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A few years back I was on vacation in New Orleans in the week before Christmas and the New Orleans Bowl was that weekend. I went online and got some tickets because I wanted to see the inside of the Super Dome, tickets were only $10 (Yes cheaper than that New Mexico game) and the spread was 2 points so I thought it would be an enjoyable game. I ended up in the section next to the winning team's fan section and was about 18 rows up at the 40 yard line. If I remember correctly it was a blow out, but it was a lot of fun to see the game. If you happen to be in the town for one of these meaningless bowl games, I recommend it, they are a lot of fun.

I echo Paul's comments, and I'm a NW Indiana resident my entire life, but I have some questions about said "drinking party".

I think I've been to a drinking party or two in my life, but never called it a drinking party, in fact this is the first time I've heard of this term. Do we no longer call these types of parties a house party?
Does there have to be food for it to qualify as a house party?
Was there no food at this party?
That's a pretty terrible host to not have at least some cookies, right?
How mad would you be at the worst Anne Frank impression ever? I know I would be furious at her if I was also in the attic!
Back to the party itself, do you think it was BYOB or charge for a cup and drink from the keg?
If it was charge by the cup, do you think the cops took that money? I mean it was illegally gained.
You think you get your deposit back on the keg or is that evidence that the cops take?
On the semantics of "drinking party", would they just call it a party if there were drugs involved?
If there was no drinking involved but there were drugs would it have been called a "drug party", probably not right?
Do you think they had games? I mean they obviously had beer pong, because every "drinking party" has beer pong, but I mean games like Cards Against Humanity or an Wii hooked up to the TV with like Mario Party.
Do kids still play games like that at parties? At our final party at our one friends house (they moved out, no one had a good house to party at anymore as the rest of us are apartment renters) we played Goldeneye to kick up the nostalgia factor for us 20-somethings.
Now I really want to know what the parties we threw in my friends basement. We have a lot of booze, but we also made food so we could eat through out the party. Granted we all of age.

Seriously if you're throwing a booze filled party, get some food. That's my advice to all potential party throwers. Then it won't be an ominous sounding "drinking party".

There are certain games that are purchased and run through ESPN3. I can't find which ones exactly, but it's usually the bigger HL games that aren't going to be on ESPN 2 or U.

[Oregon, faces and defeats Alabama in the National title game.]

I hope the Phil Knight Express, Oregon, faces and defeats Alabama in the National title game. This has been a matchup many would love to see for quite awhile. It is time for my beloved Pac12 to put up or shut and get respect. I want to hear Phyllis and Saban cry in their moonshine.

As for the rest of the Pac 12, UCLA, Arizona and ASU are building excellent teams. And USC is off sanctions, and they will be back two years as they get their scholarship allotment back.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Ohio State plays Florida State for the title and, when the dust settles, The Buckeyes prefail!! 

I agree, I don't think tOSU wins the title either, but I think they lose to 'Bama.

Looking at the conferences behind us, there's some big name, usually multi-bid conferences behind us. I know C-USA has dropped like a stone, but still kind of cool to be ahead of them, the MAC has been multi-bid leagues in the recent past and have some powerful schools still in them, the Ivy behing so high is surprising, but I like it. Personally I'd love for the Horizon to reach A10 status, but I think that's a pipe dream.

And he's started making FTs too!
This year: 15-24 (62.5%)

It's a start, but if I remember well he started last season pretty well too.

He seems to have eliminated last year's (intentional? rhythm building?) shimmy, but against New Mexico it seemed like he was getting some weird motion on the ball, sort of side spin?

It seems like he's definitely been working hard on it, for years!  Best of luck to him, certainly.

Non-Con: 21-35 (0.600) in 14 games
Conference: 17-43 (0.395) in 16 games (including an 0-7 performance vs. UIC)
Post Season: 3-8    (0.375) in 3 games (0-4 in conference tourney, 3-4 vs. Columbia)

Anyone see a shorter path?

Yes, but I had to use this tool:

http://www.masseyratings.com/path.php?s=&t0=Valparaiso&pt=1&t1=


Shortest Path: Valparaiso >>> Alabama
By transitivity, this 19 game path shows that Valparaiso dominates Alabama by 248 points.


