NOT such a hot year!

vu72 · May 23, 2014, 06:34:07 PM

Well, it's over. The athletic year that is. We've been spoiled the last couple of years, or have we grown used to what should happen for Valpo teams? Last year we had four championships, and in spite of being picked to finish first in a couple of sports, we came up empty. This is after the departure of Butler and Loyola. Not a very good result.

wh · May 29, 2014, 11:12:02 AM

http://www.horizonleague.org/blog/milwaukee-earns-seventh-mccafferty-trophy.html

Final McCafferty results

valpopal · May 29, 2014, 12:18:17 PM

I think the way the overall standings are figured can be a bit misleading. Valpo men's sports are listed in last place; however, in the conference standings Baseball came in 3rd, Basketball came in 4th, Tennis came in 3rd, Soccer came in 6th, Golf came in 4th, Cross Country came in 7th, and only Swimming & Diving came in last. Mostly middle of the pack and not as well as Valpo would have liked, but looks a bit better when considered this way.

valpotx · May 29, 2014, 01:07:49 PM

Terrible performance overall this year...wow, last place overall. YSU ended up second, yet it seemed like they were at the bottom of all team sports. This just goes to show you how much S&D, as well as CC & T&F hurt us in the overall standings. Since some of these have two championships throughout the year (CC?), it really hurts when you get last place.

vu72 · May 29, 2014, 01:09:22 PM

Quote from: valpopal on May 29, 2014, 12:18:17 PM
I think the way the overall standings are figured can be a bit misleading. Valpo men's sports are listed in last place; however, in the conference standings Baseball came in 3rd, Basketball came in 4th, Tennis came in 3rd, Soccer came in 6th, Golf came in 4th, Cross Country came in 7th, and only Swimming & Diving came in last. Mostly middle of the pack and not as well as Valpo would have liked, but looks a bit better when considered this way.

According to the Horizon site, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, volleyball, softball and baseball points are awarded based on 60% for regular season and 40% on the league championship results. All other sports are based on the league championships only. Valpo's strongest sports are the ones where the points are split based on both championships. I suspect our overall last place finish was based on getting zero points in all the other sports via their league championship performances.

valpotx · May 29, 2014, 01:22:20 PM

I would be interested to see how points are given in regards to placing during the regular season. It seems like each of our main sports did well throughout the regular season. It's crap that you give a 60% weighting to the majority of the season, and 40% to 3-4 games, when a team can get hot. It should be more like 70/30 or 75/25...

LaPorteAveApostle · May 29, 2014, 02:48:27 PM

Quote from: valpotx on May 29, 2014, 01:22:20 PMIt's crap that you give a 60% weighting to the majority of the season, and 40% to 3-4 games, when a team can get hot. It should be more like 70/30 or 75/25...

Understand that I'm not disagreeing with you. But when it comes to giving the NCAA berth, it's 0/100

BRING BACK THE (meaning of the) REGULAR SEASON TITLE

valpotx · May 29, 2014, 04:25:48 PM

Ah, I didn't know that only one team was given points for the tournament championship. That doesn't make it any better, as hopefully no one would argue with my view that YSU doesn't deserve 40% of the overall baseball points for getting hot over 4 games, versus a 6-17 conference record that was MUCH more indicative of their season. That is just absurd!

LaPorteAveApostle · May 29, 2014, 05:28:17 PM

Quote from: valpotx on May 29, 2014, 04:25:48 PMAh, I didn't know that only one team was given points for the tournament championship.

Sorry, no you were right before...I was implying that when it comes to awarding the auto berth, it's 0 regular 100 tournament.

Which I understand in theory but abhor in practice.

VULB#62 · May 29, 2014, 05:29:45 PM

Hopefully the new track will, in time, attract more and better T&F/CC student athletes to the campus. That should improve our standing in CC, winter T&F, and spring T&F -- that's 6 sports right there. But we still need to win season and tourney championships in MBB, WBB, MSO, WSO, VB, Softball and Baseball. That means greater emphasis on doing the things that are needed to bring in more and better athletes in these sports. And what are those things? More scholarships to reach NCAA limits in all sports? More attractive financial aid packages? Bigger recruiting budgets? And we've beaten the facilities horse to death at least 47 times already.

So............ Why do we sometimes lose out on great mid-major talent in these sports? I'm sure all the coaches do annual retrospectives to idenify why we lost kids we were after. But we (the board) can only guess. This board needs greater empowerment and then we'd solve all of Valpo's problems

BTW - Shame that Bowling isn't counted.

valpopal · May 29, 2014, 07:51:54 PM

Quote from: VULB#62 on May 29, 2014, 05:29:45 PM
BTW - Shame that Bowling isn't counted.

On the other hand, neither is football.

usc4valpo · May 29, 2014, 08:22:45 PM

hey, at least football was not included. The may have deducted points!