MBB 2020-2021

[VU2014]

. Despite being on board with the move at the time, though, I would gladly return to the Horizon League now. Don't want to be the Fordham of the MVC lol.

I'll firmly disagree on this one. I get the big fish in a small pond but where Bryce had the Team when Lottich took over those teams certainly could compete with the MVC and did beat MVC teams like Missouri State and would have more times had MVC teams scheduled us more. Ex: Marty at Evansville would only play Valpo when we were in retool phase (AP's freshman year).

I like the recruits Valpo has and recruited in next years freshman class but there GLARING holes in this Team roster construction. Example: point guard play and we don't have player that can effectively defend the post. Clay and Krikke can defend down there but you prefer they not do some of the dirty work like a Kiser role and pick up cheap fouls. Emil is was MIA last year (understandable freshman) and then this year he's injured and who knows if he'll just end up taking a medical redshirt or how he'll look.

The one thing that baffles me is the over reliance on the 3 point shot with our team. We have one dead eye 3 point shooter in Barrett (only a spot up shooter for now) and a lot of guys who are capable but not being able to hit at. 40% or above clip consistently. It was nice to see Clay heated up from 3 on Saturday. JO can hit 3s particularly from the corner in catch and shoot situation but his biggest issue right now is rebounding and defense vs stronger and guys with more length. Not as worried about JO because he will add strength and will pick it up. As was mentioned he was always the biggest kid on the court so the transition will probably take longer but I like what I've seen from him and see the potential. I still have a hard following what we're trying to do on offense. It's a whole lot of great individual shots but not an offense getting guys easy or high % shots to set them up. That is my biggest frustration with Lottich's "system" because I don't know what their trying to do half the time. I'm just a fan and not an expert but I've seen enough basketball to know when the offense doesn't look efficient.

[JBC1824]

Big fish in a small pond exactly.

Yes, Bryce's teams could compete with those from the MVC. However... Bryce is no longer Valpo's coach. Lottich is. And Lottich's teams have proven incapable of consitently competing inside the MVC. Bryce Drew is not walking through that door, my friend. This is an unfortunate new era.

There are some bright spots on the roster and in the most recent recruiting class.

One of the biggest reasons I believe the program must move on from Lottich now, though, is Clay's father being publicly critical. What a terrible sign... if Donavon's dad feels Lottich's game planning is crap, I think there's a fair chance Donavon isn't thrilled with it either. And if the team's best player and someone who is likely a team leader feels this way, I think its also safe to say others on the roster do as well. Lottich may have "lost" the locker room at this point. And this may be becoming a trend, given all of our transfers over the past few years.

This program simply cannot stand to suffer more high profile transfers while in what we hope to be just a retooling phase. If we lose Clay...

Again, no X's and O's expert here, but I'd guess the reliance on the three is due to our inability to penetrate, particularly at the PG position. Opposing defenses seem to sag off Sackey so much that despite his blazing speed (his only meaningful attribute), it is nearly impossible for him to get past his defender in order to cause the defense to cave and thus leave open shooters somewhere out on the perimeter. I'm sure Sackey is a nice kid and everything, but he appears to be way in over his head playing college basketball.

Ya, I don't understand it either. That's why I would be so interested for someone who knows the game better than I do to break down what they're seeing. Is it really as bad as it looks?

I'm clueless as to what the team is trying to do on offense half the time, as well. Haha efficient they are not.

[oklahomamick]

I wouldn't want to go back to the HL.

Imagine going back with our tail between our legs and getting beat all the time by those teams we used to destroy and talk crap too......

[VUGrad1314]

Not a chance I would advocate returning to the HL even though they've made an addition I really liked and advocated for in the past with Robert Morris. I've wanted Valpo in the MVC for too long for that. But we NEED to get our act together FAST. No more "Young team" no more "Adjustment period." The time for results is NOW. We were in a better position as a program than Loyola was when they made the jump and now they're one of the best teams in the conference. They committed and they got better and are now in a position to pass us by if a spot in another league opens up: A team we've dominated for most of my life when we've played them. We've now been in the league as long as Loyola has when their turnaround became apparent. No more excuses. Time to win. If there's no commitment I would like to know that so that I can stop caring so much and try to enjoy Valpo in the MVC for what it is without any hope of it actually getting any better.

[valpo95]

Yes, Bryce's teams could compete with those from the MVC. However... Bryce is no longer Valpo's coach. Lottich is. And Lottich's teams have proven incapable of consitently competing inside the MVC. Bryce Drew is not walking through that door, my friend. This is an unfortunate new era.

There are some bright spots on the roster and in the most recent recruiting class.

...

This program simply cannot stand to suffer more high profile transfers while in what we hope to be just a retooling phase. If we lose Clay...

