Wright State at Valpo, Jan. 10th, Friday 8:00 p.m. CT Game Thread

[valpo84]

i slept on my thoughts of the game because my intitial reactions were not good. however, i watched a lot of games yesterday (and broadcast a hs game Friday) and sometimes you have to step back and look at the big picture of a season.
1. Teams are going to give us their best shot -- we are 2x defending HL regular season and last year's HL tourney champs. We have young players who do not understand yet what that means and what is required. We have to play at a higher intensity every game. UMass, Wichita State, Florida all learned valuable lessons yesterday.
2. Coach Drew has made a lot of in game and other adjustments. It does require execution. The pick and roll was an effective strategy for an aggressive defense. But the big men have to follow the 3Cs -- catch, collect and convert. Vashi -- slow down. Yes the WSU defense was very effective. But this offense is built on sets that are decades old. Watching an old tape of part of the ORU Valpo 1999 AMCU tourney championship had the same O sets. The passing (lot less dribbling) was crisper and there was more experienced players at post. That team in conference finsihed 2d after slow starts too. The frosh really came on towards the end of the season. There was a lot of coaching at the end when 5 frosh were on the court and time outs and fouling was still going on. That group has to learn how to win. Bryce and company are still offering their offense plenty of sets, plays and opportunities. Players have to execute in the end. Too many missed layups, too many missed FTs, too much dribbling.

3. Watching past couple games, the frosh looked like they have hit the proverbial "freshmen wall." We look sluggish. So hopefully, the 2d wind comes soon. There are a lot of guys getting minutes at a high level they haven't before. And, if we are picking on The Carter for not playing well then Chrishown Hopkins, a 2x final four participant, was defended by Huckaby for getting into "game shape." Yeo's minutes need to be reduced as he looks like a frosh. No reason to redshirt him. Peters needs to quit rushing his 3 -- set your feet big man.

4. Huckaby and Barbar are the worst pairing all season. Get them off HL games if they are going to repeat themselves ad nauseum. OMgoodness, jiminy crickets. Did you know WSU had 3 starters out. Boo freaking hoo. They still have 5-7 guys on the court from last year. Pachar, Darling, etc played tons of minutes. When we had injuries no one cried for us for 2 hours on national tv. Huckaby had nothing helpful to say. He couldn't even interview Lloyd. Maybe ask, "Lloyd, you had the pleasure for the past few years of being the hitting coach of Miggy, what makes him so good?" Get him off the air, please. He should not be able to do another HL game ever. ESPN, I will watch, but will be turning off the sound going forward. Todd is so much better, or silence.

5. Finally, I don't even know where to begin on what is a foul in the HL. The Commish needs to rectify this immediately and send a memo to the coaches as to what is going to be the standard. Mrs. Valpo84 gets very frustrated because we teach her what are the rules and then refs do not follow so how is anyone supposed to know and understand. Consistency is all that we ask for. Others made excellent comments on this.

But everyone, let's relax and show some patience. This team needs to improve throughout the season and there is a lot of talent. We've heard Kampe and Donlon already start to stress about the next couple years. We were spoiled by some earlier successes. It's like a rookie pitcher in the majors (this is for TX), first time around no one has seen him or knows his stuff. Second time adjustments are made. It's now our turn to make adjustments back to what people are doing to stop the kids. Great players and teams make the adjustments and improve. At least we're not Carolina....

[StlVUFan]

4. Huckaby and Barbar are the worst pairing all season. Get them off HL games if they are going to repeat themselves ad nauseum. OMgoodness, jiminy crickets. Did you know WSU had 3 starters out. Boo freaking hoo. They still have 5-7 guys on the court from last year. Pachar, Darling, etc played tons of minutes. When we had injuries no one cried for us for 2 hours on national tv. Huckaby had nothing helpful to say. He couldn't even interview Lloyd. Maybe ask, "Lloyd, you had the pleasure for the past few years of being the hitting coach of Miggy, what makes him so good?" Get him off the air, please. He should not be able to do another HL game ever. ESPN, I will watch, but will be turning off the sound going forward. Todd is so much better, or silence.

Most of what I dislike specifically about Barber I can't quite put my finger on, but I think you have nailed it as much as possible.  Part of it is just the sound of his voice, which is entirely subjective and even I don't understand why the sound of his voice makes we want to go drag my fingernails across chalkboards for 2 hours.

The rest of what I have against him I have against every ESPN pbp team that ever does an HL game, and it's not necessarily his fault but the network's.  I won't rehash it for the thousandth time as I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing my rant

Not listening at the time, I couldn't tell for sure, but I got the distinct impression that when they were interviewing McClendon they completely abandoned play by play.  I hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately I have high confidence that I'm not wrong.

Recently I heard a discussion on WSCR about NFL announcers that touched on the same general area and they talked about how the announcers fly in to do the game and they already have their rundown of story lines.  They have very little time, so instead of actually learning about the team, they ask about their preconceived story lines so they can have their talking points ready to sprinkle throughout the game (maybe Jim didn't have that many to work with and that's why he hammered the few he had into the ground so much).  I don't know if this applies also to CBB announcers, but I can readily believe it.

