Re: Game #11 - Northwestern @ Allstate Arena Thursday, Dec. 14, 7pm BTN

[govalpogo]

Deep breath...it's just a college basketball game...deep breath...they started well for about the first 4 minutes and NW just absolutely went insane (7/8 3pters!) before Valpo lost all confidence. 

I'm just baffled by how lost this team gets on offense.  It looks like they can't do anything to get an open shot!  Nor can they shoot themselves out of a rut BECAUSE THEY SEEM TO TURN THE @#$#@$@ BALL OVER ON EVERY OTHER POSSESSION.  That's the worst thing to watch, they don't even give themselves a chance.  It's almost like clockwork in the between the 16 and 8 minute mark of the first half.  Turns out teams like Purdue and NW (I didn't see the Ball St. game nor did I go near it knowing the result) will continue to score even when you aren't, sending the game off the rails. 

As a fan, I am beyond frustrated with this continued buggaboo that Valpo has had against power conference teams.  It's spanned multiple teams, multiple coaches, and multiple eras.  Of course Big 5 teams are going to be better, but Valpo just seems to constantly wet the bed and be  embarrassed on the national stage.  Year after year it's the same story.  I guess it could be that Valpo is a big enough name that big schools aren't going to sleep on us, but just once I want to see a big name team have at least a sort of off night against us.  And what makes it worse is that there's always an article out there about Valpo testing this big opponent or being an upset candidate like the one from Katz today.  I hate it.   IhateitIhateitIhateit!

Oh OH, and HOW MANY KEY PLAYERS HAS VALPO LOST TO ILLNESS OVER THE YEARS!?!?!  Seriously, get these guys there own water bottles or something!  Vitamin C, Zink, Airborne, or something!  Jeezuz Christmas!

Okay...end rant.  8-3...pretty much chalk the whole way, no shocking results.  More realistic competition to get the feet back under this undoubtedly reeling bunch. 

[justducky]

I will watch the game again looking for the positives we can take away from it.

I'll get back with you if I can find any.

[wh]

When I was a kid, my parents were adherents of the "spare the rod, spoil the child" approach to child rearing. Dad's weapon of choice was his belt; Mom was a skilled switcher. As strange as it may sound, when the whippings were over and I was alone in my room, a strange sense of euphoric relief would pour over me. I'm feeling pretty good right now.

[bigmosmithfan1]

Just got home from Rosemont. Highlight of the evening was a cop unexpectedly waving me through to an empty lane to beat the rest of the departing traffic out of the parking lot.

There were simply too many things that went wrong tonight to rehash, so I'll stick to a couple of my higher-level concerns (plus my one glimmer of optimism):

- Turnovers. Way too many of them, way too many of the sloppy, brain-lock variety. I trust coach that these are going away over the next, er, nine games. Because if not, hoo boy.

-Body language/fight. Northwestern is a good team that shot well tonight, but we made their lives WAY too easy with a lack of intensity when we got behind. We looked absolutely defeated once we fell behind double digits, and the body language made it clear they didn't intend to attempt any comeback this evening. That is not acceptable under any circumstances, and whatever mojo the coaching staff needs to perform to nip this very toxic habit in the bud, they should do it.

-Offensively, yes, we miss Tevonn. Yet we approached WAY too many possessions waiting to see what the defense would do rather than attacking and getting into our offensive set. That sort of passivity resulted in not only the turnovers but a lot of lousy shots. Again, credit Northwestern's defense, but we didn't really attempt to challenge them at all. (Oh, and we need to figure out how to execute an in-bounds play under the opponent's basket).

Now, in the spirit of the season, the one positive takeaway:

-Markus and Micah were *much* more aggressive in the second half, and both visibly were trying to get both themselves and the team into a groove. Both with some results to show. If those guys take it upon themselves to pick up the slack of Tevonn being out and be the emotional leaders on the floor, that bodes well for when we get into Valley play. (Separately: is Max hurt/ill? He did not look like himself tonight and was a complete non-factor out there.)

Lastly, credit to Valpo fans. There was a good number of them visible in the building (and audible in the early moments of the game when they had something to cheer about). Several NU fans around me complimented us on the amount of VU fans on hand, especially for a weeknight game in December.

