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Brutal non-call at the end there.

But, we were thoroughly outplayed, and Loyola let us stay in it with their poor foul shooting.

Very disappointed in this team's body language and attitude around fouls (or lack thereof) this afternoon. That's a reflection on Lottich's lack of fire.

Oof, gonna be another ump show tonight.

I wonder if we can donate specifically to hire a better caliber of officials...

At least we're keeping the ball out of our own hoop. If this team can ever deliver consistently average shooting defense, we'll win a lot of close games that we'd otherwise lose because these shooting droughts won't put us in such deep holes.

Just finished watching the replay. Brutal 1st half defense, no surprise there.

But I have to say, I nearly turned it off several times not because of our play, but because the refs made the game an unbearable slog. Total ump show tonight. If I'd paid for a ticket, I'd ask for a refund.

(Not that it made a difference in the outcome, we lost that one fair and square.)

Is this just bad luck or is our training staff deficient and requires greater investment and attention?

Do we believe in luck or not? 

Brutal stretch to end the first/start the second, but otherwise a pretty good game. PG play was rough and we forgot to defend Green closely for several minutes there.

Can't be mad about losing to UNI on their floor. Tonight's effort results in a win against a lot of other teams in this conference, we just need to keep it up and not regress this weekend against Indiana State.

I will note that UNI shot 12-22 from 3... Kind of the opposite of the Drake game there. If UNI had shot 10%, we win it and it's not close. We'll see if that changes when they visit the ARC.

We've gotta get a point guard.

Gotta keep the ball out of Green's hands, he's on fire to start the half. 16-0 run the last what, 5min? Oof

The "pretend" part of your statement only makes your argument weaker since no one at all said that.

I said it; it's called an inference. What about the rest of the analysis? No rebuttal to the stats?
Valpo will play at least 15 more games this year. Plenty of time to see if our 3pt defense has improved with Drake as the inflection point. I hope you're right and it is, but I'm gonna need more than 1 data point to believe the defense has turned the corner. (I hope you're right.)

For those of you who are subscribers, there's a great piece in The Athletic about the incredible, maybe unprecedented turnaround that Scott Drew has led at Baylor. Remarkable how strong moral character and hard work can drive something like this, a good lesson for us all.

"STATS ARE FOR NERDS"
   - this board

If the Drake game is the start of an incredible 3pt defense renaissance, I will eat crow.

But if we give up, say, about 36% from 3 across the next 2 games, I'll be curious to see how y'all react 

Honestly I'm glad so many of you are so positive, it's healthy for pessimists like me - sometimes it even rubs off!

The sarcastic "lucky" posts I made were highlighting previous posts made by other posters. I suppose SIU was lucky in their win over Valpo and we can apply "luck" to any win or loss. Frankly, it is extremely weak analysis.

but Drake also shot like 2-21 from 3

Hmmm.  Central Michigan shot 1 for 17 from the 3.  Could it possibly be that we play lock-down defense against the 3?? 

Well, having watched Drake miss a lot of open looks, and knowing that on average this season our opponents shoot at a 34.6% rate from 3 (260th best 3pt defense in D1), and knowing Drake this season is shooting 34.7% on 3pt attempts and they average nearly 8 made 3pt shots per game, yes I'd say we were lucky that Drake made 10% (2 for 20) of their 3pt shots.

Or is that weak analysis? 

I'm glad we won and will take all the luck I can get, but let's not pretend we're suddenly a world-beating lock-down team around the perimeter.

You're right. We're lucky. But you need a little luck. Sometimes that's what a struggling team like ours needs to turn it around. I hope we look back at this game as a turning point for our season and the post-SIU row\consensus as a turning point for this board. I know it was for me personally!

Oh I'll take all the luck I can get, just wish we could be lucky AND improve our shooting defense. I'm not greedy, I get that we gamble to get steals and create possessions for ourselves, but a 4 or 5% improvement makes a big impact on our record, with the close losses we've had (Cincinnati, Arkansas, Loyola).

[85%]

I'll always take a W, but Drake lost this game, we didn't win it.

Drake made 85% of their 2-point attempts. If they weren't ice cold from 3, we lose by a dozen.

Robinson really struggling on offense too...it's really a testament to our defense (or their poor outside shooting) that Valpo is still in it.