#   Date                Winner                      Scr       Loser                     Scr

1 2014-11-08 @ Valparaiso # 506 (4-8)  17         Butler# 478 (4-7)    3 
2 2014-10-04 Butler# 478 (4-7) 49 @ Stetson# 493 (5-7) 41 
3 2014-11-08 @ Stetson# 493 (5-7) 22 Marist# 432 (4-7) 14 
4 2014-11-01 @ Marist# 432 (4-7) 17 Jacksonville# 291 (9-2) 16 
5 2014-09-13 @ Jacksonville# 291 (9-2) 35 San Diego# 313 (9-3) 18 
6 2014-09-06 @ San Diego# 313 (9-3) 23 W New Mexico# 372 (5-6) 17 
7 2014-10-04 @ W New Mexico# 372 (5-6) 24 Ft Lewis# 413 (3-8) 17 
8 2014-10-11 @ Ft Lewis# 413 (3-8) 23 CSU-Pueblo# 131 (12-1) 22 
9 2014-09-13 CSU-Pueblo# 131 (12-1) 47 @ Sam Houston St# 98 (10-4) 21 
10 2014-11-22 @ Sam Houston St# 98 (10-4) 38 Cent Arkansas# 158 (6-6) 31 
11 2014-10-25 @ Cent Arkansas# 158 (6-6) 58 Northwestern LA# 144 (6-6) 35 
12 2014-09-20 Northwestern LA# 144 (6-6) 30 @ Louisiana Tech# 69 (8-5) 27 
13 2014-11-01 @ Louisiana Tech# 69 (8-5) 59 W Kentucky# 79 (7-5) 10 
14 2014-08-29 @ W Kentucky# 79 (7-5) 59 Bowling Green# 116 (7-6) 31 
15 2014-09-13 @ Bowling Green# 116 (7-6) 45 Indiana# 89 (4-8) 42 
16 2014-09-20 Indiana# 89 (4-8) 31 @ Missouri# 16 (10-3) 27 
17 2014-11-28 @ Missouri# 16 (10-3) 21 Arkansas# 19 (6-6) 14 
18 2014-11-22 @ Arkansas# 19 (6-6) 30 Mississippi# 8 (9-3) 0 
19 2014-10-04 @ Mississippi# 8 (9-3) 23 Alabama# 1 (12-1) 17

Oh yeah well...


Alabama   beat   Southern Miss   52 - 12
Southern Miss   beat   Appalachian St   21 - 20
Appalachian St   beat   Campbell   66 - 0
Campbell   beat   Valparaiso   34 - 24

I don't make predictions, but this one is one I'm confident in.

Valpo: 114
Trinity: 3

Will be getting my tickets at the door. 3 of us coming including a first timer...so hoping for an exciting game and Valpo victory!

Get tickets now so you're not stuck with bad upper deck seats

Seems legit.

Tried to get some guys to come with me but there is too much happening with all the holiday stuff and high school basketball.

Speaking of holiday stuff, the game also is competing with the Christmas concert and dinner on campus that evening.

I'm not sure if you mean Vespers, but that's actually the night before.

If I didn't have my Christmas party the night of Vespers, I'd run over to Kinkos print out 1000 flyers and hand them out to people as they were leaving, or possibly stick them on the windshield. "Come out and support Valparaiso's 8-1 Crusaders as they go against the best opponent to voluntarily come to the ARC in years! The game starts at 7!"

I'm guessing you could probably get 100-200 more people if you did something like that. Maybe offer a Vesper's discount? *hint hint nudge nudge*

While I agree that I think we've moved into the "Favorite" role through non-con, it's still GB's preseason title to lose and they don't hand out midseason bids to the tourney.

I also think you're underrating Georgia St a little. RJ Hunter is a first round pick next season and I wouldn't be surprised if he led them to a Sweet 16 bid. They also have Kevin Ware, that of the "OH MY GOD THE BONE IS STICKING OUT OF HIS LEG" Kevin Ware with Louisville. He may have lost a step of speed, but he's still a REALLY good player that was good enough to be recruited by Rick Pitino. Their point guard would be an all conference player in the Horizon League. I wouldn't be surprised to see Green Bay lose at home on the return game.

