2/13 - Wright State in the ARC - Hall of Fame Day

[rink]

Getting sloppy with our turnovers. Come on, play smart, secure ball for the final 3:30.

[govalpogo]

Sounds like this student section hasn't heard of the "hey hey goodbye" curse.  NEVER sing that at Valpo! NEVER!  We sang it against Butler in 07-08 and lost tragically.  Never again. 

[wh]

A bank shot 3 with the worst shooting form I've ever seen followed by alec committing an offensive foul on a guy 6" shorter instead of shooting over him from 5'. Wasn't meant to be.

Can we close out the national ranking and Bracketology threads now - please and just hope we win the HL tournament.

[govalpogo]

I'm telling ya...it's the curse!

[valpocleveland]

13 seed if they win the tournament

[valpotx]

This was embarrassing, and another loss to a bad team.  I don't care that we lost twice to them this season, that doesn't make them good.  I don't care how bad of a shooter someone is, if you don't have anyone within 10 feet of them, they can make a 3 if they are at a D-1 school.  Yes, it banked in, but you don't just give them a shot like that with 1 minute left.  Wright State is a team that we should beat by 15+, and our guys should be absolutely embarrassed that they lost twice to a team like that...if they weren't already embarrassed by their loss to Ball State

[nkvu]

Gagged this one up. Pitiful. Just pitiful. Goodby at large. Hope to god we don't have to play these guys in the conference tournament.

[atkins]

Disappointing.  Sloppy and unfocused play. 

Now, our only path to the Big Dance is to win the Horizon tournament, which is far from certain.  I am not confident that we can defeat Wright State on a neutral court, nor am I confident that we can win a series of games over a short time period.  We are just too inconsistent. 

In our current incarnation, we wouldn't be able to stay in the game against a top-20 team.  Slow starts and missed free throws equal blowouts against better teams.  Does anyone honestly believe that we could defeat Michigan State or Purdue, or even unranked Indiana? One of our patented slow starts, and we are down by 20 against any of them.  Time for a gut check. 

[govalpogo]

Well...I think the team showed that they have the metal...but lack the close game experience.  But seriously, was that the guy who hadn't shot a 3pter all year who banked that one in?! HOW DO YOU NOT SCORE IN THE LAST 2:30 OF A GAME LIKE THAT!?!?!?  How can a team lose to UIC and then beat Valpo!?!  Whatever...I like chalking it up to the curse, still in a good position for the 1 seed.  Still more than capable of taking care of business. 

[valpotx]

The only consolation is that we will still win the regular season title, and position ourselves to win the conference tournament in being the 1 seed.  There is absolutely no way that the tournament committee will give an at-large to a team that lost at Ball State, and twice to a really bad Wright State team.  They would have excused the loss at Oregon and at Belmont, with a loss on the road at a conference foe (1 loss only in our crappy conference), but not a home loss to that same bad team, and the Ball State stinker. 

[rink]

What a god awful final play drawn up on the inbounds. No surprise.

Nice job squandering the lead. Two turnovers in the closing minutes and sagging off a a D-I guard by 8 feet to allow an open three. (Yeah, he's not a three point shooter, but he's still a D-I guard.)

<< insert typical rink tirade about squandering leads, playing undisciplined, bad in-game coaching, being a joke, underachieving, general embarassment, aw golly shucks small town IN attitudes, etc >>

[crusadermoe]

You can't throw passes over and back the mid-court line twice in the late minutes of a game and win.   

Hard to believe this team keeps getting Top 25 votes. The individual skills seem like its possible.  But the offense really struggles to get good shots against a less athletic WSU team for some reason.

So Wright State loses to UIC.  And we lose to WSU.  Great.

[StlVUFan]

For crying out loud, at-large was always a long shot anyway.  It wasn't miniscule before this, but seriously.  I've been in "have to win HL tourney" mode for quite some time now.  Even if we blew them out and win out and lose in the title game to Oakland (or whoever it is we're supposed to lose to in order to get an at-large), we'd still be at the mercy of the committee.

The HL is one of many conferences that competes for at-large bids with one arm tied behind their backs.  The NCAA tourney isn't our tourney, we just get token invites.  I've resigned myself to being party crashers a long time ago.  Talk of at-large is fools gold for us.

It's also a harmless conversation on here, anyway.  People are allowed to day dream.

Wright State *is* good, when they hit their shots.  Their coach is smart.  And I suspect the refereeing was more to their liking than ours tonight, except for the first part of the second half.

There are tons of variables in basketball.  Wright State is perhaps more properly classified as a dangerous team.  They are probably in our heads or something.

Anyway, I stopped dreaming of an at-large a long time ago.  That game is rigged against us anyway.  If they want to bestow an invitation, great!  But I never really expected it anyway.

