My heartfilled prayers go out to Homer Drew his wife and their family. Cancer is such an evil disease and can strike at anytime to anyone. Maybe not in my lifetime but hopefully they will find a cure for Cancer. Support the Jimmy V foundation.
The loss to IPFW was the first one about which Valparaiso could feel bad. The only two losses before then were to a couple of big dogs, one of whom then proceeded to dismantle Duke almost as easily as it had Valpo. Valpo now needs to get back on track with a win over Bowling Green and then over Oakland. This is a good team; it just needs to shake off an upset and take care of business.
This year should be assembling the troops for a big run next year. About half the team, including all the starters, are juniors. Next year, they'll all be seniors, and this team will be ready to go to the NCAA and win some games there. The two forwards are as good as the forwards on the big powers. The shortcomings? Buggs, though he's a great competitor, a good ball-handler, and lightning-fast, can't shoot. Kenney gets nervous against top competition. Vucic isn't aggressive enough. If Jay Harris, who's about as fast as Buggs and can shoot, can take over on the point, Kenney can relax and just play his game when the opponent is a name team, and Vucic can start attacking the boards and the hoop more aggressively, this team could go deep into the tournament. I do think they should be going to a standard 2 guards, 2 forwards and a center, and do less of the 3- and 4-guard stuff that lets big schools dominate them. But that will require Vucic to step up.
Seriously? This isn't professional sports where you put a team together within a budget "make a run" and then disassemble it. This is college. EVERY year should be about winning. You put a PROGRAM together that wins year in and year out. Success breeds success. You win and attract new incoming talent, which sustains winning and continues attracting new talent. Homer understood this. You don't sell recruits on the fact that you're ramping up for a possible run that might happen by the time they're seniors. It's the Horizon league.....every year has to be about winning the conference.
If you're in the Big Ten, you try to put together the best team year to year. Likewise if you have a doormat program, you're trying year to year to keep from being awful. But when you have a program like Valpo's, you do some building; try to develop your freshmen and sophomores to get yourself a team that can compete at the national level every few years. Next year could be one of those years. This year, it would be nice if they could get to a post-season tournament. The goal for next year should be to go deep into the post-season, knocking off some name teams. They've had a couple of those teams.
Valpo went into a bit of a skid a few weeks ago, but they seem to have righted themselves now; the wins over Cleveland State and Youngstown State looked good.
We will be visiting Loyola Marymount for our Bracketbuster game this year. Friday, February 17th, 8:00 CT on ESPNU...not quite Dickie V at the ARC, but it should be a good game.
Good win last night against Detroit. After a shaky start, they buckled down and played well against a team that's always a little better than its reputation.
Big, big win over Cleveland State tonight. That puts Valparaiso into the conference lead, and their total record is 18-8. If they run the table, they would be 23-8 going into the conference tournament.
Well, it guarantees post-season even if they don't go 23-8. This being a road win matters to this program. I think VU needs a bit more depth if they intend to make a run into post-season.
Their problem for the post-season is that they're not a complete team. They have decent depth; behind the two outstanding forwards, Broekhoff and Van Wijk, is a very solid reserve, Edwards. Broekhoff and Van Wijk are a pair of forwards that could play in the Big Ten or ACC and hold their own (if Van Wijk were being matched up against the Big Ten's power forwards instead of against their centers, he would probably just about own the boards).
The most serious issue is that they don't have a center who's ready for the big time. Hrvoje Vucic has the size, and does some things well, but he doesn't go to the hoop as aggressively as a first-rate center has to be able to do, and he's not getting nearly as many rebounds as someone with his size ought to be getting. Again, a lack of aggressiveness seems to be at the heart of it.
Their starting point guard, Erik Buggs, can't shoot from outside and is a poor free-throw shooter. He's very quick, gets more rebounds than one would expect from someone as small as he is, and is a pretty good passer. The problem is that opposing defenses really don't have to pay too much attention to him other than to get someone into the lane if he starts to drive to the hoop (he will punish a team that doesn't watch for that). His backup, Jay Harris, will eventually be a better point guard than he, because he's just as quick and a much better shooter. The shooting guards, Will Bogan and Matt Kenney, aren't as quick as one would hope.
It is refreshing to see posters that don't praise everything about the program they root for. Blind homerism is everywhere, and is rather boring. Their idea of talking about their team.............PG = awesome, SG = best in the country, SF = can't be stopped, PF = would dominate Elvin Hayes, C = would block Kareem's junk. I have seen a few of Valpo's games this year, and I have been surprised at how well they have played this year. They have a pretty solid team. Good luck the rest of the year!
Parity is a good thing for fan interest.
It doesn't do much for post-season ... but if that's all it is about, why not just skip the regular season?
I still think Butler will sneak back into the picture.
Cleveland State is the best team in the Horizon they lost the last 2 games without their best defender in D-Brown. Thing is Valpo has a very easy finishing schedule home for all 3 remaining games and 2 of them vs the worst 2 teams so they will end up with #1 seed. CSU has to play 2 tough road games and 2 decent teams at home. Valpo will get home court for the tournament which will be tough to overcome.
I did see Cleveland play at Valpo, thought they could have played better than they did. I have tickets for the VU-Butler game, thinking a month ago the game wouldn't matter much. Looks like it might now.
Having seen the VU-Loyola game, I definitely take exception the "easiest schedule" part of any conversation. When teams come to play, they are very tough to beat. Loyola just needs a little more talent.
