MVC Hoops: 2017-18

[bbtds]

they had the financial backing from donors and the top of their admin to advance the program.

Something majorly important to success for the athletic program which in turn breeds success and notoriety for the school. Unfortunately, at times, it seems, Valpo has not totally embraced the connection between the two.

[oklahomamick]

The good years you speak of at UWM were mostly the cheating years of Bruce Pearl......?  Of course they were good during that era. 

[VUGrad1314]

Excellent point Yet another reason to just say no We've got enough Panthers to worry about in this league with UNI anyway

[VULB#62]

The good years you speak of at UWM were mostly the cheating years of Bruce Pearl......?  Of course they were good during that era.

Pearl, BTW, is under pressure from the Auburn administration to cooperate with an internal investigation related to the FBI probe or lose his job.

[VUGrad1314]

Hmmm maybe all that pressure and turnoil can help Indiana State score a big early season win against a Power 5 team

[Valpower]

they had the financial backing from donors and the top of their admin to advance the program.

Something majorly important to success for the athletic program which in turn breeds success and notoriety for the school. Unfortunately, at times, it seems, Valpo has not totally embraced the connection between the two.

Sometimes, the donors are on the level of king-makers with backing that dwarfs the administration's own and an agenda that may not match. At that point, the administration has the choice to not trip in getting the hell out of the way or to risk losing it by specifying conditions.

[VULB#62]

Yeah. it comes down to principles.

BTW, Pitino is sinking in the quicksand of the FBI investigation.

[valpo64]

and it looks like Bruce Pearl may be caught up in that same quicksand.  Over the years I don't really think that Pearl has changed how he operates his program.   
Wasn't he caught up in some questionable behavior before he ended up at Auburn?

[VU2014]

and it looks like Bruce Pearl may be caught up in that same quicksand.  Over the years I don't really think that Pearl has changed how he operates his program.   
Wasn't he caught up in some questionable behavior before he ended up at Auburn?

Yep he was fired from Tennessee for recruiting violations and then denying the violations and later getting caught lying.

Auburn's program is in chaos right now. I believe they are sitting to high profile players and they gave up 100(!) points in a exhibition game loss to a D2 school. I don't know how Pearl walks away with his job by the end of the year. He's under both FBI and NCAA investigation right now (but not like the NCAA investigation actually lead to anything unless your a mid-major).

[VULB#62]

Unless he goes to jail, he will retire with approximately  a couple of a million.  Not great, but not bad.  Damn, I wish I could be at that [financial] level 

Too little time.  Too much to see and experience.

[FieldGoodie05]

http://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/video/javon-freeman-soars-sick-dunk

Hadn't seen this dunk until tonight!!!  Javon has been cleared for liftoff...

[VU2014]

https://twitter.com/FatherHarry1/status/928979700080312320

Missouri Valley Conference Recruiting Splash
By Harry Schroeder
November 10, 2017

(St. Louis, MO) – The Missouri Valley Conference will be just fine thank you. That is if Wednesday's national signing day is any indication. No fewer than seven players have been tabbed as impact players by the ratings services from the Valley's incoming freshmen class.

There are numerous players that will pass the 'airport test' and of the nine teams reporting signings, Drake reported the most National Letters of Intent with five.

........

http://www.valleyhoopsinsider.com/missouri-valley-conference-recruiting-splash/

[VU2014]

Indiana State is beating Indiana right now by 30 in bloomington. Wow. I knew IU wouldn't be good this year but they absolutely laid an egg on opening night... credit to ISUb's offense for lighting up IU.

[vu72]

Indiana State is beating Indiana right now by 30 in bloomington. Wow. I knew IU wouldn't be good this year but they absolutely laid an egg on opening night... credit to ISUb's offense for lighting up IU.

Indeed.  Other than UNI losing to NC by 17 (not a bad showing!), The Missouri Valley went undefeated tonight with SIU beating Winthrop, Evansville beating Arkansas St, Missouri St beating Western Kentucky and Loyola over Wright State.  Nice start!!

[valpotx]

Come on guys, we need to get used to saying UNI.  This isn't Milwaukee fans wanting to get away from UWM, but simply the name of the school.

[vu72]

Come on guys, we need to get used to saying UNI.  This isn't Milwaukee fans wanting to get away from UWM, but simply the name of the school.

Fixed it!  Anything else?

[VU2014]

I'm watching the Illinois State vs FCGU game and damn Bruninga looks like a player. less then half way through 2nd half and he has 14pts (3pt: 4-6) coming off the bench...

[VU2014]

Illinois State is going to be a good team this year and likely one of the top offensive teams in the conference. They looked good today shorthanded. FCGU won 98-87. Keyshawn Evans and Phil Fayne looked really good. They're freshman Bruninga looked strong offensively but didn't look like world beater on the defensive end (fouled out).

They're an athletic bunch. But they were really shorthanded today. They were down to 6 players by the end of the game. They're potential star freshman player Elijah Clarance (from Sweden) is injured.

They lost 4 of 5 starters from last year. That team is still very strong. They lost to a very good FGCU team.

[VU2014]

I don't know how I missed this on the thread from ML2. Some interesting data from Google search.

Valpo Basketball holds it own pretty well for being a smaller private school when stacking it up to much larger public schools in terms the google searches.

