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I didn't know where to put this but President Heckler sent out an email earlier today stating that he would be stepping down as president in the near future and it sounded like some of the board members may be stepping down soon as well. This could potentially benefit the athletics department depending on who the next president and board members are

We don't want to be too gritty or we'll end up like the Philadelphia Flyers mascot, who coincidentally is named Gritty

Can we start calling Ryan 3zekas

I know that wins are being vacated but how are losses effected? It would be disappointing for 2 BYU losses to be discarded from the budding "Lutherans vs. Mormons" rivalry.

An email was just sent out tonight from the pep band director to all current members and alumni stating that the music department was taking over the running of the pep band. A new director is being hired and the current director is stepping down after Thanksgiving break.

The only way that we would play a game in Indy this year would be against IUPUI. Either that or the the entire planning committee for the Crossroads Classic are fired and the replacements expand the playing field to include all of the D1 schools in Indiana, in which case through sort of irony we will still play IUPUI and maybe IPFW

I am not a fan of the shorter rotation in the 2nd half. It seemed like the same line up was out there for at least 10 minutes straight and we looked gassed on defense because of it

As far as the pep band and Music departments relationship goes I never got the sense that the music department never tried to sabotage the pep band, they just never really promoted it in any way. I was in the top concert and the pep band at Valpo and Dr. Doebler (director of the concert band) never had anything against the pep, heck his son was in it for a few years, all he asked is that you show up to rehearsal. The issue is that all of the music groups only have 3 rehearsals a week and because there is no "music major only" ensemble they have to schedule rehearsals in the evening when all the other non music majors are out of class. During basketball season I would leave straight from band to get to the basketball games half an hour after call time for the pep band. This got rough especially in later years (when I was living off campus without a meal plan and spent my entire time on campus with out returning home until after my last campus event was finished) because I would spend 12+ hours a day on campus during basketball days with only eating breakfast before 10 and eating dinner after 9. So moral of the story is is that the time commitment of being in pep band and a music ensemble is not something that most students can commit to

The team should open up a pastry shop, the specialty would be turnovers...

I think it's safe to say that whoever loses this game lost because the refs hosed them

According to the SIU announcers we are the Loyola Crusaders. If we lose can they have it show up as a loss for Loyola?

Personally I feel that it would be worth while to get the academic departments involved. What I mean would be this, Valpo has a Statistics department, maybe try to have a collaboration where the Stats students and Professors collect game statistics and maybe have the upper level Stats students run in depth analysis and try to find trends as to when the team is good or bad in some areas. Collaborate with the Marketing Students and Professors and have them do ad campaigning. If the right people are involved virtually every department on could find some way to collaborate

Does anyone want to go in and contribute to keeping Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Joseph in Valpo? I feel like they are our good luck charms

Based off never actually seeing MO State play this year and only by looking at their stats on ESPN what I find interesting is that on paper we are both similar teams. They have 10 + guys averaging at least 10 minutes, their 3 point shooting has be subpar at this point which means they are pounding the paint, and they're a top 50 scoring defense. As history has shown whenever two similar teams face eachother the home team has the advantage but our advantage could be neutralized if the atmosphere isn't raucous, which is a possibility if the students aren't there. Despite that, Valpo will win by two buckets

[The band was going strong]

How many students in the student section?  Missed seeing that too.

Pretty good not great. Half to two-thirds full? Overall crowd was a little lighter than we've seen at some points in the season, but respectable. The amount of energy and noise in the room was immediately noticeable... compared to Savannah. It wasn't just my family and the Ragland family making noise! But, I did hear one of the Ragland girls from clear up in EE. "Defense, Valpo, defense!"