KenPom has us losing 3 more games, which seems most realistic of these projections.

From your screen cap, KenPom is predicting 11-5 in league and 24-7 overall.  RPI Forecast is predicting only 6 total losses (12-4 league record), so it's pretty similar. 

I don't know much about how these all work, but I assume that they're still moving around a bit this early in the season.

This is from the W-L they have. Their overall uses the chance to win and adds it all up to figure out all that jazz. KenPom has us winning 493% of the 600% of our OOC games and 1110% of the 1600% of our conference games which is why he has us at 24-7 (11-5).

I believe 8-1 is the best record for all D-I teams in Indiana.  Wow!

Yes.  However, IU, Purdue, ND, Buck Futler and Evansville all have an equal 1 loss.  A great OOC season for Indiana basketball!

The state will be lucky to get 2 tourney bids though. If IU or Purdue has a surprising B1G season we might be able to squeeze 3 at the max. I think ND is in and Valpo/Evansville need to win their conference tourney to make it. At least we're better off than Illinois!

I can see us getting an at-large if we sweep the rest of OOC and lose 1 conference game to a GB or CSU on the road and drop the HL championship to GB or CSU, can't afford a garbage loss to a YSU or lower quality team. It also depends of the strengths of the bigger conferences, if the high-major conferences have weaker seasons our chances are greater at getting an at-large.

I ran this through RPI Wizard.

• If we lose 1 conference game to GB on the road, earning the 1 seed let's say (I doubt we'd both be have 1 loss records though possible), and then beat Detroit (4th in current RPI in the HL) in the semi's and lost to Green Bay in the finals we'd have an RPI of 29 and a SOS of 193.
  
• If you change regular season loss to CSU the RPI and SOS would stay the same.


• If you change both losses to involve CSU the SOS would drop to 205, but the RPI would be the same. If we lost to CSU and had an unspeakable loss to YSU and lost to Green Bay in the finals our RPI would be 30.

I think I would agree that if we're a 26-4 team, we make the tourney as an at large team and should be an 8 line team. I don't think we're going to win 26 games this season, and I don't think the Horizon League is getting a top 10 seed.

I REALLY hope I'm wrong though.

A byproduct of winning 8 of nine is that we are now favored to win most of our future games:

http://www.masseyratings.com/team.php?t=8361&s=267615

http://realtimerpi.com/ncaab/281_Men.html?Valparaiso

http://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/team/valparaiso-crusaders/projections

Wow, Massey has us going 28-3 and RealTime and TeamRankings has us going 29-1. KenPom has us losing 3 more games, which seems most realistic of these projections.

Here's KenPom's (I'd link to it, but it's subscription based.)


The little numbers between the score prediction and the % of victory is how many possessions are projected for the match up.

I believe 8-1 is the best record for all D-I teams in Indiana.  Wow!

Yes.  However, IU, Purdue, ND, Buck Futler and Evansville all have an equal 1 loss.  A great OOC season for Indiana basketball!

The state will be lucky to get 2 tourney bids though. If IU or Purdue has a surprising B1G season we might be able to squeeze 3 at the max. I think ND is in and Valpo/Evansville need to win their conference tourney to make it. At least we're better off than Illinois!

My one season ticket (15 games) cost as much as 7 tickets to Saturday's game. If I'm a family of 4, I'm not going to this game I'm waiting for Green Bay and Cleveland State to come into town and buying tickets to both of those games for the same price as this one game. While playing a "name" school that is a tourney team is nice, playing the top 2 teams in your conference has more impact on your tournament chance and 2 games for the price of 1 makes the sell even easier.

Also while my wife and I don't have kids, even if we did we can afford to live in Valpo on our 2 very modest (I'm talking VERY modest) incomes but we couldn't afford a $100 night for a Saturday. Since we don't have kids we can afford said $100 night for the two of us (Dinner, Valpo game, drinks after the game).

