When you think about it...

[agibson]

The only 2 who have been highly productive are Broekhoff and Van Wijk

Valpo's only two highly productive internationals ever both happen to be on the team right now?

Really?

[Valpo89]

Mitch played three years at Chesterton but then two in Prep School. His grades were awful, and I mean the worst you can possibly get from what I heard, at Chesterton.
I looked up his statistics on etpearl.com, which is a great web site for local high school basketball history. He scored 11 points as a 6-7 freshman for a 19-3 team in 2007-08 that lost by two points to Crown Point in the second round of the sectional. He scored 267 points for a 11-10 team in 08-09 as a soph, and 186 points as a junior in 9-10 for a team that underachieved at 7-14. I think Mitch missed a lot of that season with foot injuries.
He definitely made the right decision playing in Prep school. So he was a freshman in college this year, but old enough to be a sophomore. Same with Spike, I believe.
It's crazy that VU hasn't had a DAC player since Greg Tonagel, who graduated from LaPorte in 1997 the last year of the single-class state tournament.

[classof2014]

The only 2 who have been highly productive are Broekhoff and Van Wijk

Valpo's only two highly productive internationals ever both happen to be on the team right now?

Really?

Never said ever. Just over the past 10 or so seasons Broekhoff and Van Wijk have by far been the two best true international players to have never played some sort of organized basketball in the states prior to Valpo. Most of the international players haven't done much or maybe had a good season but none were among the leagues best players at what they did, like Broekhoff and Van Wijk.

[valpotx]

The only 2 who have been highly productive are Broekhoff and Van Wijk

Valpo's only two highly productive internationals ever both happen to be on the team right now?

Really?

Never said ever. Just over the past 10 or so seasons Broekhoff and Van Wijk have by far been the two best true international players to have never played some sort of organized basketball in the states prior to Valpo. Most of the international players haven't done much or maybe had a good season but none were among the leagues best players at what they did, like Broekhoff and Van Wijk.

Uh, you are way off on this comment.  Though Rowdy was very good, we have had several international players that had similar effects the last 10 years, and Rowdy/KVW were not 'by far' better than them.  Just because they played in the HL versus the Mid-Con, does not automatically mean they were better.  Having been able to watch all of our players live from 1999-2000 to 2003-2004, and on video since that time, I can say that the below people were very good players for us.  Please do not discount our international player heritage, as they have been excellent contributors for us:

Lubos Barton (last season 2001-2002) - absolute stud, just outside of the 10 year period you mentioned
Raitis Grafs (last season 2002-2003)
Joaquim 'Kikas' Gomes (last season 2003-2004)
Ali Berdiel (last season 2005-2006, I believe) - I hate saying this one, but he was good overall
Shawn Huff (last season 2007-2008)

There are other solid players in this time period as well (Michael Rogers, Stalin Ortiz, Roberto Nieves, Mohammed Kone, Samuel Haanpaa, etc), but they don't meet your several consistent years requirement.

I understand that your sample pool is a lot smaller than the rest of us if you graduate next year, but respect the program history son 

[agibson]

Ah, 2014, sorry, I did miss part of your original comment

Since the 02-03/03-04 seasons was when we had players who really made a difference on the team, who were truly international and never played in the US.

Maybe Shawn Huff is the chief counter-example, depending on how we want to slice and dice your boundary date.  Unless you're saying his American farther made him less than "truly international".

[classof2014]

The only 2 who have been highly productive are Broekhoff and Van Wijk

Valpo's only two highly productive internationals ever both happen to be on the team right now?

Really?

Never said ever. Just over the past 10 or so seasons Broekhoff and Van Wijk have by far been the two best true international players to have never played some sort of organized basketball in the states prior to Valpo. Most of the international players haven't done much or maybe had a good season but none were among the leagues best players at what they did, like Broekhoff and Van Wijk.