Solid turnout especially for finals coming up. It kind of makes me sad looking at the student section the last few years. I honestly don't know what happened. Valpo Admissions is getting the intellectual types but we need to start admitting the intellectual types that like basketball. I'm not too far removed from my college days and I remember the students section being more crazy. Literally 2 years ago the swim team was showing up in speedos to games. The student section needs a little bit more of that. V-Rex is always mr. reliable and a we have an outstanding group of hardcore students that get to every home but there can could be more. I don't want to be a downer after a good crowd especially for a coming up on Finals weak but if I were in the Athletics Department I'd be taking a deep look at why the student section has been shrinking in recent years. But I want to give credit to the @happeninghoops crew who have been handling the social media on the @Valparaizone twitter account. They've been very active and I do think they're efforts have made a difference this season. I know they've been trying to rejuvenate the student section. I think it's just a "student/fan culture" that needs to be built and sustained from year to year. When I went to school it was fun because the student section was more packed. The band was going strong. Maybe it's easy to lose that or maybe its cyclical with certain classes. I'd honestly try and reach out to one of the marketing classes in the business school and make this a fun class project or something. Also the incoming student need to be indoctrinated at the beginning of every year to the Valpo Basketball fanbase. Bring them down to the ARC and teach them the cheers. Introduce them to the basketball team and coaches.

The band has been over taxed the past few years. The band right now is mostly STEM majors and/or members of Christ college, all of which are very time consuming. On top of that they play for all home volleyball, football, and m and w basketball, along with rehearsals and events like the popcorn parade sprinkled in. Add all of this together you are asking volunteers to commit about the same amount of time as a group of athletes that are receiving scholarships for their time. Midway through football season there is a huge drop out rate among the freshmen because the time commitment coupled with the only reward being a part of the NCAA tournament band (if the team makes it) and they don't see the point of staying. Also they have to sit through women's basketball and, until this season, football too which is pretty much a morale killer

You mean you haven't watched every second of film on Utah State that has ever existed in their history? You need to find a way to break the space time continuum to make an informed decision. I expected better of you man 

Seeing as I'm probably one of the more qualified members on this board to speak regarding the pep band I can definitely say that it is difficult to "get the band back together." I know there is at least one person in the band this year who is an alumni but the main issue is that hardly any of the alums live in the area any more. During my four years I can count on my hand the number of times alums came for to play for a game. For me I won't be back for any games this year because my weekends are swamped and I'm living in central Michigan  (I also haven't touched my instrument in ages so I'm out of practice but that is neither here nor there )

This is in response to agibson's quote above, I don't quite have the quoting function figured out yet

This was the game we needed. A tight game for the majority where our guys had to show grit against a team that wasn't missing. I also loved Matt riding the hot line up and going small ball, I definitely wouldn't mind see a little more of it in the future. Also Kizer needs more playing time, every time he is on the court he galvanizes the team whether it be is rebounding or his calming presence

This is probably the first time this season where we could actually see the depth come into play. For obvious reasons I wasn't happy with how close the game was for 30 minutes but we really did pour it on in the last half because everyone was rested

Just don't go to the session with *U* NC

Not a good game to get a better read on the team, the entire 2nd half was stop and go with the constant fouling so neither team could really sustain any flow offensively. What I could decipher is that our on ball defending has improved and we can score without having to rely on transition offense. I was surprised however with Joe's lack of involvement on the offense, with the exception of that stretch in the middle of the second half he didn't really touch the ball at all. I'm just hoping this is because he his trying to get back into the flow after not playing for over a year.

Based on how the Trinity game is going right now and just because this is for fun "Over/Under Golder will have more blocks than Smits at the end of the season"

Long time lurker here but my name should give you some idea of my Valpo connection. For the most part I liked what I saw but there was some concerns that I had, admittedly these were typical start of the season concerns that should easily be fixable when our guys are able to hit the film room and also my basketball IQ isn't the greatest.

First of all our defense was inconsistent for a few stretches where the opposing players were wide open on the perimeter. I noticed this especially when RM players were able to penetrate into the lane and we would have 3-4 guys collapse hard on them leaving the 3 wide open. I understand that you are supposed to collapse the lane but I feel that we collapsed harder than we should have because our guys were over hustling (not necessarily a bad issue to have). I feel that this issue will resolve itself when we learn to trust each other on defense more. Secondly I realize RM is a good team but we should not be giving up 70 points to them. Lastly, the emotions of the first game got to our guys early and sloppy turnovers and missed free throws ensued, but these issues were minimized as the game went on. As stated before these concerns should go away as the season wears on and the guys become more engaged.

Given the circumstances it's really hard to determine anything about the team right now but my biggest takeaway is that all the guys seemed to know their place in the offense and they seemed to know what the other players roles were too. The chemistry is way ahead of where I thought it would be and I think the beginning of the season will better than most of us think