[zvillehaze]

-Body language/fight. Northwestern is a good team that shot well tonight, but we made their lives WAY too easy with a lack of intensity when we got behind. We looked absolutely defeated once we fell behind double digits, and the body language made it clear they didn't intend to attempt any comeback this evening. That is not acceptable under any circumstances, and whatever mojo the coaching staff needs to perform to nip this very toxic habit in the bud, they should do it.

Most posters here were fine/happy with Lexus leaving because they thought Valpo had more "talented" players on the roster.  But he was "talented" at winning, leading and competing ... he's taken those qualities to Boise and it's paid dividends for them.  I think his leadership would have been an asset for Valpo had he stayed. 

[Valpo89]

I'm driving some friends and going to this game. One of them is a former Northwestern player from the 70s.
My trip to and from the game will probably be more interesting than the game, I'm afraid.
Not feeling good about this one either. Double-digit loss.
I hope I don't regret going and missing my son's 7th grade game tomorrow night.

Everything I predicted was true.
Conversation to and from All State Arena was better than the game.
I wish I had gone to my son's game. He scored 3 points and his team won.
Glad some teams from Valpo are winning.

[VU2014]

Some enlightening comments.
https://twitter.com/NWIOren/status/941524155534585856
https://twitter.com/NWIOren/status/941524704317276166
https://twitter.com/NWIOren/status/941525450697986049

[ValpoDad89]

The biggest thing when we play these P5 schools is turnovers and many unforced. We had 21 to NU's 7. You ain't winning many basketball games with that kind of ratio. It hurt without Tevonn but we have players and they didn't perform.

Our front court, despite its size is SOFT. Sorolla tried to soft touch some shots rather than attaching the rim...as its too. I say give Linssen more minute and send a message to these two that if you are not going to use what you were given you are replaced. Hell, go with Golder if need be as he at least played aggressive and attacked when given the opportunity.

Plus, as has been mentioned, our perimeter D sucked tonight. This is a good outside shooting team and they exploited us. I love Lottich and company but we didn't come into this game as prepared defensively as I had hoped.

[vu72]

Based on the discussion Paul had with former players who had mono, it sounded like four games may be the number (obviously depends on how tight the schedule might be). Everyone is different and they indicated that medical blood work was done every other day.  If the spleen is enlarged its a no go.  With any luck we could get Tevonn back for the Indiana State game on the 28th.  Let's hope so.

[valpo84]

Concur that we all need to take a deep breath.  This team is neither an 8-0 team or a get blown out by over 60 pts to B1G teams.  It's somewhere in the middle and about where we all expected them to be after losing Alec and others and bringing in a whole bunch of new bodies.

1.  Very disappointed in turnovers.  We are predictable on offense and so we are making easy to steal passes.  We are putting the ball on the floor too much down low.  Drop step or kick back out, not dribble off your foot (hello Smits). Valpo had "climbed" back with about 4 mins left 1st half.  Chance to cut the lead to 12 and had a mini-run going.  Smits dribbles ball off foot and suddenly it's 17 pts and game over.

2.  Our athleticism was not equal to NW's.  Maybe it was the sluggishness of finals week, but although the first few minutes saw us playing aggressive D, throughout the evening we were outjumped and outquicked.  Not since the Arizona game 1996 did I feel our talent was not anywhere near the other team's.  (Well, maybe the Duke game at Cameron in 2004 or 05.  Those games though taught us where we need to go and to build back to that (1996 was needed to have 1998).

3.  Brick City.  Said last year and said it in an earlier post this year.  We are NOT A GOOD SHOOTING TEAM.  NW had 4 guys knocking down 3s easily.  We struggle on the shot, we're inconsistent and there is not a Broekhoff, Peters, Barker, Schmidt, Redmond, Drew, Gipson, Wood, etc. anywhere on this team.  Matt has got to go find a couple knock down 3 artists.

4. Rebounding.  We have got to get back to the basics of basketball life... Control the glass. What I like about Golder is he has "it."  But, we are not boxing out well as a starter. 

We predicted 10-4, 9-5 or so for the first two months.  Ball State was a pick-em, especially without Walker.  Win on the coast and right the confidence ship and then we'll be in conference play.  But no one said this was going to be an easy year and we all knew it was a rebuilding year.  Let the process play out, but there are key areas that now need to show improvement, like others said, the offense is starting out too high, it's not attaching the middle with motion and back door and v cuts.  Too much perimeter passing and dribbling, etc.  Big guys need to have touches and to kick out.  Actually, if you watch the game tape. Sorolla and Smits when they didn't travel or dribble off their feet had some decent effectiveness.  Lots of opportunity here.  For younger fans, lots of season left so lighten up a little.

