Bryce Drew...

[bbtds]

If Lottich comes anywhere near Coach K I'll eat every hat I own and every negative word I ever said about him.

Define "comes anywhere near."

You have put yourself on the line now and this statement will be remembered for years to come.

[NativeCheesehead]

Agreed. The hat eating must be done in public after Lottich wins his 4th National Championship.

[vu72]

Valpo fans still pissed about Bryce Drew leaving Valpo need a serious reality check.

I can't be mad at Bryce for leaving a university (majority of students & board of directors) that didn't appreciate much what he did as a student and coach, in coordination with Homer, for the university AND it's mission to increase enrollment.

Perhaps but, the University did appreciate him enough to make him the highest paid coach in the Horizon and the highest paid employee of the University.

Valpo fans still pissed about Bryce Drew leaving Valpo need a serious reality check.

I can't be mad at Bryce for leaving a university (majority of students & board of directors) that didn't appreciate much what he did as a student and coach, in coordination with Homer, for the university AND it's mission to increase enrollment.

[bbtds]

Valpo fans still pissed about Bryce Drew leaving Valpo need a serious reality check.

I can't be mad at Bryce for leaving a university (majority of students & board of directors) that didn't appreciate much what he did as a student and coach, in coordination with Homer, for the university AND it's mission to increase enrollment.

Valpo fans still pissed about Bryce Drew leaving Valpo need a serious reality check.

I can't be mad at Bryce for leaving a university (majority of students & board of directors) that didn't appreciate much what he did as a student and coach, in coordination with Homer, for the university AND it's mission to increase enrollment.

Perhaps but, the University did appreciate him enough to make him the highest paid coach in the Horizon and the highest paid employee of the University.

In a failed attempt to keep Bryce around longer but his dream job opened up at about 10 times of what he was paid at Valpo.

[usc4valpo]

Welcome to major college sports where tact is an afterthought. You see it at the coaches side and the administrative side. It is actually surprising when departures are done with integrity.

[a3uge]

Again, it's not the fact that he left Valpo that ticked off some fans. It's how he left. Even if Bryce stayed an extra year, we were heading for a bad season in 2017-18 because he stopped recruiting.

[usc4valpo]

A3uge, please. No departure in a job or in sports goes in a perfectly smooth and lovingly manner. Bryce found an opportunity and took it - what do you except, tears and hugs and a parade and a party wishing him the best of luck? You knew he was going to leave sooner or later, and if I were in his position I would have done the same.

[a3uge]

A3uge, please. No departure in a job or in sports goes in a perfectly smooth and lovingly manner. Bryce found an opportunity and took it - what do you except, tears and hugs and a parade and a party wishing him the best of luck? You knew he was going to leave sooner or later, and if I were in his position I would have done the same.

I expect a coach to not blown off his current job responsibilities, like recruiting. Bryce is as much to blame for this collapse as Lottich, since Bryce's juniors and seniors should have been major contributors these past two years.

I didn't expect a parade, but it's very telling Bryce gave a statement after getting fired, but not after leaving Valpo. That's fine, it's a business, but there's no way the program should forget all of this and hire a guy that's going to be more focused on interviewing for other jobs than winning postseason games or recruiting.

And yes, Valpo looked completely unprepared to handle George Washington's and BYU's zone.

[JD24]

I get it, but you don't tell a guy that he needs to come in and plead for his job with an elaborate plan, and then just say, 'F U.'

The assumption is Fraschilla's info was correct. It may not have been.

[VU2014]

My post about Coach K wasn't necessarily a direct comparison about Lottich. It was more so about Bryce and also just showing that your record doesn't necessarily always tell the whole story about Coach's abilities.

[VU2014]

Wow...

https://twitter.com/docsander30/status/1109229754731950080?s=21

[chairback]

At Valpo, Bryce never beat a top 25 team and he had the players to do it.  No tourney wins, never beat a top 25, how can anyone be surprised at poor results at the next level?

[VU2014]

At Valpo, Bryce never beat a top 25 team and he had the players to do it.  No tourney wins, never beat a top 25, how can anyone be surprised at poor results at the next level?

If you think Bryce is a bad coach then that says a lot about you... not him...

[bigmosmithfan1]

That tweet about the search firm is... a really silly tweet. Korn Ferry is one of the biggest executive search firms in the nation. They probably have a contract with Vandy to handle all of their national high-level searches, and even if they don't, it's be like drawing a conspiracy theory based on the fact that both jobs were listed on Indeed or something.

