Valpo at Bradley Game Thread, Wed., Jan. 29th, 6:00p, ESPN+

[VUGrad1314]

Drake's success, especially last year, should basically kill the 'roster turnover' excuse, no?

1.  Drake had shooters.  They shot a high percentage from 3 last year.   3 point line was closer last year as well.
2. MVC was historically bad last year.  Is up to 11th in RPI this year, that Drake team would have finished lower this year I guarantee it.
3.  More often than not teams with high turnover don't do well, but good job cherry picking a few examples to prove your point.  In general, the data shows you Drake was the exception to the rule. 

I can do this all day.   Logic > Emotion   and all the Lottich haters out there are speaking more from emotion than from logic.   

We just lost a game at Bradley... A GAME WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LOSE and that 90% of posters at the beginning of the season would have marked an "L" at the beginning of the season and all the sudden this was a bad loss?    <starts pulling out own hair>  C'mon!

1. I get that Lottich can't make the ball go in the hole but he also cannot be fully absolved from the struggles of the players he recruited. If they struggle repeatedly it's entirely fair to wonder why. Is it mental? Is it the opposing defenses? Is the player hurt? Is it coaching? Coaching is invariably going to be on the list of concerns when you see a struggling player and team. It's unavoidable.

2. You can't guarantee this. SIU's performance in conference this year with a skeleton crew would seem to fly in the face of this counterpoint. I think that Drake team would have been about as good or better than this SIU team which would put them near the top of the conference right now. It also suggests that NativeCheesehead wasn't so clearly cherry picking. Yes the math is in your favor but that doesn't make his point irrelevant especially when we're looking at teams in the same conference it reads like an apt apples to apples comparison.

3. I don't think you'll find a single Lottich hater on this board. Skeptics? Yes. Haters? No. Nobody hates Lottich and those who are skeptical are understandably concerned with the results we have seen over an extended period. If (and I say IF) he struggles next year what will the reason be? Would you then finally be willing to give credence to the arguments of the Lottich skeptics? By then however we'd have three more years of those results and that kind of thing can really hurt a program's momentum.

Using the term "haters" in your defense is itself an emotional term so you're not being as calmly logical as you claim to be but that's beside the point,

4. Here's where your argument really loses steam and devolves into emotion. NOBODY is calling a road loss in Carver arena where Bradley has lost only to UNI this year (13-1) a bad loss. They are a 57 spots higher than we are in the NET (96 vs 153). Calling that a bad loss is utterly ridiculous and nobody is doing it. They may say we played badly in the loss but that is not remotely in the same universe as calling it a bad loss. The issue the Lottich skeptics have is that it's another loss and there have been plenty of them with the same issues that have plagued this program for years being the main cause of that loss. The fact that the issues afflicting this program in the Lottich era have endured for a long time is an issue that fans can and should rightly be concerned over. That's not emotion. That's logic. That's facts. I know you're joking in the last part but pulling your hair out is a pretty emotional reaction too.

I think you'll find there is zero emotion in this post and I have laid out a very good logical case for the position of the Lottich skeptics. We don't hate him, we like him as a person. We are simply unsure if he is the right man for the job to lead us where we need to go in the MVC but we are hoping that he is and we are rooting for him. Nobody on this board wants to see Lottich or Valpo fail.

[FieldGoodie05]

Drake's success, especially last year, should basically kill the 'roster turnover' excuse, no?

1.  Drake had shooters.  They shot a high percentage from 3 last year.   3 point line was closer last year as well.
2. MVC was historically bad last year.  Is up to 11th in RPI this year, that Drake team would have finished lower this year I guarantee it.
3.  More often than not teams with high turnover don't do well, but good job cherry picking a few examples to prove your point.  In general, the data shows you Drake was the exception to the rule. 

I can do this all day.   Logic > Emotion   and all the Lottich haters out there are speaking more from emotion than from logic.   

We just lost a game at Bradley... A GAME WE WERE SUPPOSED TO LOSE and that 90% of posters at the beginning of the season would have marked an "L" at the beginning of the season and all the sudden this was a bad loss?    <starts pulling out own hair>  C'mon!

You have solid points on the pre-season expectations -vs- reality, I felt we were in the range of 8-10 to 11-7 depending how we progressed. 

My main concern with this team is just how easily our G are getting beat off the dribble.  There is not a single G that has consistently kept with their mark in the first half of our games.  This causes nearly all of our defenders to suck into the lane to try and defend.  I am absolutely amazed at how many easy layups/open 3s ensue.  If most of our opponents weren't so stunned by the wide open (late close out) 3 attempts they might just make more buckets.

It often times seems like this mostly occurs for the first 10 minutes of every game we've played.  What about driving to the basket results in such high success rates in the first 10 minutes of nearly every game?  There is no seasonality here,  otherwise neophytes like myself wouldn't be so flummoxed by this.  You know your opponent and have 3 or 4 days to scout them.

When does that stop?  I grant you we lost all the size inside and most opponents feel they can drive with impunity.  Is that really the most glaring difference?  Were we routinely getting smoked on dribble drives the last few years?  What is different?  I'd appreciate others POV on this.  I can handle the offensive lulls but these defensive effort lulls have caused me to turn off more games than I care to admit.

[FieldGoodie05]

Maybe I'm crazy but I'd do a 2 year extension especially if that would help keep any of our younger guys and recruits on board. I figured a .500 season was reasonable. I do like most of his recruits and the flashes of good play have been there.