[vu72]

Concur that we all need to take a deep breath.  This team is neither an 8-0 team or a get blown out by over 60 pts to B1G teams.  It's somewhere in the middle and about where we all expected them to be after losing Alec and others and bringing in a whole bunch of new bodies.

1.  Very disappointed in turnovers.  We are predictable on offense and so we are making easy to steal passes.  We are putting the ball on the floor too much down low.  Drop step or kick back out, not dribble off your foot (hello Smits). Valpo had "climbed" back with about 4 mins left 1st half.  Chance to cut the lead to 12 and had a mini-run going.  Smits dribbles ball off foot and suddenly it's 17 pts and game over.

2.  Our athleticism was not equal to NW's.  Maybe it was the sluggishness of finals week, but although the first few minutes saw us playing aggressive D, throughout the evening we were outjumped and outquicked.  Not since the Arizona game 1996 did I feel our talent was not anywhere near the other team's.  (Well, maybe the Duke game at Cameron in 2004 or 05.  Those games though taught us where we need to go and to build back to that (1996 was needed to have 1998).

3.  Brick City.  Said last year and said it in an earlier post this year.  We are NOT A GOOD SHOOTING TEAM.  NW had 4 guys knocking down 3s easily.  We struggle on the shot, we're inconsistent and there is not a Broekhoff, Peters, Barker, Schmidt, Redmond, Drew, Gipson, Wood, etc. anywhere on this team.  Matt has got to go find a couple knock down 3 artists.

4. Rebounding.  We have got to get back to the basics of basketball life... Control the glass. What I like about Golder is he has "it."  But, we are not boxing out well as a starter. 

We predicted 10-4, 9-5 or so for the first two months.  Ball State was a pick-em, especially without Walker.  Win on the coast and right the confidence ship and then we'll be in conference play.  But no one said this was going to be an easy year and we all knew it was a rebuilding year.  Let the process play out, but there are key areas that now need to show improvement, like others said, the offense is starting out too high, it's not attaching the middle with motion and back door and v cuts.  Too much perimeter passing and dribbling, etc.  Big guys need to have touches and to kick out.  Actually, if you watch the game tape. Sorolla and Smits when they didn't travel or dribble off their feet had some decent effectiveness.  Lots of opportunity here.  For younger fans, lots of season left so lighten up a little.

Well said.  The only point where I would differ is on the shooting numbers.  Last night we shot 41.2% from the 3 (7 of 17).  Northwestern was unconscious shooting 54%.  On the season so far, Joe is shooitng 35.9%, Marcus 50%, Bradford 35.3%  and even McMillan is shooting 40% albeit a very small sample at 4 of 10.

It is the lack of hustle, effort and teamwork that is most concerning to me.

[crusader05]

I think what we are seeing is a tea that is less cohesive then the 8-0 start led the to believe.

We dont have a go-to person and they dont appear to know each other well enogh in tight ones.

Hope that fixes itself.

Still, lots of basketball left to play and we were never an At-Large so its still conference/Arch adness that is the goal

(apologize for typos, a few keys are broken on the keyboard)

[valpo84]

72--concur with the "team" concept, particularly on O.  D last night, there was a lot of talking earlier on assignments and the intensity was there.  But you and I know from playing a lot of hoops, that when guys are burying everything (or consistent turnovers), it becomes disheartening.  There were heads dropping after some of the shots.  What was the encouraging counterbalance was the run towards the end of 1st half.  There was still effort and fight.  2d half is a write-off.   The offense looks labored and when guys turn it over, teamwork gets stressed with guys then trying to do too much. 

05--the question isn't ##s as much as who do you feel confident will knock down 3s when you need them.  I can still hit 30% in the gym or a driveway with no one guarding me, but what will I shoot with a defender closing or in the flow of an offense?  I have no confidence in this team's ability to do that.  There is hesitation and lack of confidence on the court and their shooting mechanics are not repetitive, consistent 3 shooters, with exception of maybe Burton.  Micah is improved, but those parabolas he's throwing up there are highly inconsistent.  McMillan doesn't count as most of those were in blowouts that I recall. Not that he can't be like Jubril going forward who can knock one down to keep D's honest, and that's the thing.  D's can pack in against us and keep Bakari and others from slashing to the hoop, or disrupt the entry passes to the post, because who cares if we shoot a 3.

