Whew!!!! Valpo 80, IUN 47

[Crusader03]

"I know, I didn't know"

That phrase sums up a lot about our distinguished Crusader03. 

Wow, I made your signature!  Mission accomplished I guess!

[Valpo89]

I'll bet not too many followers of the women's team saw this coming. Wow!
Ladd Leaves Valpo Hoops Program



Valparaiso University head women's basketball coach Keith Freeman has announced that freshman forward Mallory Ladd (Evansville, Ind./Memorial H.S.) has been granted a release from her scholarship for the purpose of transferring and is no longer a member of the Crusader basketball program.



"It became clear over the course of the semester that Mallory was struggling with being away from home," Freeman stated.  "Mallory and her family feel that it is in her best interest to return home to Evansville.  We appreciate the contributions that she has made to the team this season and wish her the best in her future endeavors."



Ladd was averaging 10.5 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while averaging 25.2 minutes per game.



"I did my best for the last six months to try to take this next step in life," Ladd said.  "I have really loved it here at Valpo playing basketball.  The coach and the team members here are great.  I'm just really struggling with the homesickness.  I wish nothing but the best for this team."



Valparaiso hosts Lehigh on Saturday afternoon beginning at 12:05 p.m. at the Athletics-Recreation Center.



-Valpo Women's Basketball-

[valporun]

I didn't see that coming. I do wish her the best, hope that maybe she can catch on with a school closer to home. I was just getting enjoy watching play, and was to Pgmado that I thought she was a bit like Jeanette Gray, while he compared her to Amber Schober, only a little more athletic than Amber. Good luck to the Lady Crusaders against Lehigh, and I hope that some members of the infirmary start to heal soon. The bench is getting a bit lonelier these days.

[Crusader03]

This is a huge blow, both this season and in the future. 

[milanmiracle]

Long story short, I have a feeling "Lady 'Saders" will catch on and I'll be the one cashing in on all the gear!!! 

I pray you are wrong....this is ridiculous and in no way reflects the wishes of most fans

Completely on board with you on this one.

[okinawatyphoon]

Ladd had homesickness? She only lives 4-5 hours away!

[valpotx]

Big loss for the women's program

[valporun]

4-5 hours from home, when you might be close to family, or have some lingering detail we don't know about back there, it makes a person long for going back home as soon as possible. I hate to see her go, but whatever the situation is, hopefully she finds a basketball program to play for. She was a strong player with a big future with our team to not be effective and useful.

[jack]

4-5 hours from home, when you might be close to family, or have some lingering detail we don't know about back there, it makes a person long for going back home as soon as possible. I hate to see her go, but whatever the situation is, hopefully she finds a basketball program to play for. She was a strong player with a big future with our team to not be effective and useful.

Losing Ladd is a big loss for the program. I wish her well with the next chapter in her young life. I hear she'll be lacing them up at Evansville. I'm sure this came as a surprise to some, but not all. Leaving home, for anywhere, is more of a challenge to some then most. Some kids can't wait to get some independence, and others aren't quite ready.
Good luck Mallory.
As far as the Leheigh game, I thought we played exceptionally well on D. Probably our best effort yet. It's obvious we need to find more ways to score. So many of of our shots are forced, with players not seeming to be ready to receive, square up, and shoot. I felt we could have gotten some better looks at times, instead chosing to force one up. When we're in the paint, and going up, we're making it too easy for the defenders to block by not using our bodies to shield. I know it's a tough task to regroup after lossing a key player abruptly, but some of this is not playing sound, fundamental basketball. At times, we do a great job of moving the ball quickly, and slicing the lanes, and at other times we seem to be headless chickens. We ajusted nicely to the 2/3 finding holes and getting the ball in to them, but then got away from it. Again, you hate to keep harping on it, but we need more players in the rotation. I felt the turning point was the bad call on, I believe Geradot, followed by a terrible T call on Carr. On replay it appeared the player traveled before forcing the contact. It also appeared that Carr was mearly slaping the low ball to the floor to get it up to grab it. I could be wrong, but this is what it appeared like to me. None the less, when your short handed, you have to be careful with your actions. We need all hands on deck right now, and having Carr sitting for an extended period cost us defensively.
You hate to be too critical of anything right now given the circumstances of all that this team is dealing with, and I felt, given that, we put up a very strong defensive front yesterday. The results could have been different had we shot a better percentage. I'd like to see our 1,2, and 3 possitions look more to score outside and create a little space inside for our bigs.
We've got a tough challenge coming in a couple of days. The same defensive preasure, with some better shot selection, and percentage, should keep us in this one and give us a chance for a "W".

