12/17 Game Thread: Oakland Grizzlies

[crusaderboy]

Valpo89, I wasn't at the Alie Berdiel Game. I was at Viking Field watching Valpo High beat Penn in the regional.

Also, a mea culpa. Did not realize MK had 7 assists and one turnover at that point in the game. Right choice, bad result.

[Valpo89]

Valpo89, I wasn't at the Alie Berdiel Game. I was at Viking Field watching Valpo High beat Penn in the regional.

No you weren't. You were watching the Vikings beat Snider in the semistate.

[crusaderboy]

I'm old and confused!
I thought I paid for these.

[sectionee]

Coach Sparks on twitter says a lot of rookie coaching mistakes yesterday. I like seeing coaches taking responsibility.  Glad these mistakes are occurring in out of conference games!

[chef]

Coach Sparks is not on staff anymore. I'm not sure he can take responsibility for anything that happened last night. I, however, do take responsibility for the echo at the start of the HLN broadcast last night. I didn't hear it on my end, but I'm sure it was there for the first five minutes of the game. I completely agree with the last second play call. Matt Kenney is not only the best player on the team beating his man off the dribble, but he's also the best decision maker on the team when he gets to the lane. Unfortunately, he did travel, otherwise Bogan would have had a wide open three in the corner.

[sectionee]

Oops! What a bad error on my end.  Agree on Kenney, he showed in the butler game an ability to score off the dribble and he was dishing assists all night. It's too bad one bad play can stick out above the positives.

[nkvu]

the echo at the start of the HLN broadcast last night. I didn't hear it on my end, but I'm sure it was there for the first five minutes of the game.

I watched the game over the internet & the echo was there the whole game.  Turned the sound off but kept going back to it to check and the echo was always there. 

[cmack]

With the game on the line, Kampe was going to his top scorer/best player.  No doubt about it!  Valpo, on the other hand, chose to go to their 5th best scorer.  He is sometimes good at going to the basket and he is also sometimes good at making bonehead plays.  In my mind, it is poor judgment to not put the game in the hands of eith Broekhoff or Van Wijk with the game on the line.  The scenario had an Ali Berdiel feel to it from the moment we inbounded the ball.

[hckjag]

I agree we should have had a play designed for either Van Vijk or Broekhoff. Rowdy has shown ability to drive to the basket or even shoot a pull up. Granted he does not do it often but when he does he usually seems pretty successful. I also expect Broekhoff to be able to shoot over a defender easier than Kenney would. However, I did not see who was guarding Broekhoff on the last possession.

[cmack]

Matt Kenney is not only the best player on the team beating his man off the dribble, but he's also the best decision maker on the team when he gets to the lane.

Is this a testament to how good he is at it?  Or how bad we are as a team at driving the lane?  I still cringe every time he is at full speed busting down the court like a bull in a china shop only to jump in the air and then try to make some decision of what to do next.

[vu72]

I think you guys are missing the point.  Matt had an option to shoot but also was trying to draw defenders and dish.  As chef said, Bogan was wide open in the corner.

The sound system was bad and I always love it when the guys forget their mikes are on or someone back in the studio doesn't cut their mikes.  At one point Todd told his partner that he had to take a leak.  Sure hope everything came out OK!!   

As for the game, it was one of the best efforts for both teams.  Anyone who complains about the non-conference schedule either isn't there or doesn't appreciate great college basketball.

All in all I think we played very well although we continue to be hit with too many turnovers.  Nice to have Boggs correct?? In his first game he must have been more than a little nervous and hitting 2 of 4 from the 3 is impressive.  He will be a big addition down the line.

The obvious weakness continues to be Buggs' play.  He needs to avoid the silly ticky tack fouls that he constantly is called for.  Aggressive play is one thing but fouling out with 12 minutes to go is a team buster.  Zero points, 5 fouls early in the second half is not going to help us win conference games.

One final thought--If Rowdy isn't first team all conference then somebody was paid off.  Right now I could see him being MVP as well.  His all around play is just outstanding. 

