Got a new commit. 6’7” senior. From his X account, he had an offer from AZ State among a bunch of other mid majors. RPJ is definitely recruiting Illinois.
Hard for me to get excited for a big signing like this anymore. Without an offensive that shares the ball and shows the ability to execute some set plays for a good look every once in a while, it’s hard to see how having good players will matter.
I do think this team is more talented and overall “better” than last years team. However, even with bad talent I think a good coaching staff should be able to get them to play cohesively on offense. I still have not seen any sign of that ability.
Powell seems to want to run run run. Typically that offensive philosophy doesn't mesh well at the same time as solid set offense. Usually the hyper fast offense requires, to a degree, out athleting other teams which is going to be hard for Valpo. It's remarkable how guys who seem to be able to shoot can't once they put on a Valpo uni. My guess is that practice is spent "doing what we do" with less time spent on "doing what other teams will have us do". Likely this gets the shooters off their spots and leads to difficulties.
Hard for me to get excited for a big signing like this anymore.
Agreed, for another reason. With the new annual flood of transfer turnovers and NIL poaching, any freshman signing seems less significant. There is no way of knowing how he will fit with the squad since we have no confidence in players remaining following the end of the season; so, we have no idea what the composition of the team will be when he arrives. We used to be able to project a player's contribution and speculate on impact. That is no longer possible. This is one of the negative symptoms of the current system in the NCAA that has diminished once existing fan enthusiasm and anticipation for the next year, particularly at mid-major universities.
Usually the hyper fast offense requires, to a degree, out-athleting other teams which is going to be hard for Valpo.
Case in point: we out-athleted NAIA Concordia and things easily fell into place. The bookends to that game were the reverse, i.e., we could only come close to our opponent’s athleticism and in the face of that we could not match their discipline and as a result we slipped further and further behind. Losses.
So….. Is this logical ???: freewheeling on O extends to less than full discipline on D because of the urge to always want to be on O. Easy baskets are given up. Defense sometimes gets too casual.
Conversely, tight discipline on O extends to tight discipline on D (and vice versa). However, when freewheeling is the chosen system, it is pure athleticism that is required to mitigate the lack of across-the- board team discipline.
And Valpo is not at the point where they can win just on overwhelming talent in DI - but it seems we are trying to do just that minus the raw talent.
The thing is, I don't think the freewheel offense is entirely Ineffective. The offense is generating the open looks we want, the shooting just cannot convert those open looks into buckets. If/when the shooting improves, this offensive scheme can prove to be quite effective. I do think the scheme needs to be tweaked until that time however.