[FieldGoodie05]

At Valpo, Bryce never beat a top 25 team and he had the players to do it.  No tourney wins, never beat a top 25, how can anyone be surprised at poor results at the next level?

If you think Bryce is a bad coach then that says a lot about you... not him...

VU2014 do you have the Bryce goggles on?  Chairback makes valid points, they alone don't mean he's a bad coach but they are marks against his resume until he proves otherwise.

I know I'm going to be lambasted for saying this, but we have only won in the NCAA tournament during one run.  Since 1998, we haven't won outside of the NIT and CBI.

For as little big time winning as we do, our conference mates (Mid-Con, Summit, HL and now MVC) sees right through our egos and to this incontrovertible fact.

Now up until the MVC we can say our conference mates really couldn't put up a better resume.  Now we can't fallback on the appearances game.  MVC is used to seeing teams enter and win in March, and our resume was simply the price of entry.  Now I will choose to be humble and support the program, but I won't go on other fan forums and act a fool.  (Not sayin you do this because I don't GO on other fan forums)

Bryce didn't win a ton of big games, and frankly neither did Homer.  The argument can be made about 14-16 seeds etc etc....but here we are.

[VU2014]

He nearly beat Maryland on a neutral court in the tourney and got screwed by a blatant no call at the end of the game. Took another team to the tourney. He arguably should of had a at-large bid in 15-16 and took that team to the NIT Championship game. He took a very mediocre sec roster to the tourney his first year at Vandy. This year at Vandy was bad no doubt but he also nearly beat the #1 ranked team in the country also. Found and developed two NBA caliber players at the mid-major level.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a huge Bryce Drew fan but I think the argument that he's not a good coach to fall flat even when I take off my blinders.

[FieldGoodie05]

At Valpo, Bryce never beat a top 25 team and he had the players to do it.  No tourney wins, never beat a top 25, how can anyone be surprised at poor results at the next level?

If you think Bryce is a bad coach then that says a lot about you... not him...

VU2014 do you have the Bryce goggles on?  Chairback makes valid points, they alone don't mean he's a bad coach but they are marks against his resume until he proves otherwise.

I know I'm going to be lambasted for saying this, but we have only won in the NCAA tournament during one run.  Since 1998, we haven't won outside of the NIT and CBI.

For as little big time winning as we do, our conference mates (Mid-Con, Summit, HL and now MVC) sees right through our egos and to this incontrovertible fact.

Now up until the MVC we can say our conference mates really couldn't put up a better resume.  Now we can't fallback on the appearances game.  MVC is used to seeing teams enter and win in March, and our resume was simply the price of entry.  Now I will choose to be humble and support the program, but I won't go on other fan forums and act a fool.  (Not sayin you do this because I don't GO on other fan forums)

Bryce didn't win a ton of big games, and frankly neither did Homer.  The argument can be made about 14-16 seeds etc etc....but here we are.

All this said, Bryce may be the best player and best coach we've had at Valpo.  Though Scott may be better, we never truly had his full attention as a HC.  Again, I'm sure some would argue for pre Homer, and I have no understanding of that era.

[FieldGoodie05]

He nearly beat Maryland on a neutral court in the tourney and got screwed by a blatant no call at the end of the game. Took another team to the tourney. He arguably should of had a at-large bid in 15-16 and took that team to the NIT Championship game. He took a very mediocre sec roster to the tourney his first year at Vandy. This year at Vandy was bad no doubt but he also nearly beat the #1 ranked team in the country also. Found and developed two NBA caliber players at the mid-major level.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a huge Bryce Drew fan but I think the argument that he's not a good coach to fall flat even when I take off my blinders.

btw, you do an outstanding job informing the rest of us and adding value on this forum.  I just slightly disagree to the grade I'd assign Bryce (B+) to Lottich (C-) to Homers (B).

[chairback]

2014- Moral victories don't count.  We have many many moral victories and almost wins. 

He's our home down hero so it's a hard to accept. 

He didn't win the big games.   A lot of his offensive struggles at Vandy were also at Valpo.  Going 7-10 mins without scoring happened at Valpo too.  But the conference we played in didn't expose it like the SEC did.  If you followed Vandy that team made zero progress when they had decent players who could.  Even after the injury.  He had good players on that team to at least compete a little.   The AD (and board) to make the decision to fire him had to see that this was not going to get better. The AD is well connected in the basketball circles. 