To resurrect a meme, Heaven help the Vikings on Tuesday.  May they feel our wrath the way the Norse did earlier in the season.  We don't lose twice in a row.  Who knows, we may not even have to play them at JLA.

[StlVUFan]

What a god awful final play drawn up on the inbounds. No surprise.

There was nothing there for them to do, once Donlon took his man off the end line.  After the first Valpo timeout, I was hoping for the Kampe play.  I can't help wondering if Donlon saw Keith Carter hovering around the FT line and decided to change his defense.

[StlVUFan]

You can't throw passes over and back the mid-court line twice in the late minutes of a game and win.   

Hard to believe this team keeps getting Top 25 votes. The individual skills seem like its possible.  But the offense really struggles to get good shots against a less athletic WSU team for some reason.

So Wright State loses to UIC.  And we lose to WSU.  Great.

Obviously Wright State has our number.  I see nothing indicative of how we'll do against any other HL team.

[valpotx]

Wright State *IS NOT* good, but I will concede that they DO have a smart coach.  It had nothing to do with their defense when we missed 7-8 wide open 3s, however.  We had the shots we always get, but didn't make them.  Darien was holding onto the ball too long again on his release, which is why he was 0/4 on wide open 3s.  He had corrected that in all other conference games, so I have no idea why he reverted to releasing the ball as the rest of his body is going back down.  He makes his 3s when he releases his shot at the apex of his jump.  Skara has been miserable on his 3-pt shots in the last 20 games, after a very good start to the season shooting those shots. 

[a3uge]

[talksalot]

Too bad the CBS Sports Bracketology guy (Jerry Palm) was in the ARC.... Nice to see Adam Amin ... although I guess this means we can't have either of them back until we get back to 25-in-a-row again.  The new Winning Streak starts Next Friday night... Super Hero Night in the ARC against the Kampmeister himself.

I did hear a rumor that the sun will come out tomorrow.

[justducky]

Too bad for WSU and the HL that Donlon isn't a better recruiter. Win or lose 2 times out of 3 he seems to get the better of Bryce on the game plan and adjustments.

[HC]

Couple thoughts:
- would've liked to have seen more Hammink in the second half
- would've liked to have seen someone besides Vashil set that screen and take a dive and try to draw a foul on the last play
- would've liked Tevo to play with his head, the elbow then leaving Benzinger wide open in the corner were really bad moves
- Valpo wasn't going to get an at large anyways so whatever
- I'd rather Wright St get the double bye then Oakland
- think I might go as Captain American or Ryan Broekhoff for Friday's super hero game
- Wright St isn't good. Took a combination of awful free throw shooting and Valpo missed at least 5 wiiiiide open 3's just in the second half.
- close games are less fun when you lose

[valpotx]

Also, why don't teams in college ever go for the 2-for-1??  We had 50 seconds left on that last possession, and could have driven to the basket within 12-15 seconds, leaving 5-6 seconds for us to get a last shot if WSU used the full shot clock for their possession.  Even if we miss the shot driving the lane, we at least get the last say, rather than having to play defense for a last second shot by WSU.  Who was supposed to rotate to block out Minnis?  That seemed oddly reminiscent of 2 seasons ago when Lexus was caught ball watching on a last second shot/put-back against a different team at home (I forget which team). 

[wh]

Who would have thought that WSU with their terrible road record and loser to 1 of the 10 worst teams in D-1 would come in to our house where we haven't lost all year and beat us. I disagree that WSU has our number.  They didn't look any better than they ever do. They didn't shoot out of their minds, they committed a lot of dumb fouls, they turned the ball over, and they gave up a big lead in the blink of an eye.  It was simply a matter of us inexcusably playing down to the level of a far less talented team. Oh well...

Todd stated pretty emphatically on the postgame that David and Tevonn are in serious slumps and are hurting the team right now. IMO we need to go back to Darien and seriously limit David's minutes. He's an excellent defender, but we're just not strong enough offensively to limit our scoring options to 2 or 3 players.

[78crusader]

Yes, we are up two games in the loss column with five to play, so we should be favored to win the league regular season title. But given the way we've played the last 2 1/2 games, our lead feels awfully tenuous to me.

Paul

[valpospartan]

Disappointed:
In the first half defense, or lack of same.  It was lucky we weren't down by more with all of the open shots the D allowed,
In the lack of shot making,
In the officiating, which stunk,
In the first half game plan - when pounding the ball inside doesn't work, make changes.
In the shot selection and ball control at the end of the game.
In losing a game that while not a must win game was a would be really nice to win game.
Did I mention the officiating?

[historyman]

That seemed oddly reminiscent of 2 seasons ago when Lexus was caught ball watching on a last second shot/put-back against a different team at home (I forget which team). 

Saint Louis