Our DEFENSE? We're giving up over 50% from the floor YET AGAIN. Our defense is the problem.

Is anyone else getting bad screen judder/lots of dropped frames on the ESPN feed?

How do you feel now, better?

I did... Until midway through tonight's game 

Not to bring the mood down any further but... SIU shot 49%.

Our defense was just as bad as ever.

Warning:

Guys, it's spelled M I L E E K   M C M I L L A N

It's been 2.5 seasons and it's on the back of his danged jersey. (Granted when he's on the bench with 4 fouls you can't see the back of his jersey...)

Also, there's no A in K I S E R

/

[2Pt %]

2Pt % (60 players qualify)
1. DeAndre Willliams     77.3% Evansville
2. Lucas Williamson       68.3% Loyola
3. Marcus Domask         62.9% So. Illinois
4. Aher Ugauk               62.8% Loyola
5. Barret Benson           62.7% So. Illlinois
16. Mileek McMillan       55.9%
17. Donovan Clay          54.3%   
19. John Kiser               54.2%
26. Nick Robinson          51.0%
28. Javon Freeman        50.3%
30. Eron Gordon            50.0%
59. Daniel Sackey          35.9%

Pretty good shooting percentage for a guy who a lot of posters on this board want to avoid the ball on offense.

I know it's very early in the conference season but I've decided to die on the "John Kiser Is Underrated" hill this season 

Well, I was pleased that we played a good first half, but looks like we just deferred our 5-7min stretch of awful play to the second half instead.

I'm not sure if that's progress or not.

I sure wish we could see some fire out of Lottich right now, whether towards the refs or his own guys.

Like your analysis, "wh".  Without a doubt we need more offensive threats on the floor.  Any word out yet on when Ryan F will return?  Tonight would be a good time     !

I'm sure whatever his timetable is, he's progressing nicely.

Since Mileek fouls out like crazy

Mileek had fouled out four times in 19 games.

Fouling out of 21% of games seems like a lot to me, especially when you play 17mpg.

[12.61 John Kiser (51)]

There seems to be some divided opinion on John Kiser (note the lack of an 'a' in his name, for crying out loud). It seems some see him as an experienced floor general who works hard at the little things and plays very good defense for his size at the 5, and there are others who can't seem to get over the fact that he doesn't look athletic, is an engineering major and started as a walk-on. You can probably tell which camp I'm in.

I've grown tired enough of the Kiser-bashing that it's time for lies damned lies statistics. First number is PER, then player name, with overall rank in the Valley in parentheses. No one else on the team qualifies for ranking (minimum 6 mpg so far this season, including non-conference).

26.57   Javon Freeman   (4)
17.22   Nick Robinson   (24)
16.04   Ben Krikke     (27)
15.96   Mileek McMillan  (28)
13.19   Eron Gordon   (46)
12.61   John Kiser   (51)
11.93   Donovan Clay   (58)
  8.07   Daniel Sackey   (74)

Given that Kiser plays decent defense at a position he's undersized at, and it's generally agreed that hard work, leadership and Grit^TM are intangibles he possesses but are not measured in box scores (and thus in PER), I'd say he's a good 6th man and serviceable 5th. Since Mileek fouls out like crazy, he and Kiser are the de facto 5a and 5b on this team, although Robinson played 31 minutes last night off the bench, and Gordon would have played ~20 if not for the first half injury.

I'm now willing to admit that Kiser is a fringe starter and, if we had another option, that would be preferable. It's a long way from Javon down to Robinson/Krikke/McMillan. If Ryan Fazekas wasn't a glass cannon, he'd be a good alternative. But on the team we have - and frankly, on a lot of other bottom-half teams in this league - Kiser has to play a lot of minutes, and deserves less than half of the abuse he gets on this board.

I'm not gonna defend Sackey though, he's lost his game and I hope he finds it soon. In the meantime, I agree that we have to give Lorange a shot.

The second half runs were not scripted or designed.  It was more light street ball and kind of frantic.  Similar to when we made fun of Detroit and lack of x and o's.

I can more or less live with the fast and loose offense because it frequently works with our talent level (though tonight we had 0.94 points per possession, not good).

What I can't live with is giving up 55% shooting in the first half, night in and night out. It's like instead of watching film ahead of time, we're using the first half to scout and the second half to actually play defense.