Valpo vs. UIC, Saturday Feb 1, 3 PM

[historyman]

Wish I was at the game, the UIC/HL commentators today are winey.  They sound like the stupid Kentucky Elk commercial that continues to play during the timeouts on the HL network.

Kenny Williams was a point guard for UIC when they were more dominant in the Mid-Con. He must be extremely frustrated by all the losing and coming close in several games. I don't know how any of us would sound if our team was once so good and now sucked just enough to lose each game. 

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Noticed that Barlow leads the Flames in PPG, RPG, and APG.

Struck me that that is a characteristic either of very good teams (Jordan's Bulls, James' Heat) and very very bad teams (Kukoc's Bulls).

And we know which the Flames are.

[oklahomamick]

Wish I was at the game, the UIC/HL commentators today are winey.  They sound like the stupid Kentucky Elk commercial that continues to play during the timeouts on the HL network.

Kenny Williams was a point guard for UIC when they were more dominant in the Mid-Con. He must be extremely frustrated by all the losing and coming close in several games. I don't know how any of us would sound if our team was once so good and now sucked just enough to lose each game. 

True, there is a lot of frustration but why does he feel he must explain every play?  He has an explanation for everything.  I understand he's a commentator and that's part of the job but Kenny and the Oakland guy are my least favorites to listen too. 

[govalpogo]

Looked good today!  5 on 8? No problem!  Always fun to to hear a snarky Todd when the game isn't in jeopardy.  You can only win one game at a time; well done getting today's W.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

LVD non-con vs. LVD HL

PPG: 14.5 vs. 20.3

3FG%: 39.7% vs. 61.0%  (NOT A MISPRINT)

Seriously, #RestofHL, i'd LOVE to hear your case as to who else could possibly be the HLPOY at the turn.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

OK one more number-crunch then back to the in-laws

LVD vs. UIC
4 games
120 min
24-45 from the floor (53.3%)
14-23 from deep (60.9%)
17-21 from the line (81.0%)
14 assists (vs. 8 TO)
11 rebounds
78 points (19.5 PPG; 26 Pts/40 min)

[Smj]

I swear. ..  LVD must see the hoop like it is a hoola-hoop lately.  I think his 3 point percentage in about the last 3 games is 75%....   We have out together 4 half's of g good basketball.

[classof2014]

If LVD had to today he could've gotten 50. He's extremely confident in everything he does and you can tell that confidence is starting to rub off on his teammates.

Like I've said before he's playing his way to a possible PoY, if he keeps this up.

[classof2014]

Also looked at the stat sheet. Vashil had 7 blocks today. That's 11 blocks over the past 2 games.

[Smj]

Vashil just looks better and better. ...  Very impressed.    He is getting better with his body control and is impacting a lot of shots workout fouling out.   The pick and roll needs to be done for him more often. ...

[StlVUFan]

Did HLN marry comcast sportsnet video with ESPN 1000 radio?  I wouldn't know, I had WVUR for audio.

I actually like Kenny Williams, although he's not the smoothest talker on radio.  He's not terribly profound either, but he holds my interest.

Comcast SportsNet can go fly a kite, though.  Kept running highlights during live action.  Todd said we completed the home-run play today early in the first half (if I'm wrong, it should be obvious I had to guess).  I'm still waiting to see it because Comcast ran a highlight of the previous play that completely obliterated the home-run play all the way to the layup.  They also insisted on running that stupid "from the end of the court" camera angle all the time, to say nothing of zooming in on Bryce or somebody else while meaningful action was taking place.  It's one thing to see bad camera angles from student camera operators and productions.  It's another to see it from a professional network.  Zooming in on fans during live action on the other hand has become the norm for all the networks, so I can't single them out for that.

I didn't have a problem with some of the calls everyone complained about, but there were some that perplexed me.  That one where Peters drove to the basket in the 2nd half absolutely should been called a hooking foul long before he got to the basket.  He did commit the charge, but the other foul obviously came first.

I kind of feel for Howard Moore these days, and I'm not sure it has all that much to do with lack of effort.

Is Valpo the first HL team this year to dominate the Flames almost from start to finish?  They put a graphic up about all the close games they've come up just short on this year, just in HL play.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Is Valpo the first HL team this year to dominate the Flames almost from start to finish? 

Worst UIC HL Losses this year:
vs. VU -24
@ VU -15
@ YSU -13

Lost by 25 to La. Tech and by 35 to NW'ern.

[StlVUFan]

Is Valpo the first HL team this year to dominate the Flames almost from start to finish? 

Worst UIC HL Losses this year:
vs. VU -24
@ VU -15
@ YSU -13

Last two weren't start-to-finish blowouts, were they?  The one at the ARC certainly wasn't.  I was there.  Not sure about the YSU game.

Then again, it's probably not a worthwhile point, since they are missing Hayden Humes.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Then again, it's probably not a worthwhile point, since they are missing Hayden Humes

No, the point was rather we've been the only team to really handle them (20 pt/avg wins).  Everyone else is pretty much storming the court.

