Starting this one early as I’ll be at the game tomorrow. I live an hour south of Nashville, heading up mid afternoon! If anyone is around and wants to meet up for a drink etc let me know! I went to the curb events center last year, and despite us getting wrecked it was a great time! Belmont is on a 3 game winning streak beating UIC, SIU, and the Sycamores. Almost certainly gonna be high scoring, if we make 3s and play a little D we’ll give ourselves a chance !
Valpo 79
Belmont 77
Concur it should be a wide open high scoring game, unless our cold shooting is contagious.
Belmont D is rancid, must contain their point guard Whitt. He's outstanding. Our matchup with Pierre will difficult as well, very talented scorer. I think Coop has a huge game. This game is for our taking and I do think we have a completely different team show up Tuesday.
Really. This team needs to get to the line again. That's the bread and butter. Force some fouls and take your free points.
Valpo bounces back with a true quality road win:
Valpo 81
Belmont 76
Feels like a potentially very pivotal game. I can't expect to go into Belmont and leave with a win, but it's not impossible. Win this and the path to an at or above .500 season becomes much easier. I'll be optimistic...
Valpo 84
Belmont 79
Didn’t think the officials in Murray were bad, we just weren’t attacking. We are getting the short end of the stick today. They aren’t calling anything on Belmont and 2 of the fouls they’ve called on us have been phantom.
First half synopsis from the 3rd row behind the bench and behind All Wrights parents ! Not good , RJP asked his bench if he should get a tech…the calls were bad. Of questionable calls we had 4, Belmont 1. Bruins shooting well at home , lucky to have cut into the 15 point lead. 10 is surmountable. If we engage 100% we can win but coop and a couple others aren’t intentional…
Value the $%^*#@# Basketball.! Turnovers = empty possessions/no shots. Feed Cooper!
From bad officiating to bad basketball on both ends. Valpo could not capitalize on empty sets from Belmont. The refs swallowed whistles on one end and coughed em back up on the other end. Just a bad night all around.
Self Inflicted wounds!. McNair undid all that good will with the T. 17 turnovers and bad shot selections are as good as a turnover. Cooper doesn't work hard enough to get to his spot/get paint touches or the staff needs to be more creative in ways to get him the ball.
Belmont took 30 free throw attempts. Valpo only took 9. Teams are going to continue to buy into the Murray method. Just let Valpo shoot and dont foul. They aren't going to make it from an analytical standpoint
This was another night where I only caught the last few minutes. I'll comment tomorrow after I see everything but it certainly appeared that we had our chance.
Valiant comeback effort, but you've got to score more than 3 points in the last five minutes of game time. When you consider that Wright and Schmidt were combined 6-26 FG and 1-10 3P, it's surprising how close we were. But we really needed one of them to find their shot down the stretch and it just never happened.
I don't know about you all but I'm not actually all that mad about the McNair T. I'm sure Coach will have a few words with him about it, but in a way it's nice to see someone in a gold uniform show some intensity for once. Feels like it's been ages.
For the second game in a row, Valpo badly loses the FT contest: 16 point gap against Murray State, Valpo 2-3, MSU 18-24; 14 point gap against Belmont, Valpo 7-9, Belmont 21-30. Both times free throws provided the game difference, even though that is supposed to be a main strength for VU.
Also, some low-IQ basketball: the technical on Sepp, the technical on McNair, the 3-point foul by Shaw, fouling with only seconds on the shot clock, and the 17 turnovers. Sad because this was a very winnable road game, and the team seems to have taken a step backward from the progress they were making.
Valiant comeback effort, but you've got to score more than 3 points in the last five minutes of game time. When you consider that Wright and Schmidt were combined 6-26 FG and 1-10 3P, it's surprising how close we were. But we really needed one of them to find their shot down the stretch and it just never happened.
I don't know about you all but I'm not actually all that mad about the McNair T. I'm sure Coach will have a few words with him about it, but in a way it's nice to see someone in a gold uniform show some intensity for once. Feels like it's been ages.
it was objectively a bad tech in that spot but I was not mad. The guy gave him a shove at half court and he recovered and swatted him clean.
