Drake in town 2/4 6 pm

[humbleopinion]

Tucker backed by two guys from the region expect to thump the Beacons at the ARC.

We played them tough in Des Moines, and many of their nine conference wins have been by a small margin.  They have lost twice to MoSt, and like VU, come off an overtime game this past Wednesday (of course they won theirs in a double overtime while Valpo ran out of gas and collapsed in OT). I look for a competitive game and hold out hope that this will be a game when our streaky shooters will find the basket.

Will Sturtz again prove himself to be the pest that makes the little plays that sting on both ends of the court?

[usc4valpo]

Drake has more than Tucker DeVries and Sturtz, Brodie went to work inside the last time they played.

[vu72]

Drake has more than Tucker DeVries and Sturtz, Brodie went to work inside the last time they played.

Brodie went off for 19.  They are probably the oldest team in the conference and we might bed the second oldest!  They seem to be playing up to their opponent as they have been taken to overtime by UIC twice, most recently on their home court.  I'm hoping for a good effort but we'll need to be hitting 3's to win as a zone is no doubt coming our way.

[AB]

Defensive lapses, shot selection, (closer to the basket) and careless turnovers (that includes taking over 10 3 point attempts! Largest crowd of the year. 2,400

[usc4valpo]

aB - has the game started?

[VALPO LI]

Great to hear Todd on ESPN 
Looks like the lower section of the ARC is full!

[tjjvalpo]

AD Small was thanking all the students in the first row of student section for coming out tonight! Class move!

[vu84v2]

Very good game.

Not sure what looks more stupid: the Beacon logo (which ultimately makes the Valpo logo look like a W) or the two dog mascots. Ugh.

[hailcrusaders]

Solid student showing. They're always better on Friday and Saturday nights. Really wish MVC would quit scheduling Sunday matinees.

That foul on Krikke was absolutely brutal. How hard is it not to leave your feet when defending a three-point shooter??? Elementary age kids know this and Krikke should know better. Fingers crossed this OT goes better than the last one.

[hailcrusaders]

Let's see what CML draws up with Krikke out. I'd hate to see us jack up a three....

[valpotx]

For as well as we played, and for as well as Krikke played, he had an absolutely brutal last 30-45 seconds in regulation.  You foul a jump shooter well beyond the 3 point line, and then think that you are going to drive the lane on the next play, when you are at the 3 point line, and 3 Drake defenders near enough to the paint, that it is easy for them to slide over?  Not a good sequence, and a very unfortunate loss, due to it.

[AB]

Close but no cigar. Had multiple chances to put them away. Can't come away saying their is an enormous talent gap between Valpo and the top four teams in the league. It's the other things. Green, Edwards, King and maybe Krikke is gone next year. Very few chances left to figure out how to close these teams out.

[justducky]

It's the other things. Green, Edwards, King and maybe Krikke is gone next year. Very few chances left to figure out how to close these teams out.

We are no longer painful to watch but we still haven't beaten a good Valley team and it may not happen. Hope springs eternal so I'll try to make it for Bradley.

[Chairback]

That was a great college basketball game to watch.  Even though we lost, we competed like we should and that is what we all have wanted this whole year. 

The team showed some grit tonight that we haven't seen in some time. 

I hate to blame refs for a loss but some of those calls were very ticky tacky.  Drake had like only 7 fouls total in 30 minutes of play in 2nd half and 2 OTs which is very hard to do.  And there was an obvious big flop missed in OT. 

Kudos to the fans tonight for showing up and also the students.  It felt a little like old school Valpo basketball at the arc tonight.
 

[vufan75]

Is Jerome Palm injured? He's been MIA lately and I wondered if he's hurt or in doghouse. Could use a big who rebounds to spell Krikke. Just curious if PO or anyone else has heard anything.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

[Dr. T]

Not sure how to feel about this one. It's your home court. You should win. Then again, you're playing a decent Drake team. You are winning the game by a large margin for parts of it. Ugly end of regulation, and couldn't finish things off in OT.
Good = Student section showed up.
Good = Lower section of bleachers was ~80% full.
Good = Actually had a halftime performer.
Good = Valpo was competitive.

Bad = Valpo lost another game & we're finding the silver lining in the lower bowl being ~80% full. And have yet to beat a top team in the valley. Is this honestly the goal? Is this enough to keep ML at the helm? I sure hope not.

[vu72]

Agree with Chairback, that was a great college basketball game!  Battled down to the wire with arguably the best team in the Valley led by a sure NBA player. It certainly does sting to lose such a well fought tight game.  I doubt anybody is going to want to play us in the tourney and now I'm contemplating going to St. Louis to see if these guys can finally get it together.

