Game #7 Purdue NW at Valpo 6:30 p.m./5:30 p.m. Thursday, December 17, 2020 ESPN3

[wh]

PNW led Ohio by 4 at the half and was within 3 of Bowling Green at the half in their other 2 games. BG and Ohio were picked 1-2 in the MAC no this year.

This puts a completely different perspective on last night's game and supports that it was anything but "useless."

[JBC1824]

And then they lost each game by about 20, right?

If their first-half performances deserve serious consideration, so should their second-half performances.

[valpo64]

Has anyone noticed that it  is so easy to be negative?  No matter what the circumstances, someone will always find fault.  I guess I should add that "nothing is perfect"!

[bbtds]

I listened to the radio broadcast in the 1st half on my way home. I also had to listen to an entire earlier game because I was traveling. The radio guys are great. From what I gather they're VU students and roommates. They're funny, entertaining and professional all wrapped up in one.  They come totally prepared to call a fast moving game and know a lot about the players. I believe one of them said he's on the golf team in conjunction with a comment about Conner being a very good golfer. Connor has shot a 72, etc. The other guy teased him about Conner being a better golfer than he (student announcer) is a bb player, which he jokingly took offense to. A really good college announcing team.

It will always be tough when the standard is set by Todd Ickow and Adam Amin. Maybe we can get another broadcaster in the national scene. You never know for sure.

[JBC1824]

Has anyone noticed that it is so easy to be positive? No matter what the circumstances...

It is not "negative" to take a full game's results into account rather than just the parts that make you happiest. LOL

[truth219]

Its frustrating knowing our team will be in the bottom half of the conference come March. I dont feel as if I'm being negative. I just want a winning team. The fact that last night's game wasn't a squash is alarming. We should be destroying non D1 teams.

[VUGrad1314]

PNW led Ohio by 4 at the half and was within 3 of Bowling Green at the half in their other 2 games. BG and Ohio were picked 1-2 in the MAC this year.

That means nothing... It's not like they won either of those games... We lost to the team picked second to last in the MAC so what does that say about us? Hooray for us we can pound a D2 program like any D1 program is supposed to? We're too far into Matt's tenure to be looking at that as any kind of positive or moral victory. The loss to CMU means way more to me than PNW's relative performances against better MAC teams and us.

We should also be reminded (as I was by the poster MilanMiracle on MVC fans) that Valpo was outrebounded by 12 (!) 43-31 by PNW despite a complete lack of size (nobody over 6'7 logging more than a single minute.)

I hate to say it but I think we should be bracing ourselves for yet another long and frustrating season that leaves us wondering if we'll ever really get there. This team has some talent but I wouldn't call it a good team. Which is basically the story of the entire Lottich era. Same issues year in year out.

[vok22]

I've been really excited for the Clay-Krikke-edwards-Barrett-ognacevic future. I have to say that after the first few games, Im not impressed with Krikke and Clay. They haven't really taken a step up to me at all; they are just getting more touches without Javon. Neither of them are really shot creators. Clay is still kinda clunky.  Good but not great. Yea, I know, they are sophomores, but I was hoping to see a little more out of them so far. Hopefully as the season goes on we start to see one of both of them step up as guys that can take over the game down the stretch when we can't score. Either way, this has been a hectic offseason and it's hard when you lose 3 starters form last season and don't have much practice to really gel together with new lineups and freshman contributors. I didn't think we would be that good this year anyway since Javon left. I've been aiming for next year and the year after, and obviously not calling that off after 7 games. As far as the freshmen, I think they have played really well, and down the road when they are the main contributors it will translate to winning more than it is now. That being said tomorrow is a huge game. Toledo is a top 100 team and I think we would confirm the potential of this teams future with a win. As for last night, I think it was a classic case of playing down to competition. We went up 20 and the game got boring, players were trying to do too much and got sloppy in doing so. I'm not looking much into that at all. Playing non D1s gets uninteresting after a while.