[IrishDawg]

Well said.  The only point where I would differ is on the shooting numbers.  Last night we shot 41.2% from the 3 (7 of 17).  Northwestern was unconscious shooting 54%.  On the season so far, Joe is shooitng 35.9%, Marcus 50%, Bradford 35.3%  and even McMillan is shooting 40% albeit a very small sample at 4 of 10.

It is the lack of hustle, effort and teamwork that is most concerning to me.

I haven't watched Valpo nearly as much as all of you have, but the impression that I got from watching last night was that the guys were hustling, but that they weren't confident in what they were doing.  As someone else mentioned, there really wasn't any reason to double Pardon, especially after the first couple of 3's dropped.

While I would never say you should win a game if your opponent hits 12 threes, the reason for the 34 point blowout is that Valpo put up 39 shots, and Northwestern put up 61.  The biggest piece of this is that Valpo had 21 turnovers, which Northwestern converted into 30 points.  Again, to my untrained eye, it looked like Northwestern knew exactly where Valpo's players were going to be in their offensive sets.  Northwestern's players are quicker, but Valpo looked like a team that is still thinking through their offensive sets because they don't have confidence when they are running through them.  The other piece of this is Northwestern, despite shooting better from the field, also had twice as many offensive rebounds as Valpo.  Northwestern got back nearly 30% of their misses, while Valpo was only able to rebound 17% of theirs.  The zone they were utilizing, especially in the first half when they gave up 8 offensive rebounds (Valpo had 10 defensive rebounds in the 1st half), was a killer.

If you combine the 2nd chance points and points off of turnovers, Northwestern outscored Valpo in these categories 27-5 in the 1st half, and 20-0 in the 2nd half.

[vu72]

72--concur with the "team" concept, particularly on O.  D last night, there was a lot of talking earlier on assignments and the intensity was there.  But you and I know from playing a lot of hoops, that when guys are burying everything (or consistent turnovers), it becomes disheartening.  There were heads dropping after some of the shots.  What was the encouraging counterbalance was the run towards the end of 1st half.  There was still effort and fight.  2d half is a write-off.   The offense looks labored and when guys turn it over, teamwork gets stressed with guys then trying to do too much. 

05--the question isn't ##s as much as who do you feel confident will knock down 3s when you need them.  I can still hit 30% in the gym or a driveway with no one guarding me, but what will I shoot with a defender closing or in the flow of an offense?  I have no confidence in this team's ability to do that.  There is hesitation and lack of confidence on the court and their shooting mechanics are not repetitive, consistent 3 shooters, with exception of maybe Burton.  Micah is improved, but those parabolas he's throwing up there are highly inconsistent.  McMillan doesn't count as most of those were in blowouts that I recall. Not that he can't be like Jubril going forward who can knock one down to keep D's honest, and that's the thing.  D's can pack in against us and keep Bakari and others from slashing to the hoop, or disrupt the entry passes to the post, because who cares if we shoot a 3.

It is interesting to see the young guys like Hazen, who appears to be losing his confidence.  Was obviously benched last night and when he did play made a couple of terrible passes that were intercepted. Back to the bench.

What was particularly glaring was the free throw shooting.  Yikes!  We shot 56% last night and now are at 70% for the season.  56%?? Really?  Bradford is shooting 50% and air-balled one last night.  That hasn't happened since 2008 when Jarryd Loyd did it against Butler at the ARC. 

[valpo64]

It's too bad that the team left its hustle and competitive fire back at the ARC.  VERY disappointing effort.  Is Smits on something or what.  Some of these guys act like they don't care...come on  Matt some of these guys need to understand a few things and GET IN THE GAME!  I think  a few butts need to be kicked.  Kiser looked scared to death, Smits couldn't figure out what was going on.  Sarolla looked like he was in a knitting class and afraid to drop a stitch.  We have one of the country's best perimeter passing games above the foul line...no inside / outside game which means no offense.  At times it looks like we are afraid of contact...driving to the bucket, aggressive rebounding.  It amazes me that with our height we are usually playing with a 6'9" to 7'0" guy always on the floor but how many times have our "big guys" led the team in rebounding?  Lets WAKE UP, HUSTLE and COMPETE.  We may not be the best team in the MVC, but we sure as heck should be better that we have showed against decent competition.  Finals week, losing your best player to illness, or whatever...last night was EMBARRASSING!

