On Tuesday, 17-November-2015 at 10:00am Eastern Time in the Ryan Center, the University of Rhode Island men's basketball team will host Valparaiso University.
The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2, as part of the ESPN 24-hour Tip-Off Marathon. For fans of each of the two teams, this is a "don't miss it" game, an opportunity early in the season to see just how good their own team is.
Valparaiso University, commonly known as Valpo, is a regionally accredited private university located in Valparaiso, Indiana. The university is a coed, four-year, private institution that enrolls about 4,500 students from over 50 countries on a campus of 350 acres
Valpo's colors are brown and gold; the school's mascot is the Crusader. Valparaiso's nearly 600 student athletes participate in NCAA Division I sports as members of the Horizon League.
Valpo basketball is perhaps best known for its former men's basketball head coach Homer Drew and his student athlete son Bryce Drew, who led the team to its Sweet Sixteen appearance in the 1998 NCAA basketball tournament by making "The Shot", a three-pointer as time expired, to beat favored Ole Miss by one point.
The current head coach is Bryce Drew, the former student athlete who hit "The Shot" to become the most heralded player in Crusader men’s basketball history, and who went on to play six seasons in the NBA, as a backup point guard for the Houston Rockets, Chicago Bulls and Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets. In the spring of 2011, Bryce Drew, after having spent six seasons at Valpo as an assistant, was named head coach at Valparaiso University, taking over the reins long held by his father Homer Drew.
Now entering his fifth season at the helm of the Valpo program and having twice received the Horizon League Coach of the Year award, Bryce Drew will find himself facing on Tuesday an old nemesis, the University of Rhode Island, the team to which Valpo lost in its 1998 Sweet Sixteen appearance seventeen years ago.
Last season, Valpo went 28-6 overall, finishing first in the Horizon League with a 13-3 conference record, and winning the league tournament. The 2014-15 season for Valpo came to an abrupt end in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64, with Valpo's heartbreaking 65-62 loss to Maryland in a game that went down to the last second.
Looking at this year's lineup, Valpo has lost just one player from last season’s Horizon League champions. To say it differently, the Crusader team that won 28 games last season returns nearly 99% of its scoring and rebounding for the 2015-16 campaign.
Returning basically all the players from the squad that racked up a program-best 28 victories last season, the Crusaders understandably have once again been selected overwhelmingly as the Horizon League preseason favorites. Nationally, Valpo has been gaining plenty of recognition as well, including earning five points in the Associated Press preseason top-25 poll. Both Ken Pomeroy and CBS Sports had Valpo among the top-45 teams in the nation entering the season, and Valop was tabbed as the #1 team in CBS Sports’ Cinderella Watch and also earned the top spot on NBC Sports’ list of top mid-majors.
Valparaiso officially opened its 2015-16 season on Friday night with a home court victory, 78-64, over Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW) of the Summit League. However, the Crusaders have still another game before they enter the Ryan Center on Tuesday morning to face Rhody: the Crusaders will be playing MAAC favorite Iona on Sunday afternoon (I will update this on-line preview once the Valpo-Iona game has completed).
Taking a wider look, Valpo has a number of games scheduled for the second half of the month of November. To open the 2015-16 season, Valpo will play five games in the first seven days and seven in the first 12 days:
Code: Select all
Tue 11/03 (D-2) Indianapolis W 75-67 (exhibition game)
Fri 11/13 IPFW
Sun 11/15 Iona 2:30pmEastern - 1:30pmCentral
Tue 11/17 at Rhode Island ESPN2 10:00amEastern - 9:00amCentral
Wed 11/18 (NAIA) IU Kokomo
Thu 11/19 (NAIA) Trinity Christian
Sun 11/22 at Oregon
Tue 11/24 at Oregon State
Sat 11/28 at Ball State
The Valpo roster (with the probable starters shown in bold) is as follows:
- Lexus Williams (6-0 160) Redshirt sophomore guard from Chicago. A Horizon League All-Newcomer Team choice in 2013-14, Willliams sat out last season with a torn ACL. It is unclear as to whether Williams has recovered fully from the knee injury.
