I do love Nick Saban's idea. Make the NIL money only come from the University. That would be the most fair, but of course that would be a hard sell from university presidents and board of trustees.
So we have a new guy who apparently wasn't likely to get much in the way of minutes in a program coached by his uncle and assisted by his father and who's main attraction, since it is mentioned so often, is to his grandfather.
A second guy is a twin brother to a real find last year but who had to walk on in a program at a lower level, hasn't seen a court in a year and may or may not play at all. He's tall.
Lets hope the final scholarship is used to fill an actual weakness on the team in terms of size, want to and toughness. You know...the areas the team was essentially inept at last year.
That and that Devon Ellis can play.
If this doesn't all add up to a "boom" I don't know what does.
I understand the frustration, I shared in that when the Shaw announcement happened. Since then, it has come out that the staff and better talent evaluators than I am believe he can be a star and the he was the "best player on the floor" when he scrimmaged the team on his visit. So far, I have heard high praise for Cooper, Scroggins, McNair, and Shaw. The staff is 1/1 with Cooper. Maybe they go 1/4 and we suck. But they took a guy with 0 offers averaging 11/game in prep school halfway through the summer and turned him into MVC Freshman of the Year. If they believe they can get high quality production out of a 6'8 athlete that can (supposedly) shoot, I will believe them for now. If they believe they can get good production out of a near carbon copy of Cooper, I will believe them. Carson wasn't any less heralded than Cooper, built almost the same exact way, and had almost the same exact numbers (actually better) at prep school and shot 43% from deep there. I see no reason they can't turn him into at least a contributor.
McNair is a 3 star recruit who is supposed to be able to score at all 3 levels. Scroggins is described as a defensive beast (exactly what we were missing in the paint) who is physically much older than the typical freshman. His prep coach described him as an NBA talent when he reaches his potential. Maybe the answers were already there. Not to mention we will add at least 1 more player.
In the staff's mind we added:
3 shooters in McNair, Shaw, and Carson
A paint defender in Scroggins
All with 3+ years remaining. And we still have at least one scholarship to give out. Say they are unproven, sure, but so was Cooper. If the staff truly believes in who they brought in, I will too until they show a pattern of underperforming on developing players.
My issue(s) are actually less related to the ability of the players brought in than the prior hype and then reaction to the players brought in.
I won't repeat myself regarding what Powell was saying prior to the end of the season particularly after games the team was getting tattooed in but he came across to me as a one man PR staff for himself.
We then see the boom posts which obviously have insider meaning to Valpo when they players being brought in aren't necessarily walking in the door with great resume's and don't appear to solve Valpo's biggest issue last year.
The reaction then turns to essentially "in Powell we trust" when he himself appears to have gone a bit against his own words...with one pending scholarship available for a tough guy which this roster sorely needs.
Maybe that's what some fans do. I don't know.
Personally, Powell brought in the type of talent that I expected. The man is of great integrity. His plan has been for Scroggin to be the starting 5 next year. It is how he got Scroggin to red-shirt. Scroggins has been described as an NBA talent. He was a beast in practice and they had consistently ask him to go at half speed because he was so disruptive on defense. He always was going to get starter minutes at the 5 next year. How do you expect that Powell would bring in a stud 5 as a back up to Scroggins. I don’t see that happening. Why is Manyang not here-he knew he would be a back up to Scroggins. Ola is not here, because a month ago, the plan was for Cooper’s brother to come in to back up Cooper. Given the numbers at Lincoln Prep, Carson has the potential to be interchangeable with Cooper. Shaw is coming in to push/replace Edwards/Weatherspoon, Ellis is coming in to push Stafford. The impression I had from last year is that Powell had a desire to play fast. To play fast you have to have depth, we simply didn’t have that last year, so we wore ourselves down at the end of games, instead of our opponent. The additions that we made should allow us to play the way Powell had envisioned. I’m excited for the potential. I never wanted or expected a one and done coming in.
I highly recommend going to victorybellclub.org and making a donation to the Valpo NIL. It's a great help to aid the program, and has been beneficial in helping us during the last 6 weeks, but we need more. If you have any questions, please post and I'll answer.
@chef I concur. These donations are crucial in regards to recruiting/transfer portal.
I've said it before, but VU not having an NIL store is really backwards. A lot of programs are not allowing fans to buy merch that directly supports the athletes.
" 
tjjValpo" you make some very good points...I concur with your observations.
With one known available scholarship remaining we may now have enough size to make another 3 point shooting guard more important than most middle of the pack portal centers. I'm still viewing us as a project team most focused on 25-26 and beyond. If my timeline thinking is accurate then what results are you folks expecting in 24-25? For now I'll continue believing that getting back to near or just above .500 would be a huge step.
