Arizona game: 11/7/2011

[okinawatyphoon]

Sitting here with weathernerd in North Dakota about to watch the game! Go Valpo!

[dylanrocks]

This league simply has to do better against BCS teams than it has in the past, Butler excluded.

Go out and represent the league tonight with a fury.

Good luck from Milwaukee.

[valporun]

I'm over in the Crusader Chat associated with this fan forum. It looks as though the "Cover It Live" setup used on Thursday night may only be available for home games, since Aaron Leavitt is the color commentator on the road, so his time will be taken adding to what Todd has to say.

[mj]

I'm listening from North Dakota as well.

[dylanrocks]

Gotta start getting some offensive production from the newcomers.

[GoPanthers33]

Good game so far at the half.

Keep it going and steal this one Valpo!

[lowposter]

Nice half.

Kevin has certainly played big.  It is great to see him for more than 6 minutes at a time.  Eric certainly is playing with much more offensive confidence.

lowposter

[sectionee]

Very good first half, 2nd unit was not so good.  KVW is playing out of his mind and those couple threes by Ryan were huge.  I jotted down some first half notes if you are interested. http://sectionee.blogspot.com/2011/11/arizona-game-notes-1st-half.html

[okinawatyphoon]

I thought they were supposed to show the Homer Drew cancer video during halftime? I didn't see it on ESPNU.

[FWalum]

Kevin is a beast.  He has the mindset of an aggressive inside player something we have been missing because of Cory's face up mentality.  Got to make hay when he is on the floor.

[okinawatyphoon]

Typical valpo 2nd half against a ranked team. Just textbook. Let's see some magic Bryce!

[dylanrocks]

Same concerns I had for the Crusaders when picking them for sixth.

Who on this team outside of Broekhoff and Van Wijk is going to score?

[sectionee]

Many teams have that same concern.  Who is going to score after our first two guys?  Valpo has several others who can score in double figures in Harris and Edwards.  I'm concerned about our second unit.  They have a lot of work to do (says a guy who has never coached a game of basketball in my life).

[valpo04]

Got away from us there in the second half, but not a bad effort and only a 9 point loss.

[sectionee]

Game wrap up from my point of view, http://sectionee.blogspot.com/2011/11/game-wrap-up-tale-of-two-halves.html

We need that second unit to come together and figure things out!

[govalpogo]

For what it's worth...I really liked the way that the team played right down to the buzzer and cut a 20pt deficit down to 9.  That being said, I think the REAL reason for the late resurgance was that Valpo ran out of toes to shoot off from shooting themselves in the foot repeatedly during that disastrous stretch in the 2nd half.   

[valporun]

sectionee, Bogan reminded me of Ryan in his first few games. When we kept talking on the old board about his ability to shoot, and yet he kept passing up shots. Like I said in the chat, some of these guys might have been told their role for this game wasn't to be the big shooter, but to get the ball to the hot hands? Bogan might have only been a role player, basically to get the ball inside, or to the hot hands at that particular moment. Hopefully, Bryce will open up the floodgates on Friday, and see what some of these guys can really do, when given the green light to shoot.

[agibson]

Typical valpo 2nd half against a ranked team. Just textbook.

Yeah, a little bit.

But, not a bad outing.

The legitimate question we're left with, from the announcers, is, "How many of the 14 minutes Kevin sat were in the disastrous 10 minute no-field goal stretch bridging half time?"  I mean, not all of them, since the two points or so in that stretch were off of KVJ FT's.  But, what happened in those ten minutes to take him out of his otherwise very impressive game?

[historyman]

Typical valpo 2nd half against a ranked team. Just textbook.

The legitimate question we're left with, from the announcers, is, "How many of the 14 minutes Kevin sat were in the disastrous 10 minute no-field goal stretch bridging half time?"  I mean, not all of them, since the two points or so in that stretch were off of KVJ FT's.  But, what happened in those ten minutes to take him out of his otherwise very impressive game?

Erratic passing into the post, some very sloppy ballhandling on Valpo's part and Broekhoff went cold from beyond the arc during that hard luck 10 minute stretch in the first part of the second half.

[lowposter]

During that stretch in 2H, we simply didnt take care of the ball really well.  Lets face it, Arizona stepped up the intensity during that stretch and the officials kind of let things take care of themselves.  Our shot selection was pretty bad once we got down by 10 points.  Once Bryce got control of things later on, the offense looked better.

Kevin has got to eliminate those offensive fouls on ball screens.  You simply cannot make a movement after being set.  As the announcers stated, the ball handler must run off of that screen and await the timing.  This will easily be corrected.

[valporun]

I have to say that it sounds like Arizona really paid attention to how we had some major spurts of bad ball handling/lack of scoring last season, and knew what to do to take advantage of that in the second half. If other teams focus on that, and who to really work on, we'll really be a team that others will keep in the game right until the moment that they can hit on, and really take it to us.

[vuweathernerd]

one of the single biggest issues i saw was that coming out of halftime, we kept trying to get things going in transition even though arizona's players were good at getting back down the court so quickly. if they have three or four players already back, don't try to beat them back up the court - take your time bringing the ball up.

and what happened with the andy katz story on the drews that was supposed to run at halftime?

[valporun]

I saw the Andy Katz story about the Drews during halftime of the William&Mary-St. John's game actually. It sucks that it wasn't shown during the Valpo game, but it is in the video section of the ESPN website, maybe even found on the front page of the NCAA Basketball page?

[vuweathernerd]

i didn't watch it beforehand, thinking it was going to air during halftime of our game. well, damn. guess it's time to watch it now.

[vu72]

I think it was a well played game with top notch effort.  Who in the Horizon will stop Kevin?  Who in the Horizon will have the speed on the perimeter to defend our shooters like AZ did tonight?

As for the second team, think Fernandez, Jakolis and (probably a first teamer) Boggs, and next year Capobianco.

Guys, we played with 9 scholarship players on the home court of the 16th ranked team. Let's look for some positives.  I see a bunch.