Clearly, we all want the team to do well, and it is possible in a year or two VU will move on from Coach Lottich. Yet we have to face the facts. Given the transfer of JFL and the COVID-19 upheaval, was anyone really expecting they would be competing for first place in the MVC this year? I doubt it.

There is a difference between being competitive and competing for first place. Under Lottich, the team has gone 6-12, 7-11 and 9-9 in conference. There was also the nice run in the MVC tournament last year. That surely indicates they are competitive in the MVC, a conference that top to bottom is way better than the Horizon League. Would they be competing for first place this year if JFL stayed and they had their regular practice schedule? Maybe.

In addition, the recruiting has gone reasonably well for Lottich.  Surely it would be tough for almost any coach to maintain the level of success that happened under decades of the Drews. Finally, I doubt that the AD wants to pay a buyout in the era of fiscal austerity. Thus, it is hard for any athletic director to fire a coach that has recruited solid players and shown improvement in a tougher conference.

[VU2014]

On a more positive note, happy birthday to Connie! 100!

https://twitter.com/valpoalumni/status/1348682664254074886?s=21

[vu72]

On a more positive note, happy birthday to Connie! 100!

https://twitter.com/valpoalumni/status/1348682664254074886?s=21

Just happen to know her well!  She is my Godmother!  Sharp as a tack.  You all have probably walked by her house on Linwood.  It is a Frank Lloyd Wright style. Wonderful lady and die hard Valpo basketball fan!

[JBC1824]

Yes, JFL transferred, and any reasonable person would have expected this to negatively impact the team's record. However, why did he leave? Could it have had something to do with game-planning, as Donovan's father, and very likely Donovan believe to be a problem? Surely, Lottich deserves some of the blame for the loss of JFL and the myriad of outgoing transfers the program has suffered during his brief and disappointing tenure. Or does he get off scot-free in your evaluation?

Covid is not a viable excuse. Covid did not prevent all the teams that have beaten us this year from doing so. We have a single D1 victory, coming at the expense of SIUE.

Again, I'm not necessarily married to the idea of outright excellence, particularly in light of how poorly we have performed since joining the MVC. I would settle for far less. Mediocracy, respectability, general competativeness would be welcomed.

Yes, the team has a last place and second to last place finish to "boast" of, as well as one .500 season, and a flash in the pan run during a conference tournament that ultimatley ended in defeat.... What you discount entirely however is the team's performance thus far this season, where again, through ten games we have one D1 win. This season does actually count you know.

In my opinion, Valpo would not be competing for first place if JFL had stayed. The team would have still lost its best shooter and second leading scorer in Fazekas, in addition to Kiser, who played the best basketball of his career during the MVC tournament and was one of our most efficient players throughout the regular season. Neither of these players' production has been replaced.

And there are glaring roster deficiencies JFL could not have possibly covered up so well as to vault Valpo into competition for the top seed in the conference. To say we would still not have a true, reasonably capable point guard in this scenario is an understatment, Sackey being a terrible disapointment. We would still suffer greatly from our "bigs" inability to rebound the basketball. Missouri State out-rebounded us by 22 over the course of the past two games. Then there is the non-existent interior defense and terribly inefficient shooting.

While I'm optimistic about our incoming recruits next season as well, how many of our highly touted recruits have either fizzled out entirely or failed to live up to expectations? And while Krikke and Clay are points of encouragement, neither has played so well as to play us out of our current predicament -- which is abjectly aweful (one D1 win, over SIUE). We also have lost many players to transfer, and now it appears Donovan is unhappy with the coach and perhaps the program overall.

Once more, this is not an appeal for excellence, but competativeness, something we appear to define very differently. I would imagine that if the Valpo fanbase were polled and asked if the men's basketball program has been "competative" since joining the MVC, the vast majority would answer "no." A last place finish, a second to last place finish, a .500 season albeit with a tournament run, and now, what appears to be the makings of another bottom of the barrel finish.

In accordance with what is financially viable for the university, Lottich absolutely must go, the sooner the better. No one is advocating for the school to go under in order to fire Matt Lottich.

Lottich has apparently not recruited solid enough players, or at least been able to retain them, because the team is now floundering. And it remains too early to rest all hopes on recruits who have yet to play a minute of college basketball.

Definitionally, there has been no improvement, the team appearing worse this year than it has any season since we joined the MVC.

[valpo95]

1824, I appreciate your passion and you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

I was on campus when there were calls to fire Homer Drew. Homer went something like 9-47 in conference play his first four years; that was in the old Mid-Con which is not as tough as the MVC. That was a different era the cupboard was pretty bare, yet many people wondered how Homer wasn't fired. His record improved to 7-9 record in his fifth year.

