Horizon League Championship -- Tuesday 6 pm CST

[Smj]

If he is not ready -don't push it

[a3uge]

2146 total upper deck seats.

[wh]

Well, I see we're up 51-3 in championship game posts vs. GB fans.  And 1 of their 3 posts is from Jimmy Lemke.

http://phearthephoenix.proboards.com/thread/496/horizon-league-tournament-championship

Would it be right for GB to win this game when it means so little in Green Bay, WI?  The answer - no it would not. 

[a3uge]

Well, I see we're up 51-3 in championship game posts vs. GB fans.  And 1 of their 3 posts is from Jimmy Lemke.

http://phearthephoenix.proboards.com/thread/496/horizon-league-tournament-championship

Would it be right for GB to win this game when it means so little in Green Bay, WI?  The answer - no it would not.

If Green Bay wins this game, the terrorists have won.

[usc4valpo]

I am likely going to watch the game at a sports bar - my daughters are in competitive dance and religiously watch Dance Moms which is on tonight. Sad as this sounds; I lose to the grace and charm of Abby Lee Miller.

[oklahomamick]

I checked uwgb message board to see their stance on the game.  One guy replied that we have a lot of traffic on the forum but don't put a lot of life bodies in the stands. 

Don't shoot me for bringing up the private thing again.....but there is a huge valpo fan base that outside of Indiana.  I remember attending the central Florida game over Xmas a couple years back and we had an alumni event before the game.  There were about a 100 or more valpo fans in Orlando.  I don't think that would be the case for uwgb. 

[vu84v2]

I think attendance might improve if we were able to put more love bodies in the stands.

I make this post with a smile, since I have posted several very unfortunate typos.

[Smj]

usc4valpo....    Too funny but can't they dvr their show

I am a little worried about this game without Tevonn.   I watched Sykes score at will in the game Saturday.   I hope we can find a way to make other players take shots they shouldn't.    I think that might be the key to winning.    (Well the key to winning is actually - just having more points when the time runs out)

[IrishDawg]

Good luck tonight guys - should be a really good game.

[wh]

I checked uwgb message board to see their stance on the game.  One guy replied that we have a lot of traffic on the forum but don't put a lot of love bodies in the stands.

Don't shoot me for bringing up the private thing again.....but there is a huge valpo fan base that outside of Indiana.  I remember attending the central Florida game over Xmas a couple years back and we had an alumni event before the game.  There were about a 100 or more valpo fans in Orlando.  I don't think that would be the case for uwgb. 

No disagreement here.  The fact that this game is not already a complete sellout is an embarrassment.  That said, I don't know how many failed attempts it's going to take for "whomever" to recognize that locals will not pay $20 to sit in the upper deck at the ARC and watch the Valparaiso University men's basketball team play, no matter how good they are. 

[classof2014]

It's also on a Tuesday night which stinks... If it was a weekend game I'd go no doubt but since it requires basically 2 days off of work to attend that makes it difficult for alumni who live 5-6 hours away to go.

There's no question Valpo has the most passionate fans in the HL. The problem is that most alumni leave the area once they graduate. I would've loved to stay in NWI but couldn't because there were no jobs available.

[wh]

Good luck tonight guys - should be a really good game.

Thanks, IrishDawg!  For our new guys Irish was 1 of the 2 best game previewers in HL history, along with Detroit's Commissioner, and an all around good guy (a rarity for a Butler fan)!   

[oklahomamick]

Vegas has us at -3. 

I think UWGB is playing better on offense than they were when we saw them the last two times.  I didn't realize but this is their first championship game in 17 years.  Plus Sykes is hungry, this is going to be a tough game.   

[crusaderjoe]

I think we'll be fine tonight.  IMO, we have the competitive advantage being at home and having played one more tournament game than they have since our tournament began last week in Cleveland.  It'll be a tough competitive game for sure but I honestly think this team has learned how to close.  Winning at CSU at the end of the year went a long way benefit wise in a lot of respects. Sykes does make me nervous though.

[hailcrusaders]

As worrisome as the absence of Tevonn is, we still have E, who is unlike anyone else who has guarded Sykes, and Carter, a remarkably good defender himself. Remember, Sykes likes to drive the lane and we have Vashil back there. The matchups are going to be a lot tougher for him than he saw against UIC. I'd be disappointed if he puts up more than 20. I'm more worried about the absence ofTevonn on offense.

