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I will be so disappointed when the season ends and a week later Cooper transfers to a middle of the pack Big 10/12 school for a 50k per year NIL deal. As much as I believe the way Roger is building is the right way to do it, I have my doubts that it can succeed for a small school in the NIL era.

Do we have any scholarships to offer?  If we don't, could we offer anything more than  PWO status to a recruit?

I don't even think we technically have a spot for McNair, who already signed his NLI for us. Spots will open. Powell will sit down with some and have an honest conversation about their future on the team and people will transfer. Assuming Powell is able to keep the key guys together, I still think 3+ people transfer. I'd assume that with Manyang coming back he'll tell Palm he's better off transferring. Same with Connor since he can't stay healthy. Sepp might also be a candidate given that he hasn't really done anything and doesn't seem to be cracking the rotation. When he has, I haven't been impressed. I also think Weatherspoon might decide to with Stafford playing well and a "highly touted" pg/sg prospect in McNair coming in. I hope he doesn't, but it's certainly possibly.

We'll have scholarships to give out next year, and we'll likely lose at least one "key" piece. Nothing we can do about it, it's just the state of college basketball. I just hope it's not Schwieger or Edwards. It also opens the opportunity to plug in a good transfer if Powell thinks we are close to competing.

Despite the second half, that game inspired more confidence for the future of this program than I've gotten from a game in years.

Schwieger 12 points 7 rebounds 2 blocks and a steal and ZERO turnovers. Foul trouble of course, but that typical for a freshman going up against a seasoned vet.

Jaxon edwards, despite going 0-12 from the field, did everything he could elsewhere to impact the game with 15 rebounds. Often times when a young player is having a bad night offensively, they let it impact them on the other end. It's a great sign to see he bought into the team aspect of the game.

Isaiah Stafford.

Team could really benefit from manyang rn even just to eat up minutes and fouls right now. We also have to find a way to not let Jerome Palm 15 shots. Those need to be going to Schwieger or ANYBODY else.

I also really liked Coach powells attitude towards the game and season. You can tell he is proud of them, but at the end of the day he's telling them they have to be better if they didn't win. He set the bar high and he's not moving it. That's what it takes to develop a winning culture and I think that was my favorite thing about the game: the fact that coach Powell didn't take it as a moral victory.

Plodding win. Hustle and good things will happen. Unsure how cold GB went, but we persevered to catch them and win. Must play better Friday, or it will be a 35 point blowout. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yea...about that. I don't see any way we don't lose by 40. We might (hopefully) improve a lot this season, but we are starting from a LOW point based on these last two games. I see something along the lines of 96-42.

They made some defensive adjustments at half and their offense was (marginally) better in the second. Feels good to be in the win column.

Also: Schwieger, stafford, and edwards are really good. The drop off after them is significant. If we can keep them around, see improvement from Weatherspoon and Williamson, and add some good depth players/one more scorer (McNair?) around them, I see the vision. We jsut aren't going to get enough out of Darius and Palm. I've seen enough of them, but there's nothing to replace them right now. I think Manyang could eventually be a HUGE addition. I really hope he gets healthy soon.

Roger Powell has repeatedly said that some of these freshmen will play in the NCAA tournament someday, thats how highly he thinks of this class. I came into this year knowing we would suck. I knew we would win single digit games. That being said, with such a "talented" class, and such a heralded coaching staff, you would think we would be able to at least compete with IUPUI and UWGB at home, despite the lack of experience. So far, a completely uninspiring team. All I wanted to see was improvement between November and March, so there is a long way to go. But even in my most pessimistic expectations to the season, I did not foresee dropping both to IUPUI and Green Bay.

Jaxon Edwards has really exceeded my expectations so far. Jahari Williamson and Sherman Weatherspoon have done the exact opposite.

I cannot figure out why our half court offense the first 2 games looks like it is run though Jerome Palm. He absolutely looks improved offensively from last year, but if we are going to go to a big man so much, why wouldn't it be Schwieger. I havent even seen Cooper touch the ball today meanwhile Jerome has touched it nearly every possession.

As somebody who anticipated this game to be close and would've been content with just a win, that was embarrassing. Couldn't execute simple passes in the half court. Didn't look like we wanted to play as a team. Player gets ejected. Never mind the poor shooting night, which will happen from time to time.

There have been some possessions in the second half where if the person with the ball would have made one more pass we would have had an open shot.

Our half court offense is putrid. I really like what I see when we are able to push the pace, it usually ends in a very good look, but it's been a challenge to speed the game up. We are reallllllly going to need to play better in the half court if we are going to avoid a ton of 25 point losses in conference play.

That was pretty much what I was hoping for from that game, but can't really take much out of it. I didn't like the amount of turnovers and we looked sloppy for a lot of the game. Trinity Christian was simply REALLY bad. Even when we were playing sloppy we were pulling away from them thanks to our ridiculous shooting in the first half. I also wanted to see more out of our half court offense, where I think Schweiger will be more important. Nobody in MVC play is falling for a Jerome Palm pump fake, then getting blown by by him and allowing him to hit a reverse layup. The quality of the opponent was so bad that it made it functionally challenging to run a realistic or meaningful game plan simply due to their turnovers, lack of talent, and lackadaisical defense.

