Valpo vs Drake at Nashville Municipal Auditorium Friday 11/28/2014 5:00p.m. CT

[vu72]

So can anybody remember a 12 asst 4 TO game? Nice improvement. Granted, Drake isn't very good, and we didn't shoot well--but still, a 20 pt win is nice.

[wh]

Tonight's 4 TO's are the fewest in the last 450 games over the past 15 seasons. That's as far back as Statsheet.com goes.  The previous low in that period was 5 against Cleveland State on Feb. 3, 2011. 

Does anyone have access to stats prior to 2000?  Might this be an all-time record? 

[valpotx]

Portland beat Murray State 64-61.  Hopefully we can hold Murray State to 28% shooting from 3 as well!

[truth219]

Any stream available for tonight's game??

[wh]

From the MS board:

Neal tweeted there was no video for the Portland game, I think it would be a safe bet to assume there will be none all weekend.

[truth219]

Boo

[a3uge]

The amount of untelevized, oddball tipoff time games is killing me this year.

[bbtds]

Reporting in from Nashville. The Nashville Muni is a lot older than I thought. It does not have a video board but does have a good sound system. So it's a real throw back kind of arena.

Valpo had an excellent game. The big difference was that Valpo played great defense and shot much better especially in the 2nd half. My prediction is that Drake won't win a game in this tournament and it will be toss up for the Valpo/MSU and Valpo/Portland games.

As far as turnovers I think Valpo threw a lot of passes that were almost turnovers but were collected in by athletic saves. It seemed incredible to me after watching the game that Valpo only had 4 turnovers including offensive charges.

I can't figure out why they don't have live video for these games. They handed out some printed sheets with the name of an organization and their website were they were posting interviews, highlights and other info. I'll try and get that website posted later.

If the Crusaders can pace themselves and shoot better they could beat both the Racers and Pilots. Keith "Drew" Carter and Darien Walker were both hot in the 2nd half.

At the alumni gathering today Rod Moore said everybody was okay and there were no injuries that were going to leave anyone on the bench. Alec was atthe alumni event with the rest of the team and he seemed just fine after taking a real shot to the jaw against Drake. Alec's family was at the game. As was a large contingent of Coach Gore's family, I believe he said 24 members, and a large group of EVic's family from Atlanta. Homer was also at the alumni event.

Also the alumni event was held in the Marriott at Vanderbilt where the team is staying which has rooms that look into the Vanderbilt Stadium. So there were multitudes of Vanderbilt and Tennessee football fans running all over the place. We actually had a great view of the Volunteers entering the stadium and their orange clad fans greeting their arrival at the Vanderbilt Stadium. There were actually a greater amount of Tenn fans than Vanderbilt fans.

[vu72]

I found this quote, from the Drake coach, telling, and indicative of the entire weekend:

"We need to be much tougher than we are, those were men we played against tonight," said Drake head coach Ray Giacoletti. "We need to step that up and do the same things [Valparaiso was doing] every night."

[FWalum]

Short video on Darien Walker's 4 point play.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR0V3I3LuT4&list=UUluIw7oLeBn27jlMmTNBRUg

[bbtds]

Unfortunately Darien missed the free throw so it was only the three point shot that counted.

[talksalot]

OK... I need some help here.  Can anyone explain the financial ramifications of the Challenge in Music City?  No TV.  Crowds ranging from 0 to 300 ...and that trophy sure looks like it was expensive.  Lots of Officials, Renting the facility and staff to run the place.  I'm guessing Murray covered the scorers table/PA, etc... but... Who made money on this?  I wonder if we paid to play in this one?  (oh... as it turned out, worth every penny if we did)

[chef]

Murray State had well over 1,000 fans at each game.

[talksalot]

The Murray State box score shows 504 for the Drake game... and 0 for both Valpo and Portland...

Even at 1,000... someone lost a ton of money on this tournament with no title sponsor and no TV coverage.

[bbtds]

I was going to say that 1,000 for the Murray State games seems a bit much. Chef is probably used to those small crowds at the ARC being estimated at 1,000 or more during the guess-the-crowd-size era at Valpo :-).

It didn't matter during the 2nd half of the Murray St/Valpo game because most of the crowd was acting like they were hunting rabbits with Elmer Fudd. They were "werry qwuiet."

[LaPorteAveApostle]

It didn't matter during the 2nd half of the Murray St/Valpo game because most of the crowd was acting like they were hunting rabbits with Elmer Fudd. They were "werry qwuiet."

Judging by the video, because they had lost their voices (along with their minds) screaming at the refs 1st half.

[chef]

I think a lot of Murray people didn't come back for the Drake game after the Crusaders dismantled them the day before. The Murray - Portland crowd was significantly bigger.