Also, remember last time GB came to the ARC, Sykes shot everything he touched, and was stone cold. GB got back into the game when he sat. I doubt we'll see something that drastic happen again, but we are the toughest defensive matchup in the HL for the Phoenix. I'd be surprised if either team scores more than 65.

[a3uge]

I checked uwgb message board to see their stance on the game.  One guy replied that we have a lot of traffic on the forum but don't put a lot of love bodies in the stands.

Don't shoot me for bringing up the private thing again.....but there is a huge valpo fan base that outside of Indiana.  I remember attending the central Florida game over Xmas a couple years back and we had an alumni event before the game.  There were about a 100 or more valpo fans in Orlando.  I don't think that would be the case for uwgb. 

No disagreement here.  The fact that this game is not already a complete sellout is an embarrassment.  That said, I don't know how many failed attempts it's going to take for "whomever" to recognize that locals will not pay $20 to sit in the upper deck at the ARC and watch the Valparaiso University men's basketball team play, no matter how good they are.

Sorry, got a little long winded, here's my response.

The main issues are 1. Spring break. 2. Scattered alumni. 3. The community doesn't really embrace the university. 4. The game is at 6pm on a Tuesday.

Point 1: Faculty, staff, and students make up the bulk of fans and are off partying in Florida, doing mission trips in Honduras, or, like I would do, are in Milwaukee eating ungodly amounts of food and sleeping in till noon.

Point 2: Most alumni don't live even within an hour of Valpo, and probably under a third live in the Chicago area.

Point 3: If you aren't on the staff, a student, or professor, you're seen as a townie. If you're a student you're seen as an uppity entitled elitist with rich parents. In the 90s, I'm sure the connection was much better with Bryce going to high school at Valparaiso. Now? Not really at all. Even the NW Indiana Times seems to not want to admit that Valparaiso University actually exists.

Point 4: I texted a number of people that were willing to travel for the game, but many couldn't get off work in time. 6pm is really inconvenient.

How the university can realistically fix these issues without doubling their athletic budget: Its going to be hard to actually move spring break or decide the game time, so we're probably stuck forever with this problem. It's also going to be awhile until we find donors that want to dish in money for ARC upgrades. The best way to help attendance now is by winning and promoting the program. It shouldn't be hard to find a couple thousand alumni to fill the seats for a championship game. Here's what has to happen:

* They have to know.
* They have to care.
* It has to be easy.

Knowing and caring come from marketing. Knowing is having a proper website, a proper schedule, proper social media, social media that emphasizes home games and packages, and proper email lists. Caring comes from the team winning, legitimizing the gameday experience (telling the pep band sto stop playing the time warp song), viewing parties, having proper packages, engaging in social media, and easy access to streaming and content (video replays). Making everything easy includes an organized alumni base that organize ridesharing, vans, busses to tournament games, having a proper ticketing website that is easy for old people to use.

Right now I don't think we do the simple things well and all my suggestions don't involve a whole lot of money. There's no reason why we don't have a bus/van from Indianapolis, Chicago, and Milwaukee to watch the game. Students home for spring break and young alumni would be all over that.

[wh]

Here's something I hope we have been working on for tonight.  One of the reasons GB blocks so many of our shots underneath without a natural shot blocker is their entire front court leaves their man and swarms to the ball when it goes up.  Plus, their swarm is synchronized.  First the on-ball defender goes up, followed immediately by a secondary blocker in the event the shooter ball fakes the first defender and evades the first block attempt. I have noticed Alec and Jubril especially absolutely need to learn to do more ball faking before they put a shot up underneath. They are too predictable and in turn too easy to block by the primary defender. 

[valpotx]

It's Paul Oren's birthday today, how can we lose?

[SanityLost17]

Despite only living an hour and 15 minutes away, I will be unable to attend the game tonight.   Unless somebody has invented a teleporter so that I can go straight from getting off work at 6 to the tip-off of the game.  I do wish that the championship game was not on a Weeknight(WORKnight).  I know TV deal, espn, blah, blah, blah.   Perhaps we can move it to a Saturday or Sunday and Fox Sports or CBS Sports can pick it up?   

[LaPorteAveApostle]

I think putting more love bodies in the stands would decrease attendance in the short term, but increase it by 50% come the fall.

[vu72]

I think part of the problem with semis were the fact that we had fans of four teams at the games and some of those left when their team was done.  Won't be the cas tonight.  Lower seats totally full and that has been the case for a couple of days. Upper deck is looking better then the semis.  In CC for example there are now 2 seats left in row UU, which leave five rows left to the top.  It was great to be there for the semis.  Sure wish I could have stayed till tonight.   

