At UNI Saturday, January 13, 7pm on ESPN2

[vu72]

Bradford might be the worst shooting PG or SG at Valpo since Eric Buggs. I'm amazed at how Valpo's staff saw him as a shooter for a year and a half, instead of a PG that should only shoot once a game to keep defenders honest.

Tonight's Contest, is between Vashil Fernandez's Senior year free throw shooting percentage, Eric Bugg's Senior year free throw percentage and this year star. Micah Bradford's free throw percentage.

here are the stats!

Vashil:  50%


Eric:  51.3%


Micah (so far):  43.2%

AND THE LOSER IS!!!!!  MICAH BRADFORD!!!!  Congrats!!   

[valpopal]

A couple more observations:


Other than poor shooting in the first half, the game was lost in two places: 1) at the rim Valpo was out-rebounded 40-27, and we can't blame that on the youth or inexperience of our big men since the center for UNI was a freshman making his first start, and he had 20 points, 8 rebounds in only 23 minutes because he was more aggressive; 2) at the foul line Valpo had 22 fewer free throws (16-38), some of which can be attributed to careless defense (especially on 3-point shots), but some also must be attributed to the officiating.

[a3uge]

Bradford might be the worst shooting PG or SG at Valpo since Eric Buggs. I'm amazed at how Valpo's staff saw him as a shooter for a year and a half, instead of a PG that should only shoot once a game to keep defenders honest.

Tonight's Contest, is between Vashil Fernandez's Senior year free throw shooting percentage, Eric Bugg's Senior year free throw percentage and this year star. Micah Bradford's free throw percentage.

here are the stats!

Vashil:  50%


Eric:  51.3%


Micah (so far):  43.2%

AND THE LOSER IS!!!!!  MICAH BRADFORD!!!!  Congrats!!   

Should be noted that Bradford looks GREAT as a point guard though.

[VULB#62]

Wow. I checked the stream only a couple of times and we were down by 20 both times. Didn't check in again until after it was over. Lost by only 5!!!!

Checked the stats immediately. We had fewer TOs than UNI (Yay!), but we killed ourselves on the FT line and were trrible on 3FGs.

Good point on the aggressive thing Pal.

[VULB#62]

I can't remember a Valpo team that has been out rebounded in so many games. As Pal pointed out, rebounding is purely about will and aggressiveness.

[justducky]

We double team and end up with our pants down every time. 

They exploited our doubles by finding the open man every time. We can't expect Micah to rotate to an open big and have good outcomes. Had we an experienced 4 with size we could have contested about 6 of their easiest baskets.

It's clear Valpo needs to play WAY more small-ball, and that every team needs to just pressure UNI

In truth our small-ball 4 guard defense was outplayed 80% of the game. Our 5 guard press was new to me so I'm pretty sure it was new to UNI also.

We can only take small-ball so far with the personnel available. In the early second half I was actually hoping that Matt would try a few minutes of double bigs with any two of the Linssen, Smits, Sorolla trio being worth a go. For 15 second half minutes we just couldn't seem to stop them inside.

[valpotx]

Micah is a great PG, but needs to be shooting on dribble drives, and not take any more 3's, until he can hit them with more regularity.  If he is shooting 5 shots/game, I am happy.  Great effort at the end, and it was pleasing to see that the guys do care.

[valpopal]

1) Valpo made their big run with five of the most aggressive players on the court. That should be the lesson to everyone on the team.

Nice to see Lottich acknowledge this in his post-game comments: "With five minutes to go we were finally the aggressive team."

[justducky]

Micah is a great PG, but needs to be shooting on dribble drives, and not take any more 3's, until he can hit them with more regularity. 

With the adjustments Matt has made Micah must take the 3 when he is given the open look. Tonight several of those shots went halfway down before spinning out. I can live with that because he can not be an Erik Buggs type point.

20 extra lbs on Micah would be so helpful.    Whatever Max has been eating needs to be force fed to Micah! Did you see him have good defensive position then get repeatedly bumped under the basket until it became a 5' shot? How is that not a foul?

[valpotx]

Yeah, it amazes me how little they call the extended arm foul on the offense.  I caught myself yelling 'foul' at the TV around 5 or 6 times, any time that the offensive player created space by pushing off.  Some games they call it, while other games they do not.  Just be consistent!!

[usc4valpo]

Playing a game in Iowa can also be an intimidating experience...

[VUSL98]

What happened to Tevonn?  Sick?

[oklahomamick]

No doubt max could play linebacker or running back somewhere.  But micah's Small skinny frame should. It should not be an excuse.  And has nothing thing to do with his 3point or charity stripe failures.  The Naismith player of he year this year will be a freshman who is very skinny and small.  Micah should study freshman Trae Young from Oklahoma.  Both have similar build and game (without the shooting) Micah has great vision and some of he best handles we have had at valpo. 

This also gave me an opportunity to brag on Oklahoma!  Football player of the year and basketball player of the year.  Ou first accomplished that with Sam Bradford and Blake griffin.  Only school to have that feat.  And now the Sooners will do it again.

[bbtds]

Bradford shooting free throws: 

Back rim.

Front rim.

Repeat

Bradford might be the worst shooting PG or SG at Valpo since Eric Buggs. I'm amazed at how Valpo's staff saw him as a shooter for a year and a half, instead of a PG that should only shoot once a game to keep defenders honest.