[IndyValpo]

4-5 hours from home, when you might be close to family, or have some lingering detail we don't know about back there, it makes a person long for going back home as soon as possible. I hate to see her go, but whatever the situation is, hopefully she finds a basketball program to play for. She was a strong player with a big future with our team to not be effective and useful.

Losing Ladd is a big loss for the program. I wish her well with the next chapter in her young life. I hear she'll be lacing them up at Evansville. I'm sure this came as a surprise to some, but not all. Leaving home, for anywhere, is more of a challenge to some then most. Some kids can't wait to get some independence, and others aren't quite ready.
Good luck Mallory.
As far as the Leheigh game, I thought we played exceptionally well on D. Probably our best effort yet. It's obvious we need to find more ways to score. So many of of our shots are forced, with players not seeming to be ready to receive, square up, and shoot. I felt we could have gotten some better looks at times, instead chosing to force one up. When we're in the paint, and going up, we're making it too easy for the defenders to block by not using our bodies to shield. I know it's a tough task to regroup after lossing a key player abruptly, but some of this is not playing sound, fundamental basketball. At times, we do a great job of moving the ball quickly, and slicing the lanes, and at other times we seem to be headless chickens. We ajusted nicely to the 2/3 finding holes and getting the ball in to them, but then got away from it. Again, you hate to keep harping on it, but we need more players in the rotation. I felt the turning point was the bad call on, I believe Geradot, followed by a terrible T call on Carr. On replay it appeared the player traveled before forcing the contact. It also appeared that Carr was mearly slaping the low ball to the floor to get it up to grab it. I could be wrong, but this is what it appeared like to me. None the less, when your short handed, you have to be careful with your actions. We need all hands on deck right now, and having Carr sitting for an extended period cost us defensively.
You hate to be too critical of anything right now given the circumstances of all that this team is dealing with, and I felt, given that, we put up a very strong defensive front yesterday. The results could have been different had we shot a better percentage. I'd like to see our 1,2, and 3 possitions look more to score outside and create a little space inside for our bigs.
We've got a tough challenge coming in a couple of days. The same defensive preasure, with some better shot selection, and percentage, should keep us in this one and give us a chance for a "W".

Lets be honest here, no matter what our rotation is we should not lose 3 home games to Rice, Western Illinois and Lehigh who short of playing us are a combined 7-15 with wins over the likes of Chicago State and Houston Baptist.  We were strong defensively in part due to a weak opponent. Like last year you simply can not play Richards 35 minutes a game.  She has made 4 shots ALL SEASON and three of those were layups in about a 5 minutes stretch against WIU. The other 200 minutes she has made 1 basket.  It is hard to complain about the rotation being short when during a game where we shoot 28% (6% from 3) and Horton plays 3 minutes.

Losing Ladd certainly hurts, particularly her.  Perhaps UE will let her live at home play only home games.  It is unfortunate she was unable to make it work.  Being away from home might have been a good thing for her in the long run.

[jack]

4-5 hours from home, when you might be close to family, or have some lingering detail we don't know about back there, it makes a person long for going back home as soon as possible. I hate to see her go, but whatever the situation is, hopefully she finds a basketball program to play for. She was a strong player with a big future with our team to not be effective and useful.

