2018-19 VU Schedule

[VU2014]

With the news that Valpo was scheduled to be in the Great Alaska Shootout in 2018 I thought I'd start the 2018-19 schedule thread. Unfortunately the event has been cancelled. These Neutral Site Tournaments are planned out way before they are played. Hopefully Valpo can fill the potential void in the schedule with another tournament or a find some strong Home-&-Home Series opponents.

Next years team looks like its going to be a strong team with a great opportunity with the core of the roster being all Seniors: Joe Burton and Juniors: Sorolla, Fazekas, Golder, Bakari. Most of the team will have a whole year playing together under their belt. Let's hope we can put together a schedule that at least can get Valpo in the At-Large conversation come March if we can take care of business during the regular season.

2017-2018 Games:
-Southern Illinois-Edwardsville - Home
-MVC/MW Challenge - Away
-Ball State - Home
-UC Riverside - Home
*Potential Start to the Series with Vanderbilt (as part of Bryce's buyout)

https://twitter.com/MichaelOsipoff/status/928047477835665411
https://twitter.com/MichaelOsipoff/status/928047695931019264

[VUGrad1314]

The more A10 Schools the better  and Rice comes from a strong conference and was decent last year. Yes please. If these series start on the road hopefully we can couple a decent winnable game to them as well.

[valpotx]

Get a series with TCU!  Too bad about the Great Alaska Shootout.  That was one of the better memories for our program, when we beat Ohio State, and claimed third place in the tournament while I was in school.

[Dave_2010]

As someone who loves Alaska and wanted to go up there for a shootout sometime in the near future, discovering that we were invited to play, and that the tournament was subsequently cancelled within 140 characters is an emotional roller coaster I just wasn't prepared for.


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[VU2014]

As someone who loves Alaska and wanted to go up there for a shootout sometime in the near future, discovering that we were invited to play, and that the tournament was subsequently cancelled within 140 characters is an emotional roller coaster I just wasn't prepared for.

If you have the opportunity to visit Alaska I recommend you visit sometime its beautiful up there.

[covufan]

The more A10 Schools the better  and Rice comes from a strong conference and was decent last year. Yes please. If these series start on the road hopefully we can couple a decent winnable game to them as well.

Didn't we have a connection at Rice for a number of years?  Wonder if that connection still has ties to Rice?

[oklahomamick]

Would love to go to Houston and watch the Crusaders.  Schedule the away game in December or January so the Crusaders can see some sunshine

[VU2014]

The more A10 Schools the better  and Rice comes from a strong conference and was decent last year. Yes please. If these series start on the road hopefully we can couple a decent winnable game to them as well.

Didn't we have a connection at Rice for a number of years?  Wonder if that connection still has ties to Rice?

Do we have any Rice connections? We haven't played them for a while. I know David Chadwick transfer from Rice to Valpo a few years ago.

The more A10 Schools the better  and Rice comes from a strong conference and was decent last year. Yes please. If these series start on the road hopefully we can couple a decent winnable game to them as well.

My Non-Conference Series Wish-List:
-Butler - so far they've been a bunch of cowards. Maybe things change under LaVall
-Any Big East/AAC/Big 10 school - It's a pipe dream but you need to shoot your shot. I'd do a 2 for 1 with the right school
-A10 schools: Dayton (Pioneer League rival), Richmond and VCU would be great series
-Any Indiana school other then IUPUI. I'm lukewarm on IPFW, because we've played them so much in the past.
-Marquette or UWM for the Milwaukee Alumni base (would greatly prefer Marquette but its tough to land those series)
-Maybe a series with Oakland
-Belmont or Murray State (ideally would prefer these 2 as part of MVC expansion)
-West Coast Conference schools - particularly St. Mary's - they don't operate like your typical mid-major. They hardly play H-&-H series with other mids
-Other random schools: UT Arlington Mavericks, Princeton Tigers,  Yale Bulldogs, GCU, SLU, Vermont, FGCU,  Iona


"Tune-up" Home Game:
-Indiana Wesleyan - A NAIA powerhouse and it would actually be interesting because Greg Tonagel is the head coach. I'm not sure this game is realistic because Greg was passed over in the interview process for the Head Coaching gig but we do know Coach Lottich reached out to him to have him be his assistant. If Greg would have taken the assistant job he would have been the obvious promotion if Coach Lottich got hired away down the road. Just my opinion. It would literally be Indiana Wesleyan's Super Bowl playing Valpo.