If you look at the stats, if Bradford who at one point was 1-7 on FG and 0-5 on FT with 6 assists would have just passed the ball instead of shooting we might have had a real chance to overtake UNI at the end of the game. Micah's talent is clearly in passing and not in shooting. 

[valpolaw]

If you look at the stats, if Bradford who at one point was 1-7 on FG and 0-5 on FT with 6 assists would have just passed the ball instead of shooting we might have had a real chance to overtake UNI at the end of the game. Micah's talent is clearly in passing and not in shooting. 

I agree.  Micah shot 4 for 12 and a 0 of 5 from free throw.  He took the second most shots on the team last night.  Rebounding killed us. 


I know most people who aren't valpo fans probably weren't watching the game due to the patriots/titans game being on at the same time, but I wish we would actually show up to play when we're on national TV.  I don't know how the national exposure alone isn't enough to pump the team up and get them to pay aggressively.   

[Just Sayin]

Next game please.

[wh]

Micah had 9 assists last night. That's not just a good night distributing the ball - it's a great night. As to his shooting, it seems that he has a pretty extreme arc. The ball is traveling a lot farther than the distance he's shooting from when he adds unnecessary loop to it.

[VU2014]

Ben Jacobson's postgame press-conference. I think starting Austin over Koch was completely for strategic purposes. They saw how we flip Smits and Sorolla 2 games ago. I think that threw our coaching staff and Smits off early in the game. He was probably mentally prepared for Koch. Just total speculation on my part but I thought that was huge. Smits got into some foul trouble and was never able to get him or Sorolla going in the post.

We weren't able to establish our post players early in the game which was the huge difference between the previous 2 games. Also we just weren't able to make shot for the first 35 minutes of the game.

https://twitter.com/Panther_media1/status/952383423854690304

As for the suggestion that Bradford shouldn't shoot the ball I disagree with that. If you start doing that then teams will pick up on it quickly and they will completely cheat on him defensively like they did on Buggs back in the day. Also Micah is not nearly the athlete Buggs was to be able to blow passed defenders and drive to the hoop. He needs to figure out his shooting woes AND his free throw shooting in order for this team to have consistent success, imo. He is one of the x-factors on this team.

[wh]

I hope I'm wrong (of course), but its probably unlikely that Micah figures out his shooting woes this year. He's not in a slump. His shooting averages are consistent from last year to this. He is a 20-25% FG shooter and a 50% FT shooter - period. While it's very common to see players make major improvement from 1 season to the next, it's not often that a player wakes up 1 morning and becomes something he hasn't been for the past 2 seasons.

[valpo84]

For Micah, it is important for the staff to use some data analytics.  What is Micah's percentage from the various spots he hoists shots from.  TOP of the key from the naked eye his % and close to makes is higher than anywhere else.  He's like 0 for whatever from the right side of the 3 line and almost the same from the corner.  There may be something to the question about his vision.  He is driving and dishing well and his inside 3 ft % is very good.  His runners need some help but that shot is there too. This is clearly a growing and transition year.  The defences are bigger, stronger and more intense every night.  UNI did some things with Tevonn last night to keep him out of the game (plus the 2 early fouls). They were switching wherever he went.  Teams are going to do that after seeing 26s on the board, same with Max.  I'm still trying to figure out how games are going to be called by the refs.  And, please oh please, stop lunging at 3 shooters and don't foul when someone is making a layup.  And UNI starting Fyphefife last night really was a wild card and he's big.  But still, the rebounding was not good but aggressiveness was taken away early with the way the game was called.  Tremendous effort late and at our house, we were talking about "hey wasn't it UNI who blew the big lead in an NCAA game a couple years ago...."

[valpo64]

It should be noted, as previously stated, that when our bigs are playing smart, strong and aggressive, the team does well.  When they are MIA we falter.  T Walker  wasn't there tonight .  It sure would have been nice to see him on his game, along with Smits and Sorrola because I think we would have won the game.  However it sure was a great effort to come back at the end...give credit to the Coaches and the Team for responding...just too little too late.

[VU2014]

However it sure was a great effort to come back at the end...give credit to the Coaches and the Team for responding...just too little too late.

At the very end. 35-37 minutes of subpar basketball. The guys looked like they didn't have confidence till the last 5 minutes. It was a snowball effect. When one guy made a shot the rest of the team had confidence. It was a pretty dismal shooting night, till the very end when we couldn't miss for a stretch. Guys weren't making open looks. I thought UNI did a pretty good job of interior defense but we had open looks from the outside and guy weren't hitting them. Another factor was 38 free throw attempts for UNI to 16 for us. That is partially due to our lack of aggressiveness at times and UNI enjoyed a little home cooking from the officiating last night.

[M]

The last 5 minutes they proved to themselves they can play that way. Hope that can carry over to the next game!

[talksalot]

OK, Next Man Up.   Who's going to start the MoSt thread for Wednesday's matchup in Springfield?...

[bigmosmithfan1]

It remains mind-boggling to me that there is a foolproof method for shooting FTs that has been perfected (with data to back it up) for 40 years right across town and yet VU coaching staff after coaching staff refuses to explore implementing it team-wide. Virgil Sweet Method for everyone shooting less than 75 percent, guys. FTs are 100 percent mechanics.