Uh, you are way off on this comment.  Though Rowdy was very good, we have had several international players that had similar effects the last 10 years, and Rowdy/KVW were not 'by far' better than them.  Just because they played in the HL versus the Mid-Con, does not automatically mean they were better.  Having been able to watch all of our players live from 1999-2000 to 2003-2004, and on video since that time, I can say that the below people were very good players for us.  Please do not discount our international player heritage, as they have been excellent contributors for us:

Lubos Barton (last season 2001-2002) - absolute stud, just outside of the 10 year period you mentioned
Raitis Grafs (last season 2002-2003)
Joaquim 'Kikas' Gomes (last season 2003-2004)
Ali Berdiel (last season 2004-2005, I believe) - I hate saying this one, but he was good overall
Shawn Huff (last season 2008-2009?)

There are other solid players in this time period as well (Michael Rogers, Stalin Ortiz, Roberto Nieves, Mohammed Kone, Samuel Haanpaa, etc), but they don't meet your several consistent years requirement.

I understand that your sample pool is a lot smaller than the rest of us if you graduate next year, but respect the program history son 

I do have a lot of respect for the international history but I think it's time to start moving away from international and become a local powerhouse. We have never been a big destination for NWI kids and Chicago kids and I think to succeed in the future we need to go after these kids. Over the past 10 or so years it has been harder and harder to come by great international players who flew under the radar because they weren't playing here in America. I think you can see that over the past 10 seasons, prior to the 03-04 season we had multiple great international players on our team. After that we didn't make an ncaa tourney for another 10 years because it is harder to come by the Lubos Barton's, Ratis Grafs's, Joaquim Gomes's type players. The international players have played a vital role over recent Valpo basketball history, I although think it's time to move on and look local, like we did with this incoming class.

[valpotx]

I will give you your point that it is much harder to recruit solid international players nowadays, as each program has overseas scouts, whereas we used to be one of the only programs doing it years ago. Programs of our size are typically only in play for players that have a solid athletic skill set, but need some seasoning.  Rowdy was one of these players, and he blossomed very nicely into a stud player.  I remember reading that only Pacific University gave him some looks, but no other serious suitors.  Kind of funny that both Valpo and Pacific made the NCAA tourney this year, when neither had been in it for awhile (last one was 2005-2006 for Pacific).

It will always be hard for a school like Valpo to do really well in NW IN and Chicago due to the amount of D-1 basketball programs in IL/IN that recruit the area, as well as the other national programs (Michigan, Duke, etc).  It is kind of like cities in TX regarding football and baseball.  Just about every D-1 program has their hands in the pot of recruiting Texans for these sports, and just about every program in basketball tries to recruit IL/IN.

[classof2014]

It will always be hard for a school like Valpo to do really well in NW IN and Chicago due to the amount of D-1 basketball programs in IL/IN that recruit the area, as well as the other national programs (Michigan, Duke, etc).  It is kind of like cities in TX regarding football and baseball.  Just about every D-1 program has their hands in the pot of recruiting Texans for these sports, and just about every program in basketball tries to recruit IL/IN.

The one advantage Valpo has right now is being the best Chicagoland basketball school. Out of: Northern Illinois, Northwestern, Loyola, UIC, and DePaul; Valpo has by far been the best Chicagoland school over the past few seasons which does help. Especially since not everybody wants to travel too far from home. I think it played a big roll in getting some of the most recent transfers in: Dority, Rossi, and possibly even Carter somewhat. I know he left for some other reasons but maybe a reason he chose Valpo was because he was from Maywood and didn't want to be too far away.

I know for this recruiting class it played somewhat of a roll for some of the players. Especially Davidson who really seemed like he wanted to stay close so his family can watch him play. Obviously this isn't the case for everybody and it is hard no matter what for a mid-major program to pick up guys the B1G type conferences are recruiting. But to the kid who is high-quality mid-major type player, will possibly look to Valpo first because it isn't too far away.