PPS Preview: Oakland

Our PPS hit it right on the head with the Valpo/Missouri State game.  Scores held true and Valpo held on for a nice road win.  Lets take a look at PPS for tomorrow nights game at Oakland.

		PPS-O	PPS-D	PPS
Valparaiso	Valpo	0.7654	0.3195	0.4459
Opponents	Valpo	0.6874	0.3541	0.3333

		PPS-O	PPS-D	PPS
Oakland	OAK	0.8207	0.3620	0.4588
Opponents	OAK	0.8899	0.3481	0.5417

These teams have played the exact same amount of minutes to date.  Looking at the PPS for tomorrow's game, I'd again give the edge to Valpo even though this is a road game.  The home court advantage should be minimal as the student body is gone for Christmas break.  Valpo and Oakland are averaging nearly the same PPS, however Oakland's opponents are scoring at a much higher rate then Valpo's.  Oakland has been out rebounded and out shot (% wise) by their opponents on the year.  Valpo has done a great job winning the rebounding battle night in and night out.  I'll say Valpo controls the rebounding and uses their size to win this game by 5-8 points.

Valpo is finally playing at full strength with the addition of Lavontae Dority (LVD).  LVD went off in his first game as a Crusader, leading the team in scoring and PPS Saturday night against Missouri State.  Here are the PPS for the team through the first 10 games of the season. Remember a .7 and above is an all conference player and a .85 and up is an NBA level talent.

Player	School	PPS-O	PPS-D	PPS
Lavontae Dority	Valpo	1.6250	0.4583	1.1667
Ryan Broekhoff	Valpo	1.1956	0.2902	0.9054
Kevin Van Wijk	Valpo	1.2735	0.4017	0.8718
Bobby Capobianco	Valpo	0.9583	0.5104	0.4479
Matt Kenney	Valpo	0.6864	0.3591	0.3273
Ben Boggs	Valpo	0.5401	0.2954	0.2447
Jordan Coleman	Valpo	0.6750	0.2800	0.3950
Erik Buggs	Valpo	0.5704	0.3230	0.2474
Will Bogan	Valpo	0.3487	0.2337	0.1149
Alex Rossi	Valpo	0.7097	0.2581	0.4516
Vashil Fernandez	Valpo	0.4298	0.2895	0.1404

Game Wrap Up: I really hate to do this...

The Game
This was a wild one at the ARC tonight.  It was a fast paced with plenty of second half drama.  The Crusaders built a big second half lead early, only to get complacent and watch Oakland chip away.  The teams would change leads several times down the stretch.  With the game tied at 80, Valpo had a chance at a final shot but saw Matt Kenney get himself in trouble in the lane and turn the ball over.  Oakland took full advantage of the 4 seconds left.  They got the ball into Reggie Hamilton who went the distance and hit a running bank shot at the horn. 

This is where I'm going to do something I don't like doing, go on a crazy fan rant.  Let me start off by saying I'm huge fans and believe highly in all of these guys.  First up, Erik Buggs.  Buggs has not shown an ability to play without fouling.  He needs to play smarter on defense, move his feet and stay in front of his man.  Tonight he had a couple calls go against him that I felt could have gone either way.  But he also fouled one of the Grizzly big men on a play.  He needs to realize we need his speed on the court and he needs to save his fouls for guarding Hamilton. 

Coach Drew is up next.  How many times does Hamilton have to score before we run a double team at him?  Once Buggs was out we had noone who could stay in front of him.  The zone defense was not the answer.  I feel like Valpo should've been running double teams at Hamilton as soon as he got within 6 feet of the three point arc.  The last play of the game was unbelievable.  Everyone in the gym knew who was going to get the ball, and he got it without any problems.  Why he wasn't doubled or even tripled team is mind boggling.  I don't know if this was poor execution by the players or just bad coaching?  This was an ugly loss that could've been avoided in the mind of this fan.  I'm also not sure why we didn't see more of Richie Edwards.  Now, I'm the first person to blast Richie for his shot selection, which was questionable early on.  I thought Richie played well when he was in there.  He had a couple nice scores inside and even hit a three pointer (blind squirrle finds a nut once in a while). I thought Boggs played ok in his first game as a Crusader.  It looks like he will be expected to be a big contributor considering he played 25 minutes tonight.

To top things off I had got into a verbal altercation with a crotechty old man who got upset that my son was running around above the last row of bleachers.  Guy, there were 10 empty rows below you if his running was really that noisy.  I guess there is a reason he was sitting by himself.  A look at tonight's PPS really isn't surprising.  I predicted Hamilton, Broekhoff, and VanWijk would fill their stat lines, and they did.  Unfortunately, Hamilton posted the highest PPS I've seen to date.

Valpo PPS                                        Oakland PPS
Broekhoff  1.0                                           Williams          -0.2
VanWijk     1.25926                                   Valentine         0.675
Buggs       -0.26667                                   Petros             -0.13043
Bogan        0.4                                           Bader               0.13889
Kenney      0.52778                                   Hamilton          1.47368
Boggs        0.2                                           Lucas-Perry     0.35484


Player of the Game
Reggie Hamilton: 41 points, 5-10 3 pointers, buzzer beater 

POTG Runner Up
Ryan Broekhoff: 18 points and 12 rebounds.  Really wish he would've had the ball in his hands at the end.


Up Next
Valpo will go back on the road and try to regain their winning ways for a game at Northern Illinois on December 20.