[FWalum]

I am also wondering why on that last play, the defender tried to go under the screen, rather than on top so he could be waiting closer to where Hamilton received the ball on the run.  You just can't allow a guy to get a running start like that with 4.6 left, you need to make them stop for a second.  The end result was a lucky bank shot.  We just lost to Helms part 2

Very astute observation valpotx.  As I said on the Valpo Zone chat while watching the game, you have to make the offensive player go towards the ball in order to catch the inbound pass.  You can not allow him to catch the ball going towards the basket so you play behind and not deny. 

[cmack]

Yes, Matt had the option of an open man in the corner.  However, I feel that Matt just runs and jumps in the air, THEN figures out what to do.  Unfortunately here he did not get to the point of making a split decision in mid-air.  If he had the kick out to Bogan in mind, I imagine he would have been able to maintain better control of his body and the ball.  Because we saw an option available to him, does not mean he was actually going to take that option.

And going to Bogan means instead of having our 5th best scorer (Kenney) take the game winner,  we would be going with the 6th best scorer???  Still doesn't make sense to me.

[chef]

A couple questions about the HLN broadcast. Did the audio get better early in the first half? Or was there an echo the entire broadcast? If so, I have no idea what caused that. The audio that's fed back to me is the radio broadcast. Thus if there's anything wrong with the HLN broadcast, I would likely not be aware of that, and in most cases would not have any control over that issue. One factor last night was the regular HLN director at the arc had the night off. He usually will let me know if there's an audio issue on my end. Thanks to all for the kind comments last week.

[rlh]

A couple questions about the HLN broadcast. Did the audio get better early in the first half? Or was there an echo the entire broadcast? If so, I have no idea what caused that. The audio that's fed back to me is the radio broadcast. Thus if there's anything wrong with the HLN broadcast, I would likely not be aware of that, and in most cases would not have any control over that issue. One factor last night was the regular HLN director at the arc had the night off. He usually will let me know if there's an audio issue on my end. Thanks to all for the kind comments last week.

The echo stopped early in the first half on my end.  No problem after....I'm glad to know the regular director wasn't there, because the person directing the pictures sucked with his cutaways, missing free throws and drives to the basket on several occassions.

[Valpo925]

I stand very close to valpo's bench during games. Toward the end of the second half, Harris came out and sat at the end of the bench holding his left shoulder. You could tell he was in a lot of pain but didn't say much to the coaching staff. When he came back in you could tell he was in pain. He was dribbling only with his right hand and had a hard time moving the ball around (passing with just one hand, had a turn over). That could explain why kurth came into the game.

[valpotx]

I don't understand why Kurth was in the game at all when you have Jay Harris sitting on the bench.  I was just waiting for Kurth to get the ball stolen from him.  I thought Buggs had a good game besides the fouls.  He assisted on quite a few of the baskets that Valpo had when the jumped out to a big lead in the second half.  And once he went to the bench with 4 fouls is when Valpo started to struggle to score.

Could you tell that Jay Harris was in pain?
He took a major shot to the chest in the Bowling Green game. He didn't practice much all week, couldn't get his arms above his head.
Jay was basically playing one-handed last night. There was one time when I questioned why Jay was in the game at all, and he got stripped by Hamilton. Hamilton is solid as a rock and would be a tough matchup for Jay on a regular day, but when he could hardly move his left arm, it was easy pick-ins for Hamilton which led to a layup at the other end.
Do you all forget that Matt Kenney helped beat Butler on a driving layup at the end of regulation? He's at his best when driving to the basket. He's got more confidence going to the rim than anyone on the team, and his options included a kickout to Broekhoff.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Ali Berdiel travel against Purdue yet. Similar play, exact same spot on the court. Come on crusaderboy.

I thought that Berdiel dribbled it off of his foot out of bounds or to a defender?  That is at least what I remember from when I was at the game, but that was around 10 years ago, so highly possible I am not remembering correctly.