Road Warriors?!?! (Let's hope so!)

The weekend excursion to Chicago should be a good one for the Crusaders provided they do not pull a famous flop at an unexpected time. They have momentum after a huge weekend beating Youngstown St. and Cleveland St. at home last weekend. Valpo takes on Loyola Thursday night and Illinois-Chicago on Saturday.

Valparaiso 12-7 (5-2) vs. Loyola 5-12 (0-7) Thursday 7 cst
Loyola is having the season many expected and have yet to beat a Horizon League foe. They have lost 5 out of 7 conference games by 10 or more points, but did manage to take Youngstown St. to overtime (@YSU). Forwards Ben Averkamp and Walt Gibler provide the only real offense for the Ramblers at just under 15 ppg each. Loyola holds opponents to 60 pts a game, but that is more a cause of the slower pace the team prefers because they only score an average of 56 points a game. They are however, 3rd in the league at free throw shooting at 72% so we will need to keep them off the charity stripe.

The Crusaders are going to look to get out and run and get Loyola behind early to put the game away. If they can get up early this would be a good game to get some lesser players into the game to see what we have sitting at the end of the bench. However, the Crusaders should not overlook the Ramblers as they have nothing to lose and will be looking for that first victory. Kevin Van Wijk and Ryan Broekhoff should not have much of a problem getting theirs and should really be able to dominate this game. To avoid the upset the team needs to settle in and look for good shots and not settle for 3's time after time. If Valpo wants to contend for a league title they cannot lose games they are supposed to win and I don't believe they will lose, but this does seem to be a bit of a trap game.

Valparaiso vs. UIC 6-11 (2-5) Saturday 3 cst
Valparaiso caps the weekend roadtrip by playing at UIC. Their two league wins include one over crosstown rival Loyola and enigmatic Detroit. They also took UWM and WSU to overtime so this is a team that could just as easily be 4-3 in the conference and they present the biggest challenge for the Crusaders on the weekend. The Flames are led by the trio of Daniel Barnes, Gary Talton, and Darrin Williams. This is a team that is light on defense and very streaky offensively. They have the ability to battle UWM one night and get blown out by YSU the next. This is a dangerous team that goes for the homerun and if they are on it's out of the park, if they are not then it's ugly. They will also take advantage of freebies and get after rebounds for second chance points.

The key for the Crusaders is going to be to get on Daniel Barnes early and pressure him into turnovers and feed Kevin Van Wijk to get Darrin Williams on the bench with early foul trouble. He is also their tallest player at 6-9 so we must use that height advantage on the boards and in the lane. This is another game that Valpo cannot afford to lose if they are going to compete for a conference title.

If Valpo can get these two road wins that will set them up nicely for a Wisconsin road trip next weekend that will go a long way to deciding who will win the Horizon League. If they lose they will hand Milwaukee a stranglehold on the No. 1 seed for the conference tournament and the right to host that tournament for a second straight year. Even though the Conference schedule is only about half over these next four road games will determine the rest of the season.