Way too early to think about minute distribution but in all the recent excitement of a nearly complete roster I'm already straying off in that direction. :d
With one known available scholarship remaining we may now have enough size to make another 3 point shooting guard more important than most middle of the pack portal centers. I'm still viewing us as a project team most focused on 25-26 and beyond. If my timeline thinking is accurate then what results are you folks expecting in 24-25? For now I'll continue believing that getting back to near or just above .500 would be a huge step.
Way too early to think about minute distribution but in all the recent excitement of a nearly complete roster I'm already straying off in that direction. :d
I am not sure we "have enough size." How different is the size? Palm at 6'10" and Objoye at 6'7" are replaced by Scroggins at 6'9" and Ca. Schwieger at 6'8"; additionally, we have lost the possibility of Manyang at 6'10". Perhaps he was replaced by a 6'7" Shaw. At best, we are the same and by some measure we are not as big.
Anyway, size wasn't the problem. The difficulty was rebounding due to lack of aggression and toughness. Maybe we won't be as "soft," but we have no evidence yet since neither Scroggins nor Ca. Schwieger has played a single minute of college ball, and Shaw averaged less than 1 rebound per game. When Coach Powell repeatedly declared he was getting studs in the portal, I assumed he meant players who had already proven themselves.
Additionally, I do not believe we can confidently talk about "a project team" for "25-26 and beyond" in today's portal environment where almost every team in the MVC has been dismantled by transfers.
With one known available scholarship remaining we may now have enough size to make another 3 point shooting guard more important than most middle of the pack portal centers. I'm still viewing us as a project team most focused on 25-26 and beyond. If my timeline thinking is accurate then what results are you folks expecting in 24-25? For now I'll continue believing that getting back to near or just above .500 would be a huge step.
Way too early to think about minute distribution but in all the recent excitement of a nearly complete roster I'm already straying off in that direction. :d
I believe that, with the newly improved depth of talent, that the 24-25 team will smooth out the peaks and valleys during games (i.e., little drop-off going to the bench, faster game-long pace, more rest for the starters) and win the games we should win that we didn’t last season.
I figure there were 7 games we should have won last season:
IUPUI - lost by 10 (that never should have happened!)
Chicago - lost by 1
CMU - lost by 4
Elon - lost by 4
Evansville - lost by 3
Evansville - lost by 1
UIC - lost by 6
That’s seven games with a average of a 4.1 point losing margin. I’m thinking our new guys between them can help make up the 4.1 point deficit. So, if we win those seven (yeah, I know, the OOC schedule could be entirely different next season) and add them to the seven we won in 23-24 that would get us to 14 wins. Throw in one more for good measure and a target of 15 wins, in my book, should be the hard stop baseline to realistically expect. That’s slightly above a doubling of total wins in year two
Now then, there’s the MVC schedule. Sheesh! With all the coaching changes, player movement and turmoil, who can, at this point, predict Ws and Ls? We won 3 games last season Just taking the three games mentioned above would double our wins. So there’s that. Again, I’m talking hard stop baseline expectation.
@vulb62 I think we need to finish in the upper half of the Valley for sure. If we don't, then at least we know that Roger can't recruit as well as other coaches. So far, we have lost three players to the portal, UIC, Drake, Indiana State, Belmont, Northern Iowa, let's just say everybody else, lost more players!
@vu72 That to me is more an aspiration than an expectation. After past experiences, I’m trying not to let emotion into my thoughts and just going with some raw data to project a baseline. Sure, I’d like to see a minimum of .500 in MVC play (which may not even guarantee the top half), but until the dust settles……..
With one known available scholarship remaining we may now have enough size to make another 3 point shooting guard more important than most middle of the pack portal centers. I'm still viewing us as a project team most focused on 25-26 and beyond. If my timeline thinking is accurate then what results are you folks expecting in 24-25? For now I'll continue believing that getting back to near or just above .500 would be a huge step.
Way too early to think about minute distribution but in all the recent excitement of a nearly complete roster I'm already straying off in that direction. :d
I am not sure we "have enough size." How different is the size? Palm at 6'10" and Objoye at 6'7" are replaced by Scroggins at 6'9" and Ca. Schwieger at 6'8"; additionally, we have lost the possibility of Manyang at 6'10". Perhaps he was replaced by a 6'7" Shaw. At best, we are the same and by some measure we are not as big.
Anyway, size wasn't the problem. The difficulty was rebounding due to lack of aggression and toughness. Maybe we won't be as "soft," but we have no evidence yet since neither Scroggins nor Ca. Schwieger has played a single minute of college ball, and Shaw averaged less than 1 rebound per game. When Coach Powell repeatedly declared he was getting studs in the portal, I assumed he meant players who had already proven themselves.
Additionally, I do not believe we can confidently talk about "a project team" for "25-26 and beyond" in today's portal environment where almost every team in the MVC has been dismantled by transfers.
Eureka! No Rosy Glasses here.
This is it.