[VUGrad1314]

It's honestly sad to me how far our expectations have fallen as a fanbase... We've gone from a school that beat P5 teams and upper tier mids somewhat routinely: East Tennessee State Belmont Murray State BYU (twice) St Mary's  Florida State Oregon State Alabama and several MVC schools (and that's just off the top of my head) to thinking "Well, we made progress when we don't fumble a game to a D2 school in which we were owned on the boards as we have been routinely throughout the Lottich era. We wait every year and see disappointing schedule after disappointing schedule (this was true even in the Drew era to be fair) and now in the Lottich era we don't even perform well against these disappointing schedules. We have ONE D1 win this year. ONE. We got shellacked by a team we used to dominate in UIC. We lost to one of the worst projected teams in the MAC. But thank God we were more in control against PNW in the first hal than Ohio and Bowling Green were (before they both beat PNW by a bigger margin than we did). I know he's dealt with a lot of transfers and adversity. I know the conference change was difficult. I know every excuse. But at what point are we going to start holding people accountable for where the program is right now? Is this good enough? Are they complacent because they got us into our dream conference and now feel like they don't have to do anything anymore? Great conference or not winning still matters. How much longer do we have to be patient with our "young team" before it FINALLY grows up? Has anyone considered that maybe the coaching staff might be part of the reason we have such issues with transfers? Why can't we keep our best players? Is it a lack of respect? Why aren't our coaches respected? Why don't we schedule better even among our peer conferences? It's time to ask and answer some tough questions.

[JD24]

What an absolute bunch of whiny posters.

Keep on keepin it "real".

[justducky]

What an absolute bunch of whiny posters.

I will agree with this except for the times when I am the one doing the crying. 

[vok22]

I

It's honestly sad to me how far our expectations have fallen as a fanbase... We've gone from a school that beat P5 teams and upper tier mids somewhat routinely: East Tennessee State Belmont Murray State BYU (twice) St Mary's  Florida State Oregon State Alabama and several MVC schools (and that's just off the top of my head) to thinking "Well, we made progress when we don't fumble a game to a D2 school in which we were owned on the boards as we have been routinely throughout the Lottich era. We wait every year and see disappointing schedule after disappointing schedule (this was true even in the Drew era to be fair) and now in the Lottich era we don't even perform well against these disappointing schedules. We have ONE D1 win this year. ONE. We got shellacked by a team we used to dominate in UIC. We lost to one of the worst projected teams in the MAC. But thank God we were more in control against PNW in the first hal than Ohio and Bowling Green were (before they both beat PNW by a bigger margin than we did). I know he's dealt with a lot of transfers and adversity. I know the conference change was difficult. I know every excuse. But at what point are we going to start holding people accountable for where the program is right now? Is this good enough? Are they complacent because they got us into our dream conference and now feel like they don't have to do anything anymore? Great conference or not winning still matters. How much longer do we have to be patient with our "young team" before it FINALLY grows up? Has anyone considered that maybe the coaching staff might be part of the reason we have such issues with transfers? Why can't we keep our best players? Is it a lack of respect? Why aren't our coaches respected? Why don't we schedule better even among our peer conferences? It's time to ask and answer some tough questions.

I understand the frustration. I regularly think back to the good ole days of having 4000 people packed into the arc and students attending games and beating power 5 teams. But we have to remember that that wasn't all that long ago. We lost a great coach, took a significant step up conference wise, and it has only been, what, 4 years since that al started? We went through a couple years of experiment with washed up power 5 transfers and it failed and we shifted gears to recruiting overseas and under valued recruits. It appears that have a really solid young base in Krikke, Clay, O, Barrett, and Edwards. Along with a couple new point guards coming in next year and that 6'8 guard from Oklahoma. We experimented with transfers like Burton, Evelyn, Golder, etc. while going through a conference change and a coaching change and it failed. Coach shifted gears and the future looks much brighter. They handled the mass exodus last offseason well and ended up getting to the Missouri Valley Championship game. Whether or not this upcoming group of sophomores and younger pans out is yet to be decided, and we can reevaluate the program then if it is another fail, but we have to give it a chance. We have had a good program for a while now, and naturally there will be stretches where we aren't dominant. We are in one of those stretches now, but it won't last forever. I suspect if Lottich keeps recruiting like this then we might be more concerned about losing him 5 years down the line. I could be wrong about all of this, but I think we should judge Lottich more on the next three years than the last three years.