The one school that I found interesting was Butler's 5.4000. Butler has obviously been on an incredible run since 2010 and thats apparently when their popularity skyrocketed due to the Finals appearances. I was recently talking to my uncle who is a Butler grad from back in the 80s and he mentioned how back when he went to school they hardly ever sold out Hinkle and he mention how they only reached this level of popularity till after the tourney runs when a bunch of casuals or bandwagoners hopped on. Their attendance really jumped up the last 6-7 years apparently.

It makes you wonder what affect another Sweet 16 type tourney run could do for Valpo Basketball in terms of popularity these days.

Brand is a tricky concept to measure, but I got some interesting results looking at Google Trends. Below is a rating based on number of Google searches for a school's men's basketball team from within the US over the last 90 days. All school's values are relative to Valpo, which I gave a value of 1.000. So a score of .5000 would be half as popular as Valpo and a score of 2.0000 would be twice as popular as Valpo. Anyone over 1.000 was more popular than Valpo and anyone under 1.000 was less popular. Here's how we stacked up relative to the rest of the MVC

UNI - 1.5455
ISUb - 1.3636
MSU - 1.1600
SIU - 1.0000
Bradley - .9706
ISUr - .8621
LUC - .7500
Evansville - .6667
Drake - .6111

Here are the Chicago area schools - something to think about when considering how much coverage Valpo does/does not get from Chicago media.

Notre Dame - 23.8889
Northwestern - 11.0000
Illinois - 9.0000
DePaul - 2.5385
UIC - 1.1538
NIU - .8000
Loyola - .7500
Chicago State - .3611

And lastly some other random programs that I thought people might be interested to see:

Butler - 5.4000
Xavier - 4.1667
Dayton - 2.2857
SLU - 1.4444
Oakland - 1.0857
Murray State - .8333
Belmont - .6429
NKU - .3333

[oklahomamick]

Bruninga would have been a great add and help in our 3 point shooting in which I think is our downfall.  Having some 3 point shooters would stretch the floor and let our athletic swing men get to the hoop. 

I trust the coaching staff in the guys they brought in and the guys they did not.....Can't wait to play some Varsity teams.  Here we go!

[VU2014]

Bruninga would have been a great add and help in our 3 point shooting in which I think is our downfall.  Having some 3 point shooters would stretch the floor and let our athletic swing men get to the hoop. 

I trust the coaching staff in the guys they brought in and the guys they did not.....Can't wait to play some Varsity teams.  Here we go!

I think we have a handful who are good 3pt shooters and then a group of not so great shooters.

Bakari - I don't know if he's a knockdown shooter but we've heard he can make them if you leave him open
Burton - a very strong shooter. Todd mention that he could be over 45% 3pt shooter which is just ridiculously good for a guy with his size
Tevonn - we've heard he worked real hard on his 3pt shooting this offseason & we've seen mixed results so far. He might be more of streaky 3pt threat
Max - not a guy you want shooting the ball but he's a smart player that has very good shot selection
Micah - Honestly who knows. He shot below 30% last year but looked great in the first game. He needs to be consistent shooter this season. That was one of Paul's O/U's will Micah shoot over 33.33%? IDK. He's 2 for 6 so far this season.
Kiser - He was 1 for 9 from behind the arc last season
Golder - was a pretty good 3pt shooter in JUCO last year and has is 2-for-2 in 3pt attempts on Friday
McMillan - surprisingly a good 3pt shooter for a guy his size and position. He drained two 3s in one of the exhibition games and had really good form.
Linssen - has a nice mid-range game but I don't if he has 3pt range
Hazen - he can make 3s but I'm not sure that is one of his strengths yet. I saw a few of his games in HS and I didn't like the look of his 3pt jump shot then but take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Smits - Surprisingly he has a nice looking jump shot for a guy who 7-2. I've seen him make 3s during shoot-arounds before games. I'm not sure the coaches trust his 3pt shot enough to incorporate it into the offense. Dream scenario is if he follows the same development path as former Green Bay player Alec Brown in college.
Sorolla - not his game.

Fazekas (redshirt) - an elite shooter. I've seen him just drain 3s. I'm excited for Fazekas next season. I believe he's still recovering from the injury this summer so no contact for him still but the jumper looks great.

Javon Freeman-Liberty - he's more of slasher but apparently he made strides with his 3pt shot this summer.

[FieldGoodie05]

Bruninga has a quick quick release similar to AP.  That's relatively difficult to guard, we are going to have our hand full with him on the offensive end.

He looked quite lost on defense though against FGCU this weekend.  Illinois State has some skilled players and we will have difficulty with them this year.  Their PF is a heck of an athlete and their starting PG can shoot the 3-ball.  Athletic team.

[VU2014]

A strong first weekend for the Valley!

http://barttorvik.com/trankslice.php?year=2018&conyes=1
https://twitter.com/Valpo_Hoops/status/930101153043501057

[oklahomamick]

I didn't see the HL or the SL?

[VUGrad1314]

Horizon League #18 Summit League #25 I'd also like to point out for Belmont's smug administration that thinks they're too good for the MVC that their precious OVC sits at #24 BEHIND the conference they left (The ASun which checks in at #23)