Zionsville will get a significant boost with the return of Cassius Smits-Francisco, a 6-8, 225-pound sophomore who should be back in mid-December as he recovers from surgery from an anterior cruciate ligament tear in his knee. Smits-Francisco, the cousin of Smits, is receiving early recruiting interest from Ball State, Indiana State, Ole Miss, Purdue and Valparaiso.

Derrik, we need you to start getting the basketball law firm to Valpo!

We need Derrik to bring his cousin to the New Mexico game!

Since his dad has NBA money, they can afford to come.

Chairbacks $35, lower bleachers $20, mezzanine bleachers $20.  Seriously?

I know this is a marquee game and we're off to a great start, but I'm afraid these prices will turn a lot of casual fans and potential newcomers off.  Would shelling out $20 each keep 2 buddies from checking out the Crusaders?  Probably not.  Would it keep a guy from bringing his wife and 2 kids and shelling out $80 plus concessions?  Almost definitely.  This would not be considered affordable family entertainment in NWI. 

Yeah this is really disappointing. If my parents were in town, this would probably keep them away from the game. $35 for chairbacks makes sense and since the center lower tank is almost sold out (2 in B, 3 in C and 42 in D) it appears $20 is good for that. A and E have a lot of seats left, maybe they should be priced at $15? $20 for the upper tank is just stupid. That should be no higher than $10 for any game that isn't the HL championship game.

I am very happy to be wrong about Vashil.

Also I didn't expect the disrobing job we did on them from the 5 minute mark to the 2 minute mark. The last 2 minutes were a little worrisome, but we had put the game in the bag by then so maybe the guys took their foot off the pedal a little.

I didn't have Valpo winning this game, so TX has me beat right now. Granted at the beginning of the season I had our one loss to Murray, so I've technically been wrong about 3 games. This W makes me feel good about Saturday's game. Now let's hope there's a big crowd.

After my rant, the various Twitter and Facebook accounts have both posted about Saturday's game, and even included a link to buy tickets, so that's much better. Hopefully we see the mezzanine fill up a lot more by Saturday.

It's learning

I'm sticking to a 1 loss month again. New Mexico is good.

This is a really good showing against a team who would be average in our league, think Oakland or Milwaukee. Hopefully this is a sign off things to come.

Will there be any video or audio available for the Nashville games this weekend?

Well we know Todd will be on the call all 3 games and they always stream the feed on WVUR. This "challenge" seems a little underwhelming and I can't find any good information about it (How it started, if there's video streaming, anything besides the fact that there are tickets available) so I highly doubt that there's video.

Here is our weekly recap for this week plus the first 2 days of the season. http://www.midmajormadness.com/horizon-league/2014/11/23/7269415/horizon-league-basketball-weekly-recap

Also I'm looking for questions for our mailbag. Feel free to ask here or on Twitter with the hashtag of #HLMailbag

This is great - I hope this continues every week.

The recap will, the mailbag is every other week

Interesting analysis.  I doubt however, regardless of ranking numbers, that Loyola could beat anybody in the Horizon twice.  Also doubt that SIU would beat Milwaukee twice.  If you split those then then tally is 9-9.  I'd like to see that Challenge, even is Wichita St trounces one of ours.

I'd prefer a MAC vs HL Challenge. With all the Ohio and Michigan schools in the MAC and us having 55% of our league in those states as well you'd get some fun rivalries You could also have Ball St-Valpo rivalry renew and Northern Illinois vs UIC would be a fun rivalry (plus a decent game). I don't know how our Wisconsin schools would feel about travelling to Ohio/Michigan, but for the quality opponent the MAC will supply it'd be a good test.

I doubt however, regardless of ranking numbers, that Loyola could beat anybody in the Horizon twice.

insert photo of UIC and Milwaukee fake smiling at this while backing away slowly

Loyola could easily beat YSU and UIC twice. Milwaukee looks lifeless so far, I don't know if that's because they've faced 2 decent opponents but they also lost to IUPUI.  We should probably split off this MVC vs. HL convo from the game thread as this has been sufficiently derailed.