[covufan]

Quote from: covufan on Today at 10:51:13 AMQuote from: VUGrad1314 on November 07, 2017, 10:47:06 PMThe more A10 Schools the better  and Rice comes from a strong conference and was decent last year. Yes please. If these series start on the road hopefully we can couple a decent winnable game to them as well.Didn't we have a connection at Rice for a number of years?  Wonder if that connection still has ties to Rice?Do we have any Rice connections? We haven't played them for a while. I know David Chadwick transfer from Rice to Valpo a few years ago.

This is who I was thinking of for a Rice connection - spent 18 years as an assistant:

http://www.ustcelts.com/staff.php?staffID=4

[bbtds]

-Maybe a series with Oakland

or UWM for the Milwaukee Alumni base

You do have to take into consideration that we are being sued by the HL and both Oakland and Milwaukee are members of that conference. I don't think Valpo will be playing any HL teams in any sport for a while until this whole deal finally blows over.

[VU2014]

You do have to take into consideration that we are being sued by the HL and both Oakland and Milwaukee are members of that conference. I don't think Valpo will be playing any HL teams in any sport for a while until this whole deal finally blows over.

Good point. Apparently OU and VU coaches were trying to workout a charity exhibition for this preseason, but we both couldn't get the dates to work. Maybe thats a sign we can work something out.

Milwaukee is probably the trickier one to predict if we could get a series passed by their AD and Admin. It would make sense for both parties to allow a series because I think the UWM vs Valpo game in Milwaukee was their highest attended game if I remember correctly, because of all the VU alumni that were there. I remember watching that game on TV and I pretty much heard the 'Go Valpo 'cheers washed out UWM's own fans during that game. It pretty much sounded like a home game when I streamed it. Not only does it make business sense but it also makes basketball sense for UWM coaches to want to schedule a good Mid-Major. But UWM's admin has been known to make some boneheaded mistakes in the past so I wouldn't be surprised to see them ax a potential series.

I know Murray State's coaches purposely scheduled MVC teams this season to put it's best foot forward for the possible future expansion. Murray scheduled: SIU & Illinois State.

[bigmosmithfan1]

Unlike our counterparts in Indianapolis, I would have been fine continuing to schedule some HL teams in the OOC: preferably Green Bay and Milwaukee (I really don't care about Oakland at all but they'd be okay too... that "rivalry" never did anything for me, personally).

But that was all before the HL sued Valpo. Now, if we schedule any of those teams, we're validating the HL's behavior here. I'm sure Valpo's administration agrees, and I think it'll be a good while before we see any HL teams on the schedule for games that haven't already been contracted.

[VU2014]

Felt like a more appropriate place for this convo. So I just copy/pasted into this thread.

I don't want to ever play non-D1 schools or schools like Chicago State or SIU-E. RPI is part of it, but the bigger reason is that playing these games adds zero value to the program. People here talk about wanting greater attendance, but the main things that drive attendance are excitement about the program and quality opponents.

However, while this year's non-conference schedule is awful and is unlikely to build as much enthusiasm as it needed to for Valpo's first MVC season, Valpo has done a good job of scheduling in recent years. My hope is that this year's schedule is just an isolated case. I would recommend not providing a return home game for UC-Riverside or SIU-E if better games can be found. And I would never ever schedule Chicago State.

If all of these coaches ADs and fans  that I've heard over the years constantly complaining about how hard it is to schedule spent less time whining and more time talking to each other to schedule games they would solve so many of their own problems. There's enough quality among the mid major conferences to offer ample opportunities for any legitimate at large contender to build a tournament worthy resume with the few P5 opportunities everyone gets mixed into their schedule. It's a matter of how badly you really want it. Yes the climate is against us and the climb is getting steeper but we at this level still have a choice and some say in how this goes. We can either be afraid of losing to a fellow mid major with tournament aspirations and instead choose to fatten up on games that do nothing; thereby hurting ourselves in the process by weakening our schedules and working against our best interest or we can all man up and play each other and show the Power 5 that we're not going away without a fight no matter what they do.  I for one choose to keep fighting in spite of the tough climate and  I sincerely hope everyone at Valpo and every Valpo fan is with me on this. Those who aren't and support the status quo (and there are  a few on here and a few more that I've talked to in my day to day life) need to really take a look at your mindset because that's a defeatist low-major mindset. And that mindset isn't Valpo. That's not what I was taught being a Crusader was about. I'm not asking Valpo to constantly play unwinnable games against top 10-20 teams and get beaten up on a nightly basis but a few tough tests then some games against quality mid majors so that the schedule is made up of consistent top 150 or above games  and no more non-D1s or Sub-250 RPI drags isn't an unreasonable thing to ask, or at least it shouldn't be. A challenging at-large caliber schedule should be the goal every year regardless of where Valpo is projected to finish and we as fans should expect nothing less.