[crusader05]

I think Bryce has good recruiting skills, good ability to connect to players and decent Basketball IQ. I don't think he was as ready or had learned as much as maybe we and he thought. He should have stayed at Valpo as we steadily mproved, our quality of recruits increased, and  our quality of opponents through continued post season play increased. He didn't, and he had to learn those lessons faster than he could handle. Chairback makes a good point, we often fumbled it away. Yeah we almost won the Maryland Game but we also played very poorly at times during that game (remember that time like 3 players in a row missed the same easy layup) and if we criticize Lottich for not calling a play that gets the ball in the right person's hand. Bryce's play should have put the ball in Alec's hands, it didn't.

I actually think you could make all the same criticisms of Lottich, except he's even greener than Bryce so my question is: Does he learn? Does Bryce learn?

[wh]

I think Bryce has good recruiting skills, good ability to connect to players and decent Basketball IQ. I don't think he was as ready or had learned as much as maybe we and he thought. He should have stayed at Valpo as we steadily mproved, our quality of recruits increased, and  our quality of opponents through continued post season play increased. He didn't, and he had to learn those lessons faster than he could handle. Chairback makes a good point, we often fumbled it away. Yeah we almost won the Maryland Game but we also played very poorly at times during that game (remember that time like 3 players in a row missed the same easy layup) and if we criticize Lottich for not calling a play that gets the ball in the right person's hand. Bryce's play should have put the ball in Alec's hands, it didn't.

I actually think you could make all the same criticisms of Lottich, except he's even greener than Bryce so my question is: Does he learn? Does Bryce learn?

In all fairness, the play Bryce drew (no pun intended) up was designed for Alec to take the shot, but Maryland swarmed him and blew up the play. KC tried to improvise in the few seconds remaining, and it didn't work out. That's life.

No miracle finish for Valparaiso as Maryland wins 65-62

"I'll take the blame for that," Bryce Drew said. "We tried to do something different than we usually run. We wanted Alec Peters to have a chance to tie it. But they made a really good defensive play at the end."

https://www.wishtv.com/sports/no-miracle-finish-for-valparaiso-as-maryland-wins-65-62/1116258642

[crusader05]

I'm not saying I blame Drew for that. It's why you don't want your chance to come down to a last second shot. But more just that we based Drew on his potential at times more than what he had fully realized and that he probably could have learned a lot more from staying at Valpo even for a few more years.

Bryce has always been very good at cultivating the aura (I'd argue he's doing that right now with his new twitter account that never existed until he had been fired) but that the balance was off and he needed a firmer foundation (I'd argue this is also why it's been so hard for Lottich, the foundation was definitely not as firm as we had hoped).

[mp91]

Guys, I think you all are overthinking this too much... Bryce was an excellent coach who quickly turned around the program and crafted a few NBA/semi NBA players during the run. Plus, also important to remember he was a major reason why we got solid recruits during the final Homer years. Brandon Wood, Richie Edwards, Peters and many others noted he was a major reason why they came to Valpo. So, not only was he a terrific coach but a terrific recruiter (even at Vanderbilt). He deserved to leave Valpo. Vanderbilt panicked and wanted to start fresh, nothing wrong with that either.

But, it's also disingenuous to say the program was in shambles when he left Valpo. The new coaching staff did pretty well during the transition to a new conference (which is extremely hard). While I am not a Lottich coaching strategy stan and am not sure if he is the solution, I am much more concerned/interested in the personality/attitude of the staff and less concerned with the XO's. It's difficult to take over a program as the main guy. He might not be suited for this but maybe he is. The bottom line is: if the transfers did not happen, we would be excited for next season, not worried. Maybe the players just did not like the school or did not vibe with the coaches. It happens, but let's not go exaggerating and blaming it on Bryce, the guy who made the program relevant again.

[VU2014]

Rick Byrd is retiring from CBB at Belmont and Bryce make ALL the sense in the world as a potential replacement. Man it would hurt to see him at Belmont. Mainly because I want him to come home even though I know it's not going to happen here.

Side Note: it will be interesting to see how to the program does without Byrd who is a HOF coach. Valpo knows first handed what life is like once you lose a stabilizing Coach (or family in our case...). I mean it's not all doom and gloom for but you get my point.

[EddieCabot]

I just can't see any major program's fans being excited about hiring a coach who just lost 20 in a row.  "Get excited fans, we just got a great new coach who has proven he can turn a program...into crap in three years"  I don't see it happening.  Perhaps a assistant gig or doing a Tubby Smith, moving way down to take a head coaching gig somewhere.  Hopefully Homer and Janet and Dana and family haven't got to in love with country music!  Wow, just wow.

I noticed the Belmont job just opened.  If Bryce and family like the area, this might be a chance to get his career back on path while not needing to move away from Nashville.