Horizon League Tournament 2016 - First Round Games

[Kyle321n]

Why not have a place to chat about the 4 games our compatriots are playing Saturday?

KenPom has the breakdown like this: (Bold is your projected winner, listed is score prediction and win probability)
Wright St. vs Illinois Chicago (71-60, 87%)
Green Bay vs Cleveland St (76-66, 82%)
Milwaukee vs Northern Kentucky (76-69, 77%)
Detroit vs Youngstown St (93-86, 73%)


So who is going to be left playing Sunday?

[HC]

I'll go with a UIC upset - because why not

[ValpoHoops]

One random thought from this morning...

If the seeds hold (which also means a Valpo title), we would pick up two additional neutral court wins, moving our D1 record to 26-5.

Those two wins would come against:
Green Bay (19-12 vs D1*) and
Oakland (22-10 vs D1*)
* - Includes tournament wins in order to play a game against Valpo

If we win, these two would benefit our RPI numbers much more than if there were some upsets. That said, I can think of a couple teams I wouldn't mind seeing lose early...

[covufan]

I don't foresee any upsets on Saturday. 

What will be the announced attendance.  Since all games are one session, will they use the total number of sold/given tickets, or try to estimate the number of attendees for each game?  My guess - less than 500, except for the night game which has Detroit and I'm guessing 1500.  The first game on Sunday will have less than 500, with the Detroit game getting about 1200.  The Monday session will be about 2500.  The Tuesday session, if Valpo plays Oakland, will get 3500.

[Kyle321n]

I don't foresee any upsets on Saturday. 

What will be the announced attendance.  Since all games are one session, will they use the total number of sold/given tickets, or try to estimate the number of attendees for each game?  My guess - less than 500, except for the night game which has Detroit and I'm guessing 1500.  The first game on Sunday will have less than 500, with the Detroit game getting about 1200.  The Monday session will be about 2500.  The Tuesday session, if Valpo plays Oakland, will get 3500.

They'll do the same thing they did for the campus games in the second round last season, announce the total tickets sold for the session. Then for the second and third round they'll do the same thing with the final game actually giving you an idea what the attendance is. If they sell less than 15,000 tickets total than this will be a utter failure. Last season, with 2 less teams in the tournament and 6 games reporting attendance (Championship, Semifinal #2, two quarter finals and two first round games on campus) they had a total of 15,669. If you take only the games at Valpo, you get 12,333 in 4 games. It helped that UIC played twice at Valpo, but the second game they played they didn't announce an attendance since a single ticket bought you two games.

[bbtds]

I'll go with a UIC upset - because why not

Because the Flames went 0-9 on the road in conference. It may be a "neutral" site game but it's still a game that UIC must travel to and that in itself has done in the Flames on recent trips.

[vu84v2]

Youngstown State over Detroit. YSU has had some good shooting games and Detroit's coach is very skilled at making the necessary adjustments to lose.

[HC]

I can't imagine their record away from home was much better last year when they beat Oakland in the tournament.

[Kyle321n]

I can't imagine their record away from home was much better last year when they beat Oakland in the tournament.

Half of their conference wins last season was on the road.

[HC]

which probably isn't a whole lot better then this year

[Kyle321n]

I'd say 2>0 but then again I'm not a math savant.

[HC]

You've proven that several times in other posts, zing! 

Yes 2>0, they were also very close to winning on the road a few times this year. Regardless, I'm not sure why a few of you are getting worked up over me picking an upset? 

[Kyle321n]

You've proven that several times in other posts, zing! 

Yes 2>0, they were also very close to winning on the road a few times this year. Regardless, I'm not sure why a few of you are getting worked up over me picking an upset? 

Haha, I'm not predicting an upset in the first round. I think the second round is where we get some toss up. I was just pointing out that UIC is indeed worse than last year

[agibson]

RPI Forecast has their conference tournament predictions up.

They make Valpo 57% favorites to win the HL tournament, with a better-than-I-expected expected RPI of 28 if they win. 4:1, 80%, to survive the first round (expected RPI of 57 if we lose, but it'll of course depend on opponent), and then 5:2 favorites in the final if we make it that far.

Oakland's next with a 30% chance to win it all (expected RPI of 90, but probably weird statistics, with a better probability but worse RPI if they beat someone-not-named-Valpo). 46% chance of their losing in the semi (expected RPI 109), 24% chance to lose their first game.