I wouldn't say these first 2 games didn't offer any value.
-Offered 2 easy games to get through the absence with Joe & Jay
-This team needed tune-up games because of all the youth and roster turnover. I'm sure these games actually help the team & coaches to a certain degree.
-Non-D1s don't hurt your RPI ranking and it's better then playing Chicago State and it hurting the RPI

I fully agree they aren't the best games to watch and ideally I'd never like Valpo play them but I understand why they did it. The SIUE game is a little annoying but this is basically a fundraising & alumni engagement game. This one doesn't sound like it was up to the coaches. Everyone has a boss. UC-Riverside is actually performed pretty well in the early going and won games against Cal & Cal-Poly. I've seen some rankings that say they're ranked higher then us. That game might not be as bad as we initially thought.

The schedule itself really isn't that bad from a basketball perspective but the home schedule isn't great. I'm with you that I hope this is a isolated situation. We have Ball State, SIUE, UC-Riverside lined up in the books next year. We already have some home games lined up for next year so that creates an opening to start a series with a solid A10/AAC/MWC/WCC team on the road. Half the battle of scheduling Home-&-Home series is that each team generally wants the first home game. Valpo will probably be in a good position to be willing to play that first game on the road. Hopefully we find some willing opponents. Who knows, maybe Butler will finally be willing to play Valpo, maybe we have to take a 2-for-1 to get that done. Heck I might even be willing to give a 4-for-2 because they're a former in-state rival and they clearly have the leverage. It would be a great series for both teams.

We still have that Vandy series in our back pocket. But that potential game would get a heck of a lot tougher next season because the Vandy staff just landed a "1-&-done" 5-star kid. This would be the season you want to play that Vandy team because they have clear roster flaws this season.

[vu84v2]

VU2014 - while we disagree on the value of playing vastly inferior opponents, I had no idea that UC-Riverside beat Cal. Even if Cal is down (no idea), that is a heck of a win for UC-Riverside.

[VUGrad1314]

I'm starting to think that that Vandy series may never get played and Valpo will be forced to take Vandys money. If Bryce continues to succeed on the court and on the recruiting front schools even larger and more prominent than Vanderbilt are going to start calling. If he leaves the deal's off I'm sure of that. I mean it's been two years now and there's been no hint of that series being anywhere close to starting. I can't help but lose hope that it ever will and it'll be more P5 BS weaseling out of their agreements just like what happened with Loyola when NC State stood them up on a return game this offseason.

[VU2014]

I'm starting to think that that Vandy series may never get played and Valpo will be forced to take Vandys money. If Bryce continues to succeed on the court and on the recruiting front schools even larger and more prominent than Vanderbilt are going to start calling. If he leaves the deal's off I'm sure of that. I mean it's been two years now and there's been no hint of that series being anywhere close to starting. I can't help but lose hope that it ever will and it'll be more P5 BS weaseling out of their agreements just like what happened with Loyola when NC State stood them up on a return game this offseason.

I hope that series gets figured out. That would be a huge $ maker for the Athletics Department and an electric environment to have Bryce back in the ARC on the opposing side. Not to mention that might be a game that's big enough to get on ESPN2 depending on the programing that day. Its also a great RPI boost game.

I think Bryce is pretty much entrenched at Vandy unless there is a Top 10 job that comes calling. I sort of see Bryce remaining there because it fits the rumor of what he was potentially looking for while he was still a VU: a southern private school (his wife is from the south and she apparently wanted to be closer to her family). But it's tough to predict those things. They may not be the best this season because they're in a bit of a reload mode at least for this season.