[historyman]

Yes, last night's game against Drake was a great college basketball game. It was exciting to watch but the result was very predictable.


I'm going to copy something I wrote in the VUWBB thread.


But the MBB team still has not beaten a team in the top 8 of the conference standings at this point. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! CLOSE DOESN'T COUNT IN BASKETBALL. HOLDING A COACH TO HIGH STANDARDS IS THE SAME THING VU DOES WITH IT'S STUDENTS IN THEIR ACADEMIC FIELD. WHY DOES THE UNIVERSITY LOWER THE STANDARDS FOR ATHLETICS?

[usc4valpo]

Valpo is playing better and played hard last night. They are getting wins over ham and egger opponents and can't get over the hump over better opponents. Now there will be some pity about the coaching situation unlike what we experienced a month ago. This will be an interesting offseason for the direction of Valpo basketball.   

[valpopal]

I was pleased to see the attendance and excitement at the game last night—due to the reemergence of the pep band, turnout by student groups, local interest in players on Drake from the area, advertising in the town newspaper, and a halftime show—all good and to be applauded, and all things we've been calling for on this forum. Nonetheless, the result was the same as we've seen, a collapse at the end of the game. I turned to my wife midway through the second half and commented that I'm curious to see how Valpo creatively will lose the lead. As historyman stated, "the result was very predictable." So, now some folks are enthused by one game of elevated atmosphere during the season and seemingly encouraged by another near-win. Nonetheless, the team lingers in 10th place with the best outcome being a possible 9th place finish in the conference. Expectations for this program ought to be higher than that; otherwise, again to quote Historyman, we "lower the standards for athletics."

[valpopal]

[tweet]1622284197695029251[/tweet]Yet, when Valpo needed a three to tie the game at the end of the second overtime, Nelson wasn't even an option. Edwards dribbled the ball across half court to the sideline in front of the VU bench, where he was stuck by himself while Nelson was clear across the court standing on the opposite sideline completely out of the play. Result: a low percentage 3-point shooter hoists an almost impossible off-balance shot at the buzzer instead of giving the team's hottest shooter during the night a chance.

[chgovalpofan]

I am not saying I am okay with losing, but it sure was a fun game to watch, which isn't always the case.   You want to team to show up and give you something to be excited about.  Hope this continues.  If they play this hard consistently, they should (hopefully) win a few games, and get much needed fan support.

[AB]

somewhat of a moral victory and it doesn't appear to be a team that will quit. Better results from better intensity on defense. 4 games this year came down to execution in crunch time or extending leads. At this level, the coaching pedigree of Wardell, Jacobson, Devries (working the officials better for calls etc) can make a difference.  Palm....agreed mystery. Would have been an asset on offensive rebounds last night.

[vu84v2]

The game last night was certainly good and Valpo's effort against a good team was nice to see. And the student turnout and enthusiasm in the student section was great to see.

The thing that stood out to me, however, is that Valpo seems to lack a system. On offense, there is little or no team cohesion. The ball does not move and players seldom move off the ball. Most offensive sets emphasize the point guard getting the ball to the chosen player (based on matchup and/or the hot hand) and that player trying to score. Last night, Krikke was "the guy". He played great and the ball did get to Nelson several times, but most everyone else was not engaged in the offense. Krikke went out and then it was a lot of King going one-on-one.

This type of play, which is consistent with what I have seen in Matt Lottich teams, is not likely to lead to any sustainable success (which I will define as consistently seriously competing for the MVC championship). There might be brief periods of peaking (the MVC tournament a few years ago), but I do not see any consistent success with the current "system". Furthermore, since the players are not aligned with a system, they are far more likely to leave if they think they can play at a higher tier school. wh made some very salient points in a post on a different thread regarding how Matt Lottich could be retained and signed to an extension - but I think that would be a mistake (and as said in many other posts, Matt Lottich seems like a really good person - this is about coaching and outcomes).

Lastly, Valpo apparently did more advertising for this game (from other posts)...and that is great. But things like promotions, halftime entertainment, etc. will not create excitement and greater attendance (maybe for a game, but the goal is for every game or at least all good opponents). Perceptions of the quality of the team, far and away, has the greatest impact on attendance...followed by perceptions of the quality of the opponent. Everything else has far less of an impact.

[vu72]

I just took a look at home attendance and am SHOCKED as to how far we have fallen.  The Drake game was the FIRST home game with attendance over 2000 and made a huge jump to a very respectable 3137. There was actually one game listed at 915. Through 12 home games we are averaging 1586 which of course made a jump based on last night's game.

I looked back and saw that last year we averaged 1758, in 2019-2020 we averaged 2797 and in 2018-2019 we averaged 3126!!!  Talk about lost revenue.  The AD has to be looking at the numbers.