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Javon gave us two great years. He had ambitions to play professionally, and made the choice that his best bet to get there was by moving to a larger school/conference. Looking back on it, with Lottich as the coach and the constant turmoil the team was in, he probably made the right choice. I don't consider him leaving on bad terms. I imagine if Valpo were in a stronger position at the time he would have stayed, at least longer than he did. He did what was best for him.

Clearly different than Clay or JO who didn't do a ton here and moved laterally or down because they didn't want to be here, regardless of the reason.

I for one am happy to consider JFL as a Valpo product even if he isn't listed as such. Maybe not to the same degree as I do Bryce, or Peters or even Krikke (who would have Iowa after his name if he goes pro). But I am not going to hate on him or be all bitter because he moved on from us.

Good looking promotion. My question is why waste it on a Monday night game against Trinity?

Would it not be better for a few days later against IUPUI on a Friday night? Maybe they have something else planned then?

If it's Powell then why in God's name was he not the coach all along? Why did he turn us down seven years ago only to take us now when we're in a much worse spot as a program? it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I hope it's him because I think he'll be great but why didn't he just take the job in the first place if he wants it now?

I had thought the same, but even if he wasn't in consideration, I could imagine the lure of a P5 program as the #2 behind Bryce, the payday that comes with that, and the pathway to a P5 head coach job with that move was enticing. Then that fell apart, he ended up in a good spot in Gonzaga, but it has now been 7 years and he has not gotten a head coach opportunity yet. So if he wants to be a head coach, this may be his best opportunity that has come along. And could be the way he proves to a school like Gonzaga that when Few is done he is ready to take the reigns.

Another suggestion of a possible Powell announcement. [tweet]1644039298310627328[/tweet]

They were right about a few other recent moves. I hope they are right here. Much more excited about Powell then I would be Lowery.

As pointed out, entering the transfer portal does not automatically equate to players leaving. Why not enter the transfer portal? What's the worst that can happen from the player's perspective? If they're of any D-1 caliber, they'll get some options on the table to leave and could end up somewhere that's a better fit (or one with more certainty). Additionally, there will be a new VU coach hired. It'll happen if he/she wants to re-recruit the players to his/her program. It's a win-win as I see it (from the player's perspective). From a fan's perspective, this is the LEAST involved I've been in many years. I do not know these players as I have in seasons past. I have no ties and relatively no investment. I watched games out of a sense of pride. Out of a sense of obligation to the program as an alum & lifelong fan. But I won't be upset if any/all of the players leave if that's what's best for them in their judgment. I'm ready for a new era. No offense to any current players or fans. That is just my opinion. I'm looking forward to a reset & getting to know the new players For those who stay; I'm honestly excited to get to know them as well because I honestly don't know them. Cheers to a new chapter!!! I'm looking forward to donating again for the first time in several years. I'm looking forward to renewing my season tickets! I'm looking forward to purchasing Valpo gear (I last purchased it several years ago). Let's go!

Correct me if I am wrong here, but once you enter the transfer portal, you are released from your scholarship for the next year right? So to essentially say no risk for a player may be misleading. As we have seen in the last few years, a lot of players enter transfer portal but never get picked up by a team. Obviously, if you played, and played fairly well, someone will be interested, but for those that rode the bench more there is the risk that you will get lost in the sea of transfers and incoming freshmen. So for some, waiting and trying to see if the new coach fits and work your way up may be better than not having the opportunity to play on a team at all.

I have no clue if this is true... https://twitter.com/juco_kingdom060/status/1643479883060838400?s=46&t=cNk7taMAYtxNl1Q0_O79Gw

I mean, I certainty trust the guy on Twitter with 12 (that is a whole dozen folks) followers and a total of not 1, not 2, but 3 whole posts on his page.


Could be true, buuuuuuuut...

Financial situation will make it tough to move on, but there could be a creative solve in there.

Maybe give Tonagel the shot at head coach. Structure the deal so first year or two are low to not only account for the risk we are taking in an NAIA coach but also to offset the buyout for Lottich. Have an option to extend after year two at a set much higher amount should he perform well.

We take a risk on Tonagel, he takes a gamble on himself. I would be excited to see what he could do in D1 and he may be one of the only coaches we would consider that would be willing to take a gamble like that.

It's a shame Indiana State is so far ahead of where Valpo is right now. It does, however, give some reason for optimism that a coaching change can bring legitimate results...

And they are doing it with a former D2 coach.  We need a change and we don't need to require a coach to have D1 experience.  Think of where we will be come the off season--three of our starters have to leave and I'll be a little shocked if Ben wants to go through another tough year.  That then leaves us with Max, Connor and Darius with any real playing experience.  We have a point, 2 guard and a center coming in from the freshman class.  Obviously we'll need to hit the transfer portal hard again.  What is up with Palm??