I'm afraid maybe the real object lesson here is that ESPN just absolutely sucks at CBB   Of course, they're probably not the only network that does...

[chef]

Most network PBP guys have full-time jobs in local markets. Thom Brenneman (The Reds), Sam Rosen (The NY Rangers), Kevin Burkhardt (MSG), etc. Thus, there's many times they don't arrive at the park until an couple hours before the game. It's the same situation with most ESPN announcers - they have multiple gigs. It's very hard to do proper prep under these circumstances.

[StlVUFan]

Most network PBP guys have full-time jobs in local markets. Thom Brenneman (The Reds), Sam Rosen (The NY Rangers), Kevin Burkhardt (MSG), etc. Thus, there's many times they don't arrive at the park until an couple hours before the game. It's the same situation with most ESPN announcers - they have multiple gigs. It's very hard to do proper prep under these circumstances.

I do get that.  As I've said, I actually don't blame the announcers.  It is a real problem, but the blame belongs elsewhere.  In ESPN's case, I believe the pbp holes that I always notice are the fault of the network.

Of course, tonight's game at the Nutter Center wasn't on ESPN.  Yet still, in the 2nd half, Kelsey Barlow traveled on 2 consecutive possessions, and there were a few other things of note that happened, and Barber and Cornette ignored all of it because they were having some conversation about something relatively unimportant.  I'm sure something happened in the game that triggered the tangent, but they talked over 2 whole minutes of action -- and this time there was no network dictating that they do that by filling the screen with some graphic.

[wh]

Before anyone loses sleep or anymore hair over this team, just remember...this isn't last years team. Give this team a year or two.

I expected this team to be just above .500 in league play with a couple good wins and a couple bad losses. We're young and the freshman class can be really really good when they are juniors/seniors. The freshman are making freshman like mistakes. The problem is, the seniors are also making freshman like mistakes. This teams best basketball is in the future with Peters, Williams, Adekoya, Carter, and the rest. We played right into WSU's strengths. The young guys know what to expect from a Billy Donlon WSU team from now on.

Teams like Green Bay, Wright State, Oakland are just better, battle tested teams with players that have been around the block a few times. If this was last years team playing like this, then we would have something to worry about. Just CALM DOWN people, everything will be okay  . This isn't the year. Unless we turn things around, we'll be in the middle of the pack. Maybe we can get hot during HL tourney time but who knows.

I might have agreed with you - before the season started. I might even agree with you now had we played inconsistent, mediocre basketball from the get-go, but that's not what happened.  We opened the season with an impressive home win over Murray State, a team now 9-7 and on a 4-game win streak.  We took 13-5 Mercer to the wire at home in a game we probably should have won only 6 weeks ago.  We lost by 2 to mid-major powerhouse St. Louis (14-2) on a last second tip-in only 5 weeks ago. In every one of those games we played with confidence, passion and purpose.  Yes, we made a lot of "beginner's mistakes," but we had a lot of great moments as a team, as well.  Talent was on display everywhere.

These and other OOC games gave us the fans every reason to expect that this years team would be highly competitive in conference. Given these expectations, it seems perfectly reasonable to wonder why the team that played so well against quality OOC opponents can't seem to play at the same level now.  Personally, I'm not ready to put a "rebuilding" stamp on the season and dial down my expectations accordingly.  That just doesn't make sense to me given what we were able to do in OOC.  I'm sure I'll come around if we continue to lose, but I'm not ready at this point to concede that as our destiny.         

[valpo84]

Most network PBP guys have full-time jobs in local markets. Thom Brenneman (The Reds), Sam Rosen (The NY Rangers), Kevin Burkhardt (MSG), etc. Thus, there's many times they don't arrive at the park until an couple hours before the game. It's the same situation with most ESPN announcers - they have multiple gigs. It's very hard to do proper prep under these circumstances.

That seems to be a bit generous. Do they hear they're going to do a ballgame a couple hours before? Even if they have multiple "gigs," college hoops is one of their gigs, which should require a general knowledge of the game that can be applied to any game. Moreover, Huckaby and Barbar have done HL on a regular basis the past couple years. They should have more depth to the analysis, and they should be paying attention to the specific game they're watching -- identifying the trends, opportunities and what both teams should be doing. Not parroting each other's repetitive blather.

Chef is one of the most distinguished radio voices in America. I'm sure (and know) you are very diligent in your preparations. Moreover, you tell a story and the "whys". Within seconds, we know what type of game we're envisioning in our heads and painting a picture of how both teams are playing. On TV, we have a visual of the game and can watch the specific action. The commentators are there to put it in perspective, to tell us something we're missing, to provide stats and information about the teams. The BCS Championship coaching room was a terrific innovation because the viewer had input real time about things we don't normally focus on, the signs the Auburn FB gave about the direction of a play as an example. Finally, on preparation, I can tell you that for games that we broadcast (and it is "only" HS and only local cable) it doesn't interfere with my day job and we do just fine, without a spotter, a director giving us stats and info in our ears, multi-page Media Relations Game Day notes, and reams of video available on the internet. Would love some of that for prepping. It's just really disappointing that they can't be better and raise to a higher standard. I'll step down gingerly from the soap box.

The Raiders really should have been beat last night, which makes Friday night's Valpo performance that much more disappointing.