[VU2014]

Battle 4 Atlantis already named its field for 2018. Valpo was scheduled to play in the 2018 Great Alaska Shootout but they decided to cancel the tournament. These things are planned out well ahead time so I'm hoping we can find a new neutral site tournament if someone drops out of their spot maybe we can take their spot. Or hopefully we can get a strong Home-&-Home matchup.
https://twitter.com/atlantisbahamas/status/934229842945560577

[talksalot]

do we know who else was scheduled for the GAS?   Maybe we can pool our resources and have a "Battle for the Dunes"...

[crusadermoe]

Good idea.   

Pretty nice field they assembled from 7 of the top conferences.  Middle Tennessee must have an inside track somewhere.   

The Great Alaska ShootOut would have given you about 3 hours of daylight to explore the sites at that time of year. 

[VUGrad1314]

Idea for a tournament: Valpo rents the United Center or Allstate Arena for a weekend and creates their own hosted tournament Call it the Lakeshore Invitational or something With Valpo as a upper level mid major to draw schools you're sure to get other mid majors or some P5/BE schools with recruiting interests in Chicago and the suburbs to sign on to play plus it's close enough to have a strong fan contingent at the games Valpo beefs up their schedule maybe scores some extra TV dates and hopefully a few more quality wins I had an idea of a P5 vs MM event for each state similar to the Hy-Vee out in Iowa

[FieldGoodie05]

Idea for a tournament: Valpo rents the United Center or Allstate Arena for a weekend and creates their own hosted tournament Call it the Lakeshore Invitational or something With Valpo as a upper level mid major to draw schools you're sure to get other mid majors or some P5/BE schools with recruiting interests in Chicago and the suburbs to sign on to play plus it's close enough to have a strong fan contingent at the games Valpo beefs up their schedule maybe scores some extra TV dates and hopefully a few more quality wins I had an idea of a P5 vs MM event for each state similar to the Hy-Vee out in Iowa

Interesting idea, though WOW that's got some holes.

VU Hires someone for $50,000/year to facilitate and organize.  Either that or sub out the work, still nearly that much.

VU pays $75,000/day to rent UC.  Conceivably $225,000 for a long weekend.

And I'm not even including other large expenses and we are near $300,000.

What's the payout for NCAAM ROUND of 64 qualification?  After the league re-distributes?  Does that justify spend of upwards of $500,000 once the dust settles?

Maybe I'm just having a bad day....but I don't see that having the wings to take off.

[VUGrad1314]

I don't know to what degree some sort of corporate sponsorship deal could work to defray a portion of the costs I could see a sponsor willing to help us pay for the building rental if we can attract good enough teams I could see a sponsor willing to pay a couple hundred grand  for the rights In addition attracting good enough teams could lead to broadcasting on major networks further offsetting the costs Valpo may not profit from this directly but they would get a major branding win and the increased shot at an at large bid also means more branding and money The idea has holes but I think it just might have enough to work as well Many teams would like the opportunity to play in Chicago where local recruiting prospects from that rich talent pool can watch them

[EddieCabot]

I don't know to what degree some sort of corporate sponsorship deal could work to defray a portion of the costs I could see a sponsor willing to help us pay for the building rental if we can attract good enough teams I could see a sponsor willing to pay a couple hundred grand  for the rights In addition attracting good enough teams could lead to broadcasting on major networks further offsetting the costs Valpo may not profit from this directly but they would get a major branding win and the increased shot at an at large bid also means more branding and money The idea has holes but I think it just might have enough to work as well Many teams would like the opportunity to play in Chicago where local recruiting prospects from that rich talent pool can watch them

I like this idea! 

[talksalot]

I don't know to what degree some sort of corporate sponsorship deal could work to defray a portion of the costs

Reading the Alaska-Anchorage "reasoning" page... it was several hundred thousand in the red every year with the costs borne to the Athletics Department, and that's after the TV rights and other sponsorships....

You knock your expenses wayyyyy down by hosting it on campus.... I re-ask:   Do we know who the others schools are/were?

[VU2014]

Valpo will never put on a non-conference tourney themselves. We'd never recoup our investment. Our Admin would be better served investing money in facility improvements then taking a moon-shot on hosting a tournament. There is a reason why generally cities and resorts host these events. They aren't looking to generate a direct profit from these events, but they host them because the surrounding area get an economic boost from the tourists and it's also a nice advertisement for the area. I like the outside the box thinking but probably not realistic.