Losing Ladd is a big loss for the program. I wish her well with the next chapter in her young life. I hear she'll be lacing them up at Evansville. I'm sure this came as a surprise to some, but not all. Leaving home, for anywhere, is more of a challenge to some then most. Some kids can't wait to get some independence, and others aren't quite ready.
Good luck Mallory.
As far as the Leheigh game, I thought we played exceptionally well on D. Probably our best effort yet. It's obvious we need to find more ways to score. So many of of our shots are forced, with players not seeming to be ready to receive, square up, and shoot. I felt we could have gotten some better looks at times, instead chosing to force one up. When we're in the paint, and going up, we're making it too easy for the defenders to block by not using our bodies to shield. I know it's a tough task to regroup after lossing a key player abruptly, but some of this is not playing sound, fundamental basketball. At times, we do a great job of moving the ball quickly, and slicing the lanes, and at other times we seem to be headless chickens. We ajusted nicely to the 2/3 finding holes and getting the ball in to them, but then got away from it. Again, you hate to keep harping on it, but we need more players in the rotation. I felt the turning point was the bad call on, I believe Geradot, followed by a terrible T call on Carr. On replay it appeared the player traveled before forcing the contact. It also appeared that Carr was mearly slaping the low ball to the floor to get it up to grab it. I could be wrong, but this is what it appeared like to me. None the less, when your short handed, you have to be careful with your actions. We need all hands on deck right now, and having Carr sitting for an extended period cost us defensively.
You hate to be too critical of anything right now given the circumstances of all that this team is dealing with, and I felt, given that, we put up a very strong defensive front yesterday. The results could have been different had we shot a better percentage. I'd like to see our 1,2, and 3 possitions look more to score outside and create a little space inside for our bigs.
We've got a tough challenge coming in a couple of days. The same defensive preasure, with some better shot selection, and percentage, should keep us in this one and give us a chance for a "W".

Lets be honest here, no matter what our rotation is we should not lose 3 home games to Rice, Western Illinois and Lehigh who short of playing us are a combined 7-15 with wins over the likes of Chicago State and Houston Baptist.  We were strong defensively in part due to a weak opponent. Like last year you simply can not play Richards 35 minutes a game.  She has made 4 shots ALL SEASON and three of those were layups in about a 5 minutes stretch against WIU. The other 200 minutes she has made 1 basket.  It is hard to complain about the rotation being short when during a game where we shoot 28% (6% from 3) and Horton plays 3 minutes.

Losing Ladd certainly hurts, particularly her.  Perhaps UE will let her live at home play only home games.  It is unfortunate she was unable to make it work.  Being away from home might have been a good thing for her in the long run.

You're making my point. Richards is playing too many minutes because we have noone to spot her. You can't play the kind of minutes many of our players are being asked to play and hope to have some steam, and quality shooting down the stretch. I totally agree, we need a better shooting effort from everyone. At the end of the day though, we still need more players in the rotation to compete at this level, period. It's going to be a long, hard season for this team if they don't get some more players healthy. As for Horton, I don't understand the playing time issue. She came in and gave some quality minutes the previous game. Not sure if it's an injury, or lack of effort in practice that's holding her back. I'm sure there's a reason, especially with Ladd gone.

[jimdandy]

jack and
the women play the same # in rotation as the men-so this is not an excuse for losing to bad teams
most teams play only 7-8 in a rotation anyway-
we need to look at otr factors for losing -not the lack of depth-which really does not matter unless you only have 5 or 6 in rotation

[Crusader03]

jack and
the women play the same # in rotation as the men-so this is not an excuse for losing to bad teams
most teams play only 7-8 in a rotation anyway-
we need to look at otr factors for losing -not the lack of depth-which really does not matter unless you only have 5 or 6 in rotation

What factors do you think we should be looking at?  IMWTK!

[jack]

jack and
the women play the same # in rotation as the men-so this is not an excuse for losing to bad teams
most teams play only 7-8 in a rotation anyway-
we need to look at otr factors for losing -not the lack of depth-which really does not matter unless you only have 5 or 6 in rotation

And we are barely getting 7 in rotation, with 2 being hurt. From a coaches standpoint, it's next to impossible to get a game plan together with the lack of bodies we have. And, for the record, the women generally play more in rotation then the men do. We don't even have subs to help out when a player needs a blow. I still think there are things the coaching staff should do a bit differently, but they have far fewer tools to work with then they should, and with Ladd leaving, an even bigger challenge awaits.

[valpo84]

Evansville must be the garden spot of the US (or even midwest). What's in the water there that no one wants to leave? Bouchie now Ladd?

[KL31NY]

The rotation and the lack of anyone on the bench not already in the main rotation is significant in games, yes. Let's not forget this also affects practice greatly.

How many other teams don't have enough people to go 5 v 5 against each other? Sure, there's a male scout team that can practice against the team at home, but there are also times where that team isn't available, whether it be at home or on the road. The only people left that are healthy and eligible are coaches! That's less true reps, less quality reps, and less real opportunities to get prepared for games (no offense to our coaches' practice ability). Factor in players limited by injuries, and it gets even worse.

Gameplay is one thing. Practices that can get you ready for games are so important, and this is a big effect in the current slide, too.