With a coaching change you can expect some of those freshmen commits to decommit as well. But I tend to agree, a D2 coach would be just fine by me if he has experience and proven success. We don't have the money to attract a big name or even an unproven Big D1 assistant (Jake). Valpo was successful in the past by finding the diamond in the rough recruits. Need to have that same attitude towards finding a coach.

[best]

There are no easy wins in the MVC, so happy with the W.

Even if we win every game left on the schedule, we finish 13-7 in conference and would still be probably be a 4-6 seed. That's still not good enough IMO given. But more likely, best case scenario is more like 6 more wins, putting us at 8-12 in conference. Certainly that SHOULD warrant a move.

But like all have said, financials, apathy, and the like may give us a lame duck year next year.

I've been in the Lottich didn't deserve to be let go camp, not because I thought he was a great coach, but because I had seen some small improvements over the years, not generally a fan of firing coaches after only a few years (hate the constant rebuild), and thought the recruits coming in were exciting and showed some hope of a good team. I also thought that this was definitely his last chance to put it all together. Well it has been ugly so far.

It's been enough, he needs to go. Like others have said, I doubt it happens mid-season. If this were a different school, or with an AD that was more experienced, maybe, but I don't see it happening unless 30+ point loses become the norm.

I still think this team can win some games this year, but I officially have zero hopes of this being a successful year.

I didn't watch the game, just saw the box score.

Chicago State shooting 60+% from three. Bad defense or just a good shooting night?
CSU, 28 free throws and only 1 miss. I doubt they are ever that good.
Another REALLY slow start to the game. One of my main critiques of Lottich has always been these dry spells that we get every game. I don't know what it is but its nearly constant. Hard to win like that.

I'm not happy about losing, especially to Chicago State of all teams, but damn calm down everyone. Acting like good teams never lose to bad teams (BTW, I am not saying we are a good team, but just that games like this happen all the time to programs WAY better than us).

Lottich is not getting fired 3 games into the season, nor should he. If the season continues to look like last night, then I HOPE to see a move at the end of the year (I think it would have to be really ugly to have it happen sooner, and no one lose to Chicago State does not qualify for that).

Again, I wouldn't read too much into that. You come into a game and you get kicked around for the first 10 minutes, what else are you going to say? "We came into this game with the right mindset and best attitude and prepared as best we could and still got the  kicked out of us?" No, that would be an even worse look.

It could have been phrased better for sure. "We werent ready" and "thought it would be easy" sound bad on the surface.

My interpretation of what he meant to say is "We came into this game with a lot of confidence, but we were exposed in many ways and its clear we have more work to do to get better mentally, physically and emotionally"

I don't think anyone is arguing that it was a good game. Or that anyone is happy with the state of Valpo basketball right now.

But before 5 mins were through on the game, we had people saying coach needs to be fired now, season is over and there is no coming back from where the program is at.

Lottich probably should be fired, but if it didn't happen at the end of last year, it shouldn't be after the first half of the first game.

And I also wouldn't read too much into a single comment from a college kid after a hard loss. It may be true but it may have also been an in the moment reaction. (Not a defense of Lottich at all, I tend to agree his game plans sucks, but take Krikke's comment with a grain of salt)

Game sucked, long season to go.

I see the doom and gloomers are out in full force.

Here is what I saw.
HORRIBLE start, we fell behind and were never able to catch up. Look at the game flow, after the bad start we kept up with Toledo the whole game.
Toledo is very good, Top 25 potential. Hard game to win regardless.
Valpo has a very new team, I didn't expect we come out looking amazing game 1.
Our two stars played fairly well, three new starters played well. A positive that we should look at as a good sign as the team gels.

The Yellow Jackets buzzed the lead down to two in the final minute, but Kobe King (La Crosse, Wis. / La Crosse Central [Wisconsin]) made key plays on both ends by finishing a layup and then swiping a steal. However, Valpo missed the front end of a one-and-one, then the Beacons fouled a Cedarville three-point shooter on the other end. Cedarville made two of the three free throws to reduce the lead to two at 81-79 with 12 seconds left.
Valpo turned it over, and the Yellow Jackets had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. Valpo got a stop in the closing seconds, then King went to the free throw line and hit a pair to seal the victory.


This recap from the athletics website is giving my flashbacks from last year.

In the final seconds, with a chance to close it out: Missed free throw, then foul a three point shooter, then turn it over. We blew games late like that last year. Hopefully this is a reminder to the team and not a trend. Better teams than Cedarville may have finished the job.