But as much as I like Humes, I don't think he's the reason the bottom fell out today.  He hasn't really been himself this year (although I think having his role de-defined has a lot to do with it, as I argued before).

[historyman]

The pick and roll needs to be done for him (Vashil) more often. ...

Unfortunately, at least in the previous games, he has fumbled away many of the opportunities to score on the P&R. There have to be a lot of trust issues between Vashil and the guards and other passers. There certainly has been great improvement on Vashil's part but he really had a long way to go. We need him to keep the ball rolling and have a game where he fumbles away only 1 or no passes or rebounds.

[valpotx]

That was another fun game to watch.  Vashil alters 10+ shots per game, in addition to his blocks.  You can just see the opponents cringe as they get close to the rim.  He even blocked a fade-away jumper where he was 3-4 feet away from the shooter!  I look forward to his improvements next year, working more on the offensive side, to compliment his positioning improvements on defense.  His 7 blocks tied a Crusader record for one game, and I think that he got screwed out of another 1-2 that he got a finger on.  LVD is absolutely unreal over the last few games, and you can definitely see he is feeling it with some of those long 3s.  If we can keep this up over the next few games, and keep the turnovers to an average number, no one is going to want to play us. 

[StlVUFan]

Wish I was at the game, the UIC/HL commentators today are winey.  They sound like the stupid Kentucky Elk commercial that continues to play during the timeouts on the HL network.

Kenny Williams was a point guard for UIC when they were more dominant in the Mid-Con. He must be extremely frustrated by all the losing and coming close in several games. I don't know how any of us would sound if our team was once so good and now sucked just enough to lose each game. 

True, there is a lot of frustration but why does he feel he must explain every play?  He has an explanation for everything.  I understand he's a commentator and that's part of the job but Kenny and the Oakland guy are my least favorites to listen too. 

I'd much rather listen to Kenny Williams or Neal Ruhl than whoever does radio for UWM.  That guy is the most unprofessional pbp guy in the HL.  (NOTE: not talking about Daren Sutton, who has done TV for UWM games in the past.  I don't know the name of the guy who does the radio pbp).  He reminds me of the pbp guy for the Houston Cougars that we had to suffer through back in March of 2008, 2nd round of the CBI.

Sometimes Kenny struggles to get his thought out in a coherent fashion, and I suppose he's as much a homer as anyone else is, but "having an explanation for every play" doesn't exactly strike me as a fire-able offense.  It sounds more like someone doing their job.  I'm not saying he's Vin Scully or anything, but I've heard tons of announcers who are worse.

[classof2014]

It seems to me that this team is beginning to turn a corner. Yesterday, they played with a confidence I really haven't seen from this team this whole season. The game against Green Bay, I think was the turning point for the team. Over the last 9 games, 7 games they were the better team (tough loss at Oakland) and they were outplayed pretty badly in 2 other games. Let us not forget even last years team laid a few eggs in the HL, to Loyola and YSU, I suppose you can throw that UDM game in there as well.

If they can keep up this level of play they won't be easy to beat. If Dority keeps playing like this, they can beat anyone since he's playing as good as anybody in all of college basketball. Big weekend coming up for us as the Michiganders come into town. If we win both game we're 7-3 and in good position to make a run at first place and we're in great shape to get a first or second round by in the tournament.

[chef]

make that 8-3

[wh]

Interesting that when the starting lineups were announced, hometowns were included for UIC players but not Valpo players. Given that 4 of our starters are from Illinois, including 2 from Chicago, 1 from suburban Tinley Park, and 1 from Washington, I'm not surprised. That has to be embarrassing for UIC, with no starters from their own city and only 1 from the state. 

Speaking of which, how many years have we as Valpo fans been wondering if we were ever going to be able to tap into talent rich downstate Indiana, and instead we hit the mother load next door.  It's great to be a Crusader fan! 

[agibson]

Comcast SportsNet can go fly a kite, though.  Kept running highlights during live action.

My favorite was when they were looking at some replay during interesting live action.  So, they made it up to us by showing an instant replay.  On top of yet more interesting live action.  *sigh*

If they were homers, they seemed pretty complimentary of our bench, in particular.  Granted it was pretty shallow, stale stuff.  Impressed by Moussa's and Bobby's SEC and Big 10 pedigrees, by Moussa's block numbers in the SEC, etc.

If it is blacked out on ESPN 3 or if you don't have the correct subscription to watch the game but can get ESPN 3 later you can always watch the archive copy of the game listed under REPLAY.

This seems nicely to have come true for the US-Korea game.  I had the correct subscription (ESPN2) to watch it live.... in principle.  But they insisted on carrying some SEC basketball game to completion (as I was checking during timeouts of the Horizon League basketball), instead of starting the soccer.  I figured "well, they'll probably have it live on ESPN 3", and, indeed, US Soccer's twittter feed said it would be there.  But I sure couldn't find it.

But, it's there now, so I can catch the balance at my leisure.

It was pretty amusing to get to hear Adrian Healey introduce the Horizon League basketball, at the end of the US Soccer broadcast (once the basketball game eventually finished they did carry the back 75% of the soccer game).