Let's say Lottich was fired at the end of last year - we have no way of knowing if the next coach would have been a Walter McCarty or a Darian DeVries, or if there would be another three years of additional rebuilding.

Specific to Lottich, not that I'm satisfied with the current status, yet the evidence shows that his conference record improved over the three years in the MVC. Last year's 9-9 isn't great, yet it is competitive. If any of us were the AD, we would probably do the same thing. See where things stand record-wise and program-wise at the end of the year, and make a decision then.   

[oklahomamick]

The difference was when Homer took over, he was taking over a horrible program.  The guy before Homer went 84-138.

Lottich took over a program coming off a NIT Runner up championship and going 124-49. 

Lottich taking over a great tradition of winning and Homer did not.   

[oklahomamick]

When Northern Kentucky jumped from A-Sun to Horizon they went out and spent a lot of money getting a good coach with experience.  That coach did a good job and advanced. 

We did the exact opposite.  Also, Lottich not landing another head coaching job after his contract runs up at Valpo.  At least not right away. 

[JBC1824]

I know that if Lottich had been fired at the end of last season, the chances of out best player's father now being publicly critical of the coach, which is likely indicative of a much larger problem than one dissatisfied parent, would be much less than they are: which is 100%.

That's because it has already happened, under Matt Lottich.

Think of all the players we have lost to transfer under Lottich. Now our best player's father is being publcily critical? These are not signs the coach is doing a good job. How will you feel if Clay ends up deciding to transfer too?

OKmick brings up an excellent point. Please consider the state of the program when Lottich took over, and the state it is in now.

The "improvement" you cited has been marginal, if not entirely meanigless. The win total increased by one from Valpo's first year in the MVC to the second, and then an additional two wins from year two to year three. You also failed to make any mention of this year's team -- which is by no means poised to improve upon last year's conference record. Far more likely is a return to the very bottom of the conference standings.

We have had one competative season since joining the MVC. However, our fourth year in the conference is well underway. To expect this group to establish itself as a competative team during conference play is optimistic. Thus, we will have had three non-competative seasons to offset the one competative season. This does not constitute consitently competing, the one competative season out of four being an abberation.

While I feel firing Lottich as soon as is reasonably possible to be the best path forward for the program, firing him at the end of the season seems reasonable. I'm simply afraid the longer he remains the coach the greater our chance of losing another high profile transfer such as Clay becomes. This team would suffer mightily if Clay were to jump ship too.

[oklahomamick]

The College football championship was won last night. 

Some say it was won on signing day last February.

The team with the best players usually wins

There was a time that our bench players would start on the 2nd,3rd and 4th place teams in our conference.  Now I dont know if our starters would start on any other mvc team. Before Lottich, our entire program could have been 1st and 2nd team all conference.  One year our average conference win margin was 20. 

Now we consider .500 a good year. 

Point is we need better players.  Lottich needs better players.  Lottich also needs to do a better job with the players he recruited. 

[SanityLost17]

Everyone is complaining about the offense.... Which i find hilarious.   

We scored 68 points both games this weekend.  72-75 points is what we need to score every game to win games if we are playing defense the way Lottich wants us to play.  Our defense is what sucks right now.   At points of both games this weekend it was kind of embarrassing how many open looks we gave, how many times we allowed the ball to enter to deep in the post, or our help side defense was slow to react. 

So we need to score 5-7 more points a game.   Seems like just having more practice time will get us there.   Defensive improvement is the #1 priority right now and anybody argues differently clearly knows nothing about basketball. 

[valpo64]

To all of you being so critical:  Do you realize that MO. ST. had already played 6 conference games and we had played ZERO!  Some of these comments are way out of line in light of how many practices and games we have under our belt so far this season .  I would say we would be in a much better position if  we already had 6 conference games under our belt along with a good number of practices with the entire, healthy roster.  I think some of these comments are not being fair to Coach under these conditions.  Then add in the loss of JFL at the point.  Let's get real here.

[vu72]

To all of you being so critical:  Do you realize that MO. ST. had already played 6 conference games and we had played ZERO!  Some of these comments are way out of line in light of how many practices and games we have under our belt so far this season .  I would say we would be in a much better position if  we already had 6 conference games under our belt along with a good number of practices with the entire, healthy roster.  I think some of these comments are not being fair to Coach under these conditions.  Then add in the loss of JFL at the point.  Let's get real here.

It's a combo of issues. Yes, the performance has not been up to what we expect/hope for. The reality is as you state, this is not a true picture of the potential of this team for many reasons.   We expected leadership from our fifth year seniors and we have gotten basicly none. Nick is missing, Mileek may have finally arrived, Eron has been inconsistent and Zion is AWOL.  Add to that injuries to the foreign guys and we are playing WAY short handed and relying on freshman.  We are getting results accordingly.