Hypothetical: if Butler were to offer a one time buy game at Hinkle, would/should Valpo accept?

No, would Valpo do this for DePaul, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Marquette, Creighton? Why do it for Butler?

I would like it if Valpo did it for any for those schools you listed actually.

Ole Miss may be SEC but are certainly not great. You metric on great and good is rather generous.

I was in a generous mood.

MVC moving to a 20 game conference schedule provides 2 more solid games at least. So with that, having a few easy games on the schedule is not the worst thing in the world. But would still like to see the final spot be something semi challenging, that would fall into the "Good" category for my very scientific rating of the schedule.

OOC:
Great: Ole Miss
Good: Toledo, Western Mich, Savannah Invitational
Poor: Stonehill, Elon, Incarnate Word
Awful: Trinity

Trying to stay positive about things but man the last two game announcements have been worse than blah... A bad non-D1 team that we play EVERY YEAR for some reason and a terrible D1 team that we'd better beat... I wish we could get better schedules and actually compete for at large bids but those days are probably over...

Waiting for the full schedule, but I am beginning to have the same feeling.

Valpo unfortunately is not an at large team right now and therefore does not require an at large schedule.  Northern Iowa on the other hand might be one and their schedule reflects it with games at Virginia, Richmond and home games against South Florida, Toledo, and St Bonaventure.

I hate to say it, but...Matt may be scheduling to save his job.  This is most likely a go/no go for his continued employment.  If I were in those shoes i would want all the wins i could get.

It will all be exposed, one way or another, once the conference season comes around anyway. With the make up of our team, I don't mind an easier non-con but do hope we have a few tests/challenges in there.

He may also be less of a project than some think. Between covid, health and being injured, he has not played much it seems recently. He may have all the tools just needs to get back into the game to put it all back together. Sounds like he was more highly touted before all the issues.

Much like I hope that Kobe King has a standout year after having a year back in the game last year, maybe this year can Ibra's chance to get back into the game and the following year is where we really see it all come together.

That's my optimistic view for the day.

I typically abhor when the board incorporates political or quasi-political conversations.  But I'm going to do that.  When I first saw the mascots, my first reaction was that the University has followed 'woke' trends at the nationwide university level by coming up with completely sanitized mascots, devoid of any possible flare or gutsy character.  When reading the descriptions of Beacon and Blaize (which for my generation is a typical stripper's name), the thing that I noticed is that they gave each a genderless name, and omitted any references to gender.  Complete issue du jour sanitization.  These two things are guaranteed to neither impress nor offend anyone, or to endear any following. When I showed my wife the picture of the dogs on the website, she busted out laughing, and it took me about five minutes to convince her that it wasn't a joke. I later determined that she was right all along.  It is a joke. I just wish it were funny.

In their effort to not offend anyone, they have in fact offended me as a fan.

Assuming the new mascot is a dog -correct.   Anyone have any pictures of this since it has been referenced to something from nickelodeon. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

https://www.valpoathletics.com/athletics/news/2022-23/21420/beacon-blaze-selected-as-valparaiso-university-mascots/

WTF is this.

We have gone from a Crusader, a fierce warrior, to a pair of dogs that like pets behind the ears, licking faces and nachos...
Clearly students involved in the furry community had some part in this.

Anyone hearing Thomas has not recovered and a there is a high possibility he's done playing.

Heard a rumor, but if true, wouldn't the staff be after a replacement?  Getting kinda late I would think.

Jerome Palm / Maximus Nelson
Hope its not true, but those two on roster do provide some relief already.

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2018 PF Patrick Cartier (6-8, 220, 2★) has received an offer from Valparaiso. Played at D2 Hillsdale. Was a D2 All American. Also received offer from Toledo.

Wondering...does he get an extra COVID season too? (He already played 3 years + RS year at Hillsdale.) Also wondering if this confirms concerns about Kithier's health.

Apparently a grad student with two years of eligibility remaining.

Looks to be more of a scorer than Kithier, so may fit well together if Kithier is healthy. May be a good replacement to the role Taylor played.

Over his career, shot 65% from the field, 44% from three (only taking about 1 per game so take with a grain of salt) and averaged about 20 ppg.

Now its D2 and he is 6'8" so I am sure a lot of those points are easy layups and close shots which may have inflated his numbers a bit, but 44% from three (total sample of 100 shots) still shows he has a good shot from the outside.

2018 PF Patrick Cartier (6-8, 220, 2★) has received an offer from Valparaiso.

Played at D2 Hillsdale. Was a D2 All American. Also received offer from Toledo.