[Just Sayin]

Young coach, young team.

[FieldGoodie05]

-Body language/fight. Northwestern is a good team that shot well tonight, but we made their lives WAY too easy with a lack of intensity when we got behind. We looked absolutely defeated once we fell behind double digits, and the body language made it clear they didn't intend to attempt any comeback this evening. That is not acceptable under any circumstances, and whatever mojo the coaching staff needs to perform to nip this very toxic habit in the bud, they should do it.

Most posters here were fine/happy with Lexus leaving because they thought Valpo had more "talented" players on the roster.  But he was "talented" at winning, leading and competing ... he's taken those qualities to Boise and it's paid dividends for them.  I think his leadership would have been an asset for Valpo had he stayed. 

I was one who was ok with Lexus moving on.  Never disliked the kid, just was willing to take a chance at the level of talent we got in return for his spot. 

Think it was Linssen or was it Fazekas?  Either way, I'd gladly have paid him 4-years worth of scholarship money again.  But I'm just as glad to see him in a Boise uniform doing well.

Transition year 1, I'm ok with the decision coach and Lexus made.

[Just Sayin]

Start the best five players, leave them in longer than the rest and make others from the bench work their way into the lineup. There is too much rotation, apparently so as not to hurt someone's feelings. Not a recipe for winning games.

[VU2014]

I'm not sure if there is anything else to say because everyone touched on the issues with this team. The amount of turnovers with this team is baffling. It's a very serious concern. You can't expect a team to go on any sort of run if we're finding idiotic ways to turnover the ball. On top of the turnovers we don't run an efficient or capable half-court offense. Something needs to change.

Is this team a poor ball-handling team?
Is this team a poor 3 point shooting team? Yes.
Is this team a poor half-court offensive team? YES.

I still have confidence in the Coach Staff long-term but this upcoming stretch of games is where coaches earn their money. This team is scuffling. The next 2 games are against very winnable opponents. A win would be nice but seeing offensive competency & not turning the ball over would be even better. I'm not sure if this is a personnel issue of not having the talent you want to run your "scheme" or if it's the youth of the team (probably the latter), but one thing is for sure and its that this team is garbage on the offensive end of the ball right now and its particularly obvious when Tevonn is not playing. I'm going write off the defensive performance last night because we know this is a strong defensive team but our offense is a far cry from our defense.

This team is frustrating to watch.

Coach Lottich went on the record said he thought we might not see these errors anymore in a month or so. Let's hope so. He calls them "unexperienced plays". (start 0:45 - 01:05)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9DGZq4N0dQ&t=199s

[talksalot]

Would someone else start the game thread for Santa Clara?   need to shake it up!!

[covufan]

I like watching Linssen when he gets in games - high energy, good rebounder. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[historyman]

Valpo - 51
NW - 74

When we win the MVC tourney from the 3 seed in March, we'll look back at this week (8 days) as a tough slide that brought the team together and made them realize how hard it really is to win at this level. But I don't think we're done being humbled yet.

WINNER! WINNER! CHICKEN DINNER!

[FWalum]

Northwestern has had just great spacing, probably because of the early success from three. They're just carving us up with the side to side skip pass.

You're a coach ... can you explain why Valpo doubles the post EVERY time it's thrown in?  Doubling an non scorer like Derek Pardon makes no sense when you're leaving shooters like McIntosh, Law, Lindsey and Skelly wide open.  That strategy may work against Trinity Christian and North Park, but top-100 teams just carve it up.

I am not really going to second guess the coaching staff. Everyone, whether it be in business or coaching, makes bad calls strategically at some time or another. Coaches don't put in a defensive strategy if they don't think it will be effective and this has been a strategy used by Valpo going back to the early Bryce years with mainly good effect.  If we had known that NU was going to hit their first 7 three-point attempts then we probably would have done something different. I realize that up until the Purdue game we had not played particularly good teams, but we had held teams to under 28% from 3 Pt range and NU was considered to be only a slightly above average 3 Pt shooting team at a little under 35% when we played them. I don't think anyone would have expected them to hit 57%.