A couple of things that I think we can take out of this game is the players motivation to play for Powell. We have come out flat in the past against these types of teams, but we came out energized and stayed that way until we were up by 50. The players were celebrating, rushing to help each other up, and generally looked happy to be playing together. We will see if that continues when they inevitably hit a rough patch against D1 competition.

It was also nice to see somebody other than Isaiah hit some 3s. That will be needed to stay competitive this year. 

I am excited to see us play D1 teams now. We should actually be favored in 4 of our next 5 games (Illinois being the exception). If we start 4-2, with a loss to Illinois and a hiccup against one of the other D1 teams, I will be considering that a success. Winning games against teams we should beat has become somewhat of a premium lately, so I would love to see that get back on track. More importantly, I want to see what our younger guys can do against Division 1 talent and coaching.

Edwards - 15.5 points and rebounds - UNDER
Palm - 5.7 rebounds per game - UNDER
Barrett - 0.9 3ptrs per game played - OVER
Weatherspoon - 41.6% from the floor - UNDER
Ajiboye - 1.5 Blocks and Steals/game - UNDER
DeAveiro -120.5 assists for year - UNDER
Williamson - 1.5 assist / turnover ratio - UNDER
Schweiger - 11.25 points per game - OVER
Stafford - 16.5 points per game - OVER
Team Field Goals Attempted 60.5/gm - UNDER
All Newcomer Team for MVC - 0.5 - OVER
All League Team 1st, 2nd, 3rd - 0.5 - OVER
Valley Road Victories - 1.5 - OVER
Final Standing in Valley - 10.5 - UNDER (Worse)
Total Wins - 10.5 - UNDER

Saint Mary of the Woods plays Indiana State on opening night (November 6), so we can see how they stack up against a proven MVC contender.

I'm glad that you all saw the light as I left the gym with nothing that increased my optimism for the season. As a team we shot under 25% from 3, and without Stafford we were 2/14 -- under 15%.  This was a problem in the scrimmage a couple weeks ago.  If we are to be a run and gun team, the gunning has to find its mark. I don't know how much shooting develops once players are at this level, but it seems this will be a stumbling block, We only outrebounded SMWC by 2.  You've got to get the boards if you're going to run. SMWC, an NAIA team, played us evenly until the bottom of their bench was put on the floor for the final five minutes. Stafford was impressive, but he didn't seem to be the dominating sort of player that can put the rest of the team on his back as we have seen Tucker DeVries, Roman Penn, or even Ben Krikke do. I'll attend every game that I can get to, but I will be looking for signs of progress rather than Ws.

These comments reflect my realistic impressions as well. I am glad it wasn't only me. Valpo pulled ahead for good only after the bottom of an NAIA bench was on the floor against the VU starters, who stayed in until about 1 minute left. Darius did well getting assists but 0 points by a starter in future games will continue to leave a hole in the offense. The rebounding was lacking against a much shorter team, as was 3-point shooting, which seemed no better than last year, and the fouling was silly at times, leading to a 33-14 disparity in free throws. I was hoping Barrett would be back to his former self, but he was a non-factor. I could see why Valpo is ranked in the 300s. On the other hand, Stafford was as good as I had hoped from his past record. Schwieger pleasantly surprised me as a freshman in his first game. Except for his poor 3-pt. shooting, Edwards looked better than I expected, and the same is true of Witherspoon. Ojiboye will likely be a positive contributor as well, especially with an apparently short bench. Finally, I also appreciated Coach Powell's ability to conduct and control the tone in the postgame press conference, where he optimistically promised the team would improve significantly in the next few weeks before conference play.

This is generally my reaction to the game as well. While I wasn't there, I wasn't disappointed OR inspired by the result. Part of the new coaching staff and renewed investment in basketball we seem to be seeing from the university is a new attitude for me as a fan: no excuses. That doesn't mean I am going into every game this season expecting a win, but I will not be making excuses for lack of effort, intensity, and losing to D2/NAIA teams by saying we are inexperienced/young/the other team had D1 transfers. If our coaching staff is elite as we are hoping it is, they could find a way to beat these teams with nothing. I expect this staff to be able to pull the best out of everybody, and improve in the areas that we see issues (like rebounding last night).


We lost at least 3 non D1 games with Lottich as the coach, so at this point I am happy we found a way to win. This team, as we expected, has a lot of growing to do. I can't wait to see how that growing proceeds over the next few weeks as we face stiffer competition.


I will also say its all but confirmed we played Milwaukee in a secret scrimmage and lost 100-90. Milwaukee is picked 2nd in the Horizon this year, and it seems like we scored well and competed. Defense and rebounding are 2 of the things I figured we would struggle with early in the season, so I hope to see that those are the two things were better at by the end of the year.


I echo the other's sentiments about Darius though. Having a starting point guard that simply can't score has caused a lot of problems the past few years, and will continue to. I hope one of the younger PGs steps up in that regard. 