If this is the year we have to re-up him or fire him, I'd vote for a 2 year extension.  I like the guys in the program in general and I think well of the upcoming recruiting class.  Even though I am not happy with the defensive intensity and effort in most first halves, I think I can overlook the fact that we are a small midwest school with moderate to lesser resources.

[justducky]

Interesting debate 

Lottich aside--- Here is what bothers me about the rest of our season. For Valley games only (9) we hold a shooting % of .407 vs our opponents at .467. Thats BIG! From 3 we stand at 30% with 257 attempts vs 39% in 172 attempts from our opposition. Thats Bigger! We are also getting out rebounded by 3.9 per game. In the absence of additional information our 4-5 record and my 9-9 projection would look like excellent results Maybe?

Even with everybody healthy we have a major weakness in not having any post up threats. Nobody gives us a reliably high 2 point shooting percentage. Last year we had no outside shooting. This year we have no inside game. Those are big handicaps for any team and any coach.

[VUGrad1314]

I was looking at the NET to make my argument for that last post in response to SanityLost17 and had a huge epiphany (not in the way you might expect)... The biggest issue and obstacle in the Lottich tenure is the one he had the least control over. When he was hired we were still an HL team and the MVC invite was not in the offing. He was hired to be a coach in the HL and only JUST NOW did he clear the decks of the HL players.

Now let's look at the NET: According to it Wright State the class of the HL would be 5th in the MVC behind UNI Bradley Loyola and ISUb. Northern Kentucky the second best team in the HL would be 7th (a PIG team) with Drake and Missouri State leapfrogging them. Think about that: THE SECOND BEST HL TEAM WOULD BE A PIG TEAM IN THE MVC. What's more, they also have the benefit of playing that soft HL schedule to goose their metrics. A whopping 8 TEAMS in the HL have lower NET ratings than the 9TH PLACE MVC TEAM (ISUr). THREE of those teams (IUPUI Detroit and Cleveland St) have lower ratings than the MVC's 10th place team (Evansville).

Since we swept Evansville that's 6 wins right there that we would easily get in the HL that are not promised to us in the MVC. Consider then that we beat ISUb who has a higher NET rating than every HL team and that suggests at least a split with everyone else if not better. The point being if you think Matt Lottich wouldn't have kept the train rolling for us if we were in the HL and kept us as a contender in that conference you're totally mistaken. Since we just recently cleared the roster of players recruited to play in the HL there is a very strong case to be made that patience with Lottich is totally warranted. This was not my earlier position because I admit I was using emotion as my guiding compass especially up through the SIU loss but Matt Lottich deserves a chance to show what he can do with a roster full of MVC caliber players recruited to play in the MVC. Considering how tough we played Loyola and UNI and the promise of our upcoming recruits. If the group holds together we might stop eating so many losses and getting our faces rubbed in the dirt much sooner than we all realize. There's an argument to be made and a very compelling one at that that we are really close and the only things we and Matt Lottich need are just a little more time and patience to get where we want.

I think most of the Lottich skeptics (especially me) underestimated just how great the jump is from the HL to the MVC as these numbers clearly show. We accepted that it was a step up  and a big one but we did not realize that once you get into the top 12 or so conferences the leap is orders of magnitude larger. The point going from the 18th best conference (at the time of our move) to the 12th (at the time and that was a down year for the MVC to boot) is not the same as going from the 24th best conference to the 18th. This is just like jumping from the Mid Con to the Butler era HL which was nearly on par with but a notch below the MVC of the time but is very much on par with (even still a notch below) the current MVC. We remember how hard that was our first four or so years and this is even harder because this conference is BETTER especially when it's firing on all cylinders. Again I am sorry Matt. I underestimated the difficulty of your job and your situation,

This debate is so hard for me because I can literally see and identify with both sides and the case is compelling in both directions. I don't envy MLB for having to make this decision. It's hard.

[crusader05]

My biggest concern is that, if you go with another coach you run the risk of losing recruits and current players and so you end up with a young team AGAIN with a new coach. So, in theory any new coach coming in will be starting off in an even worse position and will need even more time to get going.  I am for giving Lottich time for at least two more years and then see because I think starting over with a new coach again has too high of a tail risk that the program shouldn't take it.

People are frustrated now but I think there might be some underestimation of how much worse it could be.

[NativeCheesehead]

Again, to me the measure of progress is not playing on Thursday in STL. If we're there again this year to me the excuses have to stop.

[oklahomamick]

I know one thing.....

We haven't been mediocre for a very very long time. 

[GoldenCrusader87]

Most of the rationales for buying into Matt aren't factors that represent being locked into a commitment to this program as a marquee one. Hence the routine emphasis on him being a nice guy, and a family man, and a good high school player. I just don't get how those are features that will get us over the hump by making up for the poor arena, lack of energy / student support, small school, hefty tuition, and crappy weather.

[bbtds]

I honestly believe that an extension to Lottich's contract is either 4 years or nothing. Again it's the Valpo Way and very much part of Valpo's history. You give a coach a 2-year extension and the recruits think the AD doesn't have enough confidence in the coach to stay for 4 years.

[oklahomamick]

Can't imagine this experiment going on for nearly a decade.

Hey, you remember that time we destroyed St. Mary's in front of an electric ARC crowd?