Milwaukee's best of the rest with 5.6% chance to win it all. It's hard to win four in a row. Our current win streak is 5, Wright State's next at 3.

There's some tension in various places he displays the probabilities, but in at least one location he puts UIC and NKY at 0.00% each.

[vu72]

I just watched Basketball Preview on the Valpo Athletics site.  So here's a nitpicky question:  Does this "broadcast" go out on other radio or tv shows?  The reason I ask this is that Todd says "this is Todd Ickow"  like it was going out over the radio, versus "I'm Todd Ickow" as you would do on a tv broadcast.  Always wondered about that, obviously, way too much time on my hands!   

[HailVU2014]

For the first round games on our side, my personal preference is that we need chalk from the Wisconsin schools. A Green Bay-Milwaukee quarterfinal will only add to the wear and tear before the semi final against us, as it's a rivalry game rubber match for them. If one of the Wisconsin schools is upset in the first round, Valpo may get a "less tired" Wisconsin school, although a third game in three days is still a lot... Also, after just playing and beating both Wisconsin schools, I am sure that Bryce has made the team memorize the game tape for last weekend and we will be ready to exploit every weakness possible and fully prepare for the first game on Monday.

For the other half of the bracket, I just do not think that Wright State will have the depth to make it to play Oakland and if they do make it to the semi, they will be all but exhausted. However, I do think that if Detroit is there in the semi to play Oakland, it would be a tough rivalry game for Oakland to play. I really don't believe that Oakland will lose their semi, but if we are looking for the most vulnerable Oakland team in the final, then Detroit getting to the semi in the easiest way possible would be ideal so that they can play Oakland "less tired." Therefore, I am not opposed to a UIC upset, but that would only make our two losses to Wright State worse than what they are...

Speaking honestly though, I just really don't see any of the 3-10 or 6-7 winners giving Oakland any grief. And given our double bye advantage, I also think that we sit pretty on our side. But who knows? It's why we play the games, so we might as well play the best teams that we are dealt and prove we can win on any stage in this league. There's my

[hailcrusaders]

The start of the UWM-NKU game is being delayed by a broken rim. The JLA, being a hockey facility, probably doesn't have any spare backboards, so now they're expecting a 3:15 CST tip. That's an hour and a half delay. What a wonderful start to the tournament.

I stand corrected, it looks like it will be 2:15 CST. UW-Milwaukee's twitter account said 4:15 eastern, but I'm seeing otherwise.

[VULB#62]

GB over CSU 65-53 in the first game. It was close with 6 minutes to go and then GB pulled away. I saw a graphic at the 6 minute to go mark that said CSU had committed 20 turnovers to that point.

[hailcrusaders]

GB over CSU 65-53 in the first game. It was close with 6 minutes to go and then GB pulled away. I saw a graphic at the 6 minute to go mark that said CSU had committed 20 turnovers to that point.

CSU finished with 27 turnovers

[VULB#62]

GB over CSU 65-53 in the first game. It was close with 6 minutes to go and then GB pulled away. I saw a graphic at the 6 minute to go mark that said CSU had committed 20 turnovers to that point.

CSU finished with 27 turnovers

[agibson]

GB over CSU 65-53 in the first game. It was close with 6 minutes to go and then GB pulled away. I saw a graphic at the 6 minute to go mark that said CSU had committed 20 turnovers to that point.

CSU finished with 27 turnovers

That's what happens, perhaps, when you play the only team in the conference with two members of the all-defensive team.

To be fair, they do record a lot of steals. Somebody, Love I assume, set the HL tournament record for steals in a game.

[a3uge]

GB over CSU 65-53 in the first game. It was close with 6 minutes to go and then GB pulled away. I saw a graphic at the 6 minute to go mark that said CSU had committed 20 turnovers to that point.

CSU finished with 27 turnovers

That's what happens, perhaps, when you play the only team in the conference with two members of the all-defensive team.

To be fair, they do record a lot of steals. Somebody, Love I assume, set the HL tournament record for steals in a game.

RP40 - lots of steals... Also, lots of easy buckets if you actually have a point guard.

[HC]

UIC is letting me down 

[oklahomamick]

Uwm was hot from the arch.  Over 45%.  They put 4 game stretch together in 2014 with hot shooting.  This time there is no rest between games.

[a3uge]

These refs are letting pretty much everything go in this UWM Green Bay game.

Can't wait to eliminate Green Bay again!