Looking at the Milwaukee fan forum, it looks like Milwaukee won 100-90 in a game played in Illinois. Don't have any idea if that is true or not, or how Milwaukee is projected to be this year. However, it's promising to me we competed with a division 1 team with our lack of experience. Also: 90 points ! Also: 100 points

Seems to line up with our expectation of run and gun though!

Update: Milwaukee is picked to finish 2nd in the horizon league from their official preseason rankings.

Doesn't seem like many details got out. Considering our lack of substantial D1 experience, I feel like that was probably some pretty stiff competition for us. Good to be exposed to that early before it can count against us. 

Just wondering if there be an over/under episode on the podcast before the year begins?

https://x.com/ValpoBasketball/status/1716500280966107514?s=20

Interesting. I know other schools do this where they have some sort of orientation for the student section before the season starts. I think, if students show up, this could lead to a more cohesive student section with everyone actually standing and having synchronized chants (something we used to have).

Preface: my prediction means nothing, but neither do the experts' so I'm gonna say it anyway.

We will not be a great team by any stretch of the means. That being said, my belief in the experience, knowledge, ability, and focus of this coaching staff has me believing we will win a handful of games solely because of the coaching staff. If those are our only wins, I still think they'll drag us close to our win total from last year. This is a multi year process but, (on paper) our coaching staff for a mid major school is elite.

https://haslametrics.com

I always like looking at the analytics when they come out, even though the preseason baselines end up being shed eventually. Haslametrics released their preseason baselines this morning and, as expected, we are very low. 321/361. Considering there is almost no D1 experience on this team, it had to have been pretty difficult to even put together numbers for us. Despite our youth and uncertainty, I expect we end up finishing higher than 321, but don't blame him for putting us down there for now.

But it was their first Valpo rodeo. At the close of his first BB season as AD, Smart let ML go (no doubt with JP's agreement).  Since, the ARC got a new paint job, lighting, video boards (and maybe new auxiliary scoreboards?).  The new lighting makes it possible, I believe,  to darken the place for spotlighted player intros. Maybe there is a new intro video in the making.  Who knows, but we are in a much better place opening this season than where we were when last season ended.

Just like the need for patience about Roger and all our new players, we need to be patient with the game night experience evolution as well, don'tcha think?

I agree, I think last year was more of an evaluation year. Regardless of the team's record this season, this offseason has shown more university commitment to mens basketball than I can remember in at least the last 7 years. They went out and got one of the best coaching candidates on the market (a national name at that), announced plans for a new stadium, made upgrades to the ARC in the meantime, and have noticeably boosted their community involvement and fundraising around athletics. All these things happened after the conclusion of last season, there's no reason to think we wont see other upgrades to game day experience, like the band, when we get to the start of the season.

I think it is a good schedule. Obviously don't know really anything about the meshing of the team, but I think this is a challenging schedule for a team with this many freshman on it. I think we go something like 4-7. A lot of these teams are better than they used to be, or teams we lost to last year. We have a much better and more experienced coaching staff, but that doesn't change the fact over half of our major contributors will be true freshman/no D1 experience. Still we won't be losing by 30 to teams like CSU this year.

The big guys would never do that. Not on a neutral court. Not even on their home courts most likely. Would be fun, never going to happen. At most there might be a one year 4 team round robin featuring Indiana, Purdue, notre dame, and butler.

Official release on Scroggins, 6'9", is out. 

Jeez, another big, athletic kid who can run the court and leap and score within his wheelhouse. Can't help feeling that the ARC will be rocking for every game. Wins will be great. Even losses will be entertaining. Speed and effort will be the constant. What's not to love about that?

I was alway cautiously optimistic (but thought.... wait and see) at this point in the last 6 or so seasons post-Alec, but I can't help being more excited than before.  Don't exactly know why.  Perhaps it's the energy vibrating out of the basketball office. Or it could be something in the air. 

I am not expecting the ARC to be packed every game, but I am expecting a notable increase in attendance. Even if the team gets only marginally better, the marketing and community engagement since Powell was hired has been the more engaging than I ever remember, at least since the Drew days. The new hire of a highly touted coach will already bring back most of the season ticket holders that we lost in recent years, but the community engagement events they have been hosting (such as at zoo island) as combined with an increase in press coverage should bring more region families out for a game or two throughout the season. If we surprise and win some games to go along with that, it'll only compound the engagement efforts.

As for the on court product, I have no idea. I am oddly confident by that the time Powell has a couple of years to recruit, we will be watching some of the best basketball Valpo has ever played. I truly believe we will have the best recruiting classes we've ever had, and that Powell and his assistants will show that they know how to manage games and win big ones. The ARC will be busy again. This year though? We might be the youngest team in the country, and on top of that no experience together. I think Powell will be able to pull them together, and the team will buy into what he's saying. That being said, plenty of mistakes will be made on the court due to the inexperience, and freshman are usually just smaller and less physically dominant than upperclassmen. I think we'll be outmatched in experience and physical strength at first, and I am not so sure that we have a go to scorer (one might emerge by the end of the year, but it will take some time to grow into those roles). But I don't think we'll ever be out hustled or outsmarted by the opposing coaching staff. In fact, I think our coaching will singlehandedly win us a few extra games. I think a .500 year would be a great success.