Not good and it will be very difficult to turn this ship around for the same reasons. 

[VU2014]

https://twitter.com/valpoathletics/status/1349098912188162049?s=21

[VUGrad1314]

To all of you being so critical:  Do you realize that MO. ST. had already played 6 conference games and we had played ZERO!  Some of these comments are way out of line in light of how many practices and games we have under our belt so far this season .  I would say we would be in a much better position if  we already had 6 conference games under our belt along with a good number of practices with the entire, healthy roster.  I think some of these comments are not being fair to Coach under these conditions.  Then add in the loss of JFL at the point.  Let's get real here.

It's a combo of issues. Yes, the performance has not been up to what we expect/hope for. The reality is as you state, this is not a true picture of the potential of this team for many reasons.   We expected leadership from our fifth year seniors and we have gotten basicly none. Nick is missing, Mileek may have finally arrived, Eron has been inconsistent and Zion is AWOL.  Add to that injuries to the foreign guys and we are playing WAY short handed and relying on freshman.  We are getting results accordingly. Not good and it will be very difficult to turn this ship around for the same reasons.

I'm most concerned with how we keep our best players from transferring out and continuing the negative cycle. Kids want to win quickly or they'll go somewhere else where they can. I don't know if we'll ever get out of this hole...

[JBC1824]

I find Valpo's offense hilarious, as well.

Hate to break it to you "coach," but our offense sucks just as much as our defense. As a team we're shooting 43% from the field and below 30% from three -- which is objectively terrible and simply must improve if this group has any chance of even marginally turning things around.

Our overall points per game average is well below average as well. Furthermore, if you remove from consideration the two games we played against non-D1 oppenents, when we had our highest point totals and actually shot the ball well, the numbers are downright embarassing.

Thus suggesting the offense has not been part of the problem is absolute nonsense, regardless of whatever basketball knowledge you claim to have...

Ok, we dont have as many games under our belt as MO. But regarding the games we do have under our belt, how has the team performed in those games? We have a single victory over D1 oppenents through ten games! And for many of the games we have played, we have had a largely healthy roster; the games against MO have been an exception really.

Does Lottich take no blame for the loss of JFL and the other transfers?

[PlumStreetBum]

Hate to break it to you "coach,"
...
regardless of whatever basketball knowledge you claim to have...

The rest of your post was a good analysis, but lay off the personal attacks on other posters.

[vu72]

Does Lottich take no blame for the loss of JFL and the other transfers?

I sure don't blame Lottich for JFL transferring.  He give him the keys to the team.  He could shoot whenever he wanted, made him the "leader" which resulted in JFL being named First Team all conference. Lots of attention.  That wasn't enough for the young man and his handlers. That is not on Coach.  As for the "others", who do you miss? I didn't think so.

[wh]

Does Lottich take no blame for the loss of JFL and the other transfers?

I sure don't blame Lottich for JFL transferring.  He give him the keys to the team.  He could shoot whenever he wanted, made him the "leader" which resulted in JFL being named First Team all conference. Lots of attention.  That wasn't enough for the young man and his handlers. That is not on Coach. As for the "others", who do you miss? I didn't think so.

Good question. Which of the most selfish, overrated Crusaders ever did you miss last year - Smits, Evelyn, Golder, or Jay? And while we're walking down memory lane, those guys leaving is what opened up scholarships for Krikke and our European players that Matt unexpectedly announced practically a day later like pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

[wh]

BTW I'm not attaching anything cryptic to Donovan's dad's comment. It could be as simple as he would like to see Donovan get put in a position to have more scoring opportunities during the flow of the offense, which I would agree with. Who knows, but IMO it's a huge stretch to go from a single comment about offensive execution to Donovan's gonna transfer.

[VU2014]

https://twitter.com/fatherharry1/status/1349355358343622657?s=21

[VU2014]

BTW I'm not attaching anything cryptic to Donovan's dad's comment. It could be as simple as he would like to see Donovan get put in a position to have more scoring opportunities during the flow of the offense, which I would agree with. Who knows, but IMO it's a huge stretch to go from a single comment about offensive execution to Donovan's gonna transfer.

Like you said it's always tough to get full context from tweets, but he's frustrated just like us sometimes. I could very well be overthinking and reading too much into things.

https://twitter.com/dexterclay1977/status/1348008329038196738?s=21
https://twitter.com/dexterclay1977/status/1348011471125544961?s=21
https://twitter.com/dexterclay1977/status/1347971367413669893?s=21
https://twitter.com/dexterclay1977/status/1340400515411300357?s=21
https://twitter.com/dexterclay1977/status/1334143789695447042?s=21