Murray St

We were able to schedule 35 home games in the conference (~4 per team). That's rough. You expect to have to get a lower opponent to come to your court to play you and that's exactly what happened. An average of 202.5 ranked teams came to play in home buildings. Our best win was Green Bay's victory over #68 Georgia St. We went 19-16 at home with an average win of 238.5.

There were 3 losses at home I could count as inexcusable losses. As a conference we shouldn't lose to teams ranked over 275. UIC lost to #285 Grand Canyon, Milwaukee lost to #312, and Youngstown St. lost to #329 Kennesaw St. That hurts us as a conference.

There were no real "shocking" wins at home. If Milwaukee pulled off an upset vs. #4 Wisconsin that would have counted. Instead they got their doors blown off 93-54. Detroit also played #13 Wichita St and lost, this was a return game from the BracketBusters game two years ago when Detroit was a returning tournament team.

We had to go out and play 54 games on the road this season. Usually you'd like to see more home games than road games, but right now we're at the point that teams don't want to come to our stadium for fear of either losing to what they see as a low quality opponent or hurting RPI by beating a lower level opponent. The average road opponent was ranked 121.1. As is often the case when you go on the road we struggled with a 14-40 record. The average victory was over an opponent ranked 180.7 with our best road win coming in Green Bay's victory over #78 Miami.

While going out on the road is difficult, you really shouldn't lose to any team ranked higher than 275. Again we lost 3 games to this caliber of opponent; Detroit vs. #275 UCF, Milwaukee vs #292 SIU-Edwardsville, and Cleveland St vs. #324 Savannah St.

Here's a breakdown against the different caliber of opponent

1-50	0-14
51-100	5-14
101-125	5-9
125-150	3-7
151-200	3-2
201-225	4-7
226-250	6-2
251-275	4-3
275+	15-5
Non D-1	18-0
D1 Record	45-62

Analysis: Until that 251+ record is undefeated our conference is going to be in the middling teens for RPI and our conference champion will either have to have an Oakland-like schedule and go 10-4, or run the table in conference play with a schedule like ours to ever see a seed higher than 10. Even then we should probably have 45% of our schedule in the 101-200 range not the 28% we have right now.

[#42 Green Bay (10-3)]

There's 3 more D1 non-con games left, but since our non-con is done let's break down the rest of the league's schedule. I'll be using KenPom's rankings for this because I like them best (obviously)

#42 Green Bay (10-3)
Average Opponent: 158
Average Win: 169
Average Loss: 67 (4, 68 and 129)
Best Win: #68 Georgia State (Home)
Worst Lost: #129 UC Irvine (Neutral/Las Vegas)
Remaining: Wed, vs 343 Chicago St.

#77 Valparaiso (13-2)
Average Opponent: 202
Average Win: 216.6
Average Loss: 130.5 (89 and 172)
Best Win: #91 Eastern Kentucky (Away)
Worst Lost: #172 Missouri (Away)

#135 Cleveland St. (6-8)
Average Opponent: 156.4 (3 teams in the top 20 are lifting this up)
Average Win: 252.5 (1 win over a sub-200 team)
Average Loss: 108.3
Best Win: #136 San Francisco (Home)
Worst Lost: #324 Savannah St. (Away)

#147 Wright St. (8-6)
Average Opponent: 164.4
Average Win: 189.5
Average Loss: 139.3
Best Win: #124 Belmont x2 (Home/Away)
Worst Lost: #245 Cal St. Fullerton (Neutral, Spartanburg NC)

#159 Detroit (6-7)
Average Opponent: 139
Average Win: 219.5
Average Loss: 93
Best Win: #96 Toledo (Away)
Worst Lost: #275 UCF (Away)
Remaining: Tue, vs 203 Oral Roberts

#202 Oakland (4-10)
Average Opponent: 115.2
Average Win: 222
Average Loss: 83.2
Best Win: #96 Toledo (Home)
Worst Lost: #238 Western Carolina (Away)

#230 Youngstown St. (8-6)
Average Opponent: 203
Average Win: 279.2
Average Loss: 139.6
Best Win: #212 South Dakota (Away)
Worst Lost: #329 Kennesaw St. (Home)
Remaining: Wed, vs 261 Northern Kentucky

#266 Milwaukee (5-9)
Average Opponent: 175.4
Average Win: 223
Average Loss: 159.5
Best Win: #157 Louisiana-Lafayette (Neutral, Las Vegas)
Worst Lost: #312 IUPUI (Home)

#315 UIC (3-11) We gave away the wrong Chicago team.
Average Opponent: 178.5
Average Win: 291.5
Average Loss: 158
Best Win: #275 UCF (Home)
Worst Lost: #285 Grand Canyon (Home)

The Missouri game really hurts right now. We are the only team they beat to have a KenPom of under 200. They've beaten old friend Oral Roberts (203), Southeast Missouri State (270), and Elon (223). They also beat Chaminade in Hawaii. They don't have a win outside of their building yet and frankly they don't look like a good team. Losing to the last place team of a down SEC is never good and it looks like that's what we did.

Got the scoring right on you say? Crazy. When I looked at it before the JMU game I was off by a rounding error. I also thought that Chadwick's performance was going to make my prediction of 0% really off, but I'm still right with the under.

I've been right so far every month. (Granted last month 2/3s of the voters were right, so take that with a grain of salt). And since I've  predicted one loss each month, I'm going to continue my trend. I think they lose at Green Bay. The 3 game road trip isn't going to be easy so I can see us winning an ugly one at YSU in the middle of that. Hopefully we can win the game we put up a clunker. We were able to do that against Ball St.

Well we'll most likely be without Jubril for this game*, which hurts because they have a pretty potent 1-2 punch inside. Their centers are clearly the focal point of their offence with Steve Forbes finishing 30.1% of their possessions. For comparison Alec leads us with 26%. Forbes is only on the court 64% of the time, but another 11% of the time back up center Brent Calhoun is on the court and he finishes possessions 24.4% of the time. That means we're going to have to stop the inside game, and these are some wide bodies we're going to deal with down low. Their starting back court is the next highest usage % but effectiveness is right around Jubril's, so they shouldn't be a terrible challenge for Keith and the Walkers.

They are an experienced team with the 16th oldest team in the country (again, remember when we were #1 with Rowdy and Co?! Those were good times.) Their most frequently played line up consists of 3 seniors, a Junior and a Sophomore. They actually don't have a Freshman who has played minutes this season.

They have beaten a single team with a KenPom of under 275 (Miami (OH) at #274) and their other wins are 300+. Dartmouth (199), GA Tech (93) and Purdue (49) are their losses.

As for Valpo we're down to 104 (our lowest rating since before the Music City Challenge). We're predicted to win this one 70-68 and I would guess that if we do our KenPom will still stay steady since they are rated 196 and it's a road game.

This should be a good test for our bigs, but if we play like we did previous to New Mexico then we should win by double digits. If we play like we have since New Mexico we stand a shot of losing this game.  It's a shame Jubril won't be in this game* because he would have a good learning experience from this game. Instead he gets the experience of "Don't go to a party with 100+ people if you're underage.

With Goshen on Sunday I see our bench getting most of the burn then since we'll need Vashil, Alec, Skara and maybe even *shudders* Chadwick for this game.


*Pure speculation on the "Jubril won't play" front. I have no knowledge one way or the other but I can't see him playing Saturday or Sunday.

I kind of like Valpeople. We're all Valpeople, let's just get along!

(I believe it's written by an Valparaisan.)

So now we are Valpo-raisins?

Valparaiso-ites? Valparaiso-ins? Valparaiso-uns?