Prospects for the future

[wh]

Not to discount posts in the other thread, but personally I'm not all that interested in knowing whether we're 6 feet behind Butler or 6 miles.  Now that the season is over, I'm far more interested in assessing whether we're making the progress we need to make to close the gap with Butler and the rest of the league. 

My thoughts are this.  As much improvement as we made this year, we could have and IMO should have made much more.  We can spin our late season collapse any way we want, but the fact is that with 2 weeks to go we were in the most enviable position for winning the league and we blew it.  We still had a great chance to get the 2nd seed and we blew that too.  We could have gone to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2004 - threw it away.  We still could have gone to the NIT for the first time since 2003, but threw that away too.  We still could have salvaged something by winning the CIT, but threw that away as well (along with $60,000).  All the good stuff to convince the best potential recruits out there to come join a winning program on the rise, all the stuff to overcome the inferior facilities factor that we will apparently always be dealing with, all thrown out the window.

All the rhetoric aside, the reasons seem to be pretty simple - either we did not have enough physical talent to close the deal, or we did not have the resolve to overcome the myriad excuses provided by the coaching staff and others.  Lack of physical talent is easier to swallow than lack of mental toughness, but in either case it says we still have a long way to go - a lot longer than anyone could possibly have thought with 2 weeks to go in the regular season.  Add to that that we don't have a clue whether our top player is even going to be here next year, and it's impossible to know whether next year is going to be better - or worse.  IMO none of these things speak very well for the future and our journey to "close the gap."  JMO

[valpofan56]

I agree with everything you just said, wh.  If Brandon Wood doesn't end up coming back, I don't see Valpo finishing any higher than 5th place in the HL next year.  Valpo really needs to keep going in the right direction because, like you said, we don't have anything to entice a recruit to come to Valpo (besides Homer?) if we aren't able to compete annually for the HL title.

[lowposter]

What do you mean by throwing away $60,000?

lowposter

[dcvalpo]

I think we paid $60,000 to host the CIT game.

[milanmiracle]

Yep, if Brandon Wood doesn't come back, this team is in trouble. You don't lose your two best players and improve (usually). I think they can be a nice team next year, but unless somebody really develops (Van Wijk) they're going to struggle with anybody who thinks about rebounding. That's not a good thing..

[blackpantheruwm]

I think we paid $60,000 to host the CIT game.

CBI is the one that takes money.

[vu72]

Yep, if Brandon Wood doesn't come back, this team is in trouble. You don't lose your two best players and improve (usually). I think they can be a nice team next year, but unless somebody really develops (Van Wijk) they're going to struggle with anybody who thinks about rebounding. That's not a good thing..

I think "trouble" is a pretty strong word for a team with 6 contributors coming back (without Brandon), while adding a ACC transfer and a D1 Junior College Section 8 All American.  Much still needs to be determined to use such a label.

   

Yep, if Brandon Wood doesn't come back, this team is in trouble. You don't lose your two best players and improve (usually). I think they can be a nice team next year, but unless somebody really develops (Van Wijk) they're going to struggle with anybody who thinks about rebounding. That's not a good thing..

[sectionee]

I think we paid $60,000 to host the CIT game.

CBI is the one that takes money.

This link, http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Sports/article.php?id=87634 says it would have cost this particular school a little over $30,000 to host a CIT game.  Perhaps our AD could fill us in.

[BigDWSU]

The CBI and CIT BOTH charge to host games.