[vu84v2]

Just looked at Valpo's site. Bottom sections seem to be totally sold out, upper deck looks a little over half sold. With a reasonable walkup, attendance will be in the 4200-4500 range. While I agree that games like this should be sold out, a Tuesday night at 6:00 PM is a very difficult time. You can get away with this with a high prestige program, but most teams (even in a conference like the Big 12) would struggle to get more than 60-70% of their seats sold under these circumstances. Moving the tournament to a neutral site will only make attendance worse, while moving it to a bigger school in the conference would just make the tournament less fair.

It seems very reasonable to assume that more alumns and a greater percentage of alumns stay in places like Green Bay, Detroit or Milwaukee than alums that stay in Valparaiso. To the marketing questions raised above, I would argue that the basketball program and other athletic programs need to target the community. Don't accept the division between town and university.

[Kyle321n]

Instead of talking about stuff we can control (the attendance) let's talk about the actual product on the court.

Sykes obviously scares me the most.  We can't let him beat us. If he contributes to 30 points the we lose (be it by scoring or assisting). If he get 10 points and 10 dimes we lose; 20 and 5, we lose; 14 and 8, you guessed it. He has had 34 points that he's contributed to in the 2 games against us (23 and 11 respectively). I would like the ball out of his hands as much as possible, but since he's the point guard on their team, he's going to have it on every possession. That's why I think we have to completely eliminate Sykes. You may say "What about Mays and McKinnie and Love and to a lesser extant Fouse". They can't shoot threes. In conference Green Bay took 13.9 threes a game and made only 4 (28.7%). Sykes takes a little under 4 a game and makes a little over 1, so if you eliminate him they are going to hit a very minimal amount of threes. Crowd the lane, clog it and don't let them get decent looks from inside the arc.  Here's my game plan: Play a box+1 defense

Here's your typical box+1


While that would work, I worry about Green Bay's ability to work the middle of the box and shoot from the low post. I don't think we need to have 2 guys hanging out at the top of the key looking to stop potential threes or Sykes drives. That's why I'd propose a box+1 hybrid that I haven't seen and I'm not sure if it's been tried before (I'm sure it has, if it hasn't then I'm revolutionizing basketball.

A hybrid of the box+1


In this you would have 2 guys who are 6'7+ taking out their wings, Darien would be there to eliminate entry passes to the inside and Vashil cleans up anything on the inside. EVic, Vashil, and Alec would rotate similar to a 2-3 defense, but the wings would play a little higher than a typical 2-3. Darien would rotate to whatever side the ball is on, but would never extend past the 3 point line. And no matter what, screens, off ball movement, etc, Keith would defend Sykes as if he had the ball, never letting more than 3 feet of separation between them. If Sykes has the ball inside the 3 point line, I want the defense to swarm him like this:


1. Whatever side he's on that wing steps up to double him.
2. Vashil rotates to Sykes's side but stays on the block.
3. The opposite wing drops down to the opposite block ala a 3-2 defensive set.
4. The top of the box (in this case Darien) drops to the opposite elbow to eliminate cross court passes and passing lanes to a cutter.

Offensively, I don't want EVic playing point. I would prefer to see Max come in to give Keith a break. When Max is in though I want him as the top of the box and EVic or Darien playing the +1 on Sykes.  When Sykes gets his 2-3 minutes of rest these two things are important: Keith is out as well and you switch to a man defense.

Personally I trust Drew to coach them up enough over the two day break to implement a box+1 and I don't think Wardle would be able to adjust on the fly to it. I also think Wardle would get used to it and when Sykes comes out the man defense switch would get his head spinning.

[StlVUFan]

I never thought of it from quite that perspective before... God was having trouble getting a lively crowd in heaven (shades of the wedding banquet parable), so he pulled out all the stops!

I swear I'm going to find a way to use that in a future sermon, if you don't mind

[frontrowfan]

As a 21 year townie fan (with academic ties to Purdue, IU and Syracuse) I began following VU with Bryce.   VU Basketball is the fall/winter event for the 4 of us who sit together, travel to most away games together and definitely travel to tournaments together.   Additionally we have brought to the posse many other now devoted fans who appreciate the opportunity to watch good D1 basketball (emphasis on good basketball) at an affordable price with convenient parking.  Maybe it is my impression but I don't see town v VU animosity just ambivalence fueled by lives busy with families.