- Keith Carter (6-1 180) Senior guard from Maywood, Illinois. Transferred to Valpo from Saint Louis just before the start of the spring semester in his freshman year. Now the starting point guard for Valpo. Last season as a junior he appeared in 24 games (starting on 17 occasions), and averaged 8.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and a team-high 3.7 assists per game; he also had 30 steals last year, second best on the team. This year, in the opening game against UIFW, he started, played 30 minutes, and had 10 points.
- Max Joseph (6-1 210) Sophomore guard from Montreal; attended CEGEP at Vanier College. Last year as a freshman, he appeared in 28 games in his first season as a Crusader. More of a defender than an offensive threat, he played 11 minutes in the game Friday night, totaling 2 defensive rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, and zero points..
- Tevonn Walker (6-2 200) Sophomore guard from Montreal; attended CEGEP at Vanier College. Last year, in his first season as a Crusader he was named to the Horizon League All-Freshman Team, having appeared in all 34 games in his freshman season at Valpo, making 33 starts, and averaging 10.3 points and 3.4 rebounds per game; he was ranked third on the team in scoring and led the Crusaders with 37 steals.
- Darien Walker (6-3 220) Senior guard from Chicago. In his freshman year, played for Arizona Western College, a community college in Yuma, Arizona; in his sophomore year, he played for John A. Logan College, a community college in Carterville, Illinois. Last season, in his junior year, his first with Valpo, he appeared in all 34 games, starting on 29 occasion, ending the 2014-15 season ranked second on the team in scoring (10.7 ppg) and third in rebounding (4.6 rpg).
- Nick Davidson (6-4 195) Junior guard from Munster, Indiana. Little used; not part of the rotation. Practice player whose primary role seems to be encouraging his teammates. Does get occasional minutes, but rarely. Majoring in Nursing.
- Shane Hammink (6-7 210) Redshirt junior guard from the Netherlands. Hammink is an LSU transfer who is eligible to play this season after sitting out last year. Hammink has played for the Netherlands senior national team and scored in double figures in all five of Valpo’s games in Canada this summer, During the exhibition game against Indianapolis back at the beginning of November, he landed awkwardly on the foot of an Indianapolis player; Hammink was seen limping on his way out of the arena, but he appears to have recovered well: he had 10 points in 16 minutes against UIFW on Friday night.
- Chandler Levingston-Simon (6-7 230) Redshirt sophomore forward from Vernon Hills, Illinois. Walk-on who transferred to Valpo from UMKC, where he was also a walk-on. Sat out 2014-15 season due to NCAA transfer regulations. Has seen no action so far this season. Majoring in mechanical engineering. Son of Cliff Levingston, who played 11 seasons in the NBA and who won a pair of NBA championships in the early 1990's with the Chicago Bulls.
- Jubril Adekoya (6-7 230) Junior forward from Tinley Park, Illinois. A member of the rotation in both his freshman and sophomore year. Last season as a sophomore, he averaged 4.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game, and received the Horizon League's "Sixth Man of the Year" award.
- E. Victor Nickerson (6-8 185) Redshirt senior swingman from Atlanta, Georgia. Nickerson started his college basketball career as a post-player at Charlotte, but then transferred to Valpo, sat out the 2013-14 season, and became a perimeter-oriented player for the Crusaders. The guy is 6-8 and Coach Bryce Drew really does play him as a guard. Last season, when point guard Keith Carter went down with an injury at the start of Horizon League play, Nickerson started at point for 17 games. During the off-season, Nickerson had surgery on his left wrist in June, and did not play in the games in Canada due to issues with his right wrist. Nicherson did not play in the exhibition game, and did not play in the opener against UIFW. Coach Bryce Drew said after the exhibition game that there was not yet a timetable for Nickerson to return to the Valpo lineup; it is unlikely that Nickerson will be recovered by Tuesday.
- David Skara (6-8 205) Sophomore forward from Croatia. Initially came to USA to play a prep season for Don Bosco Prep in Indiana. Last year as a Valpo freshman in the 2014-15 season, Skara appeared in all 34 games for the Crusaders, making the majority of his appearances off the bench. A good player who got better during the course of his freshman year, he was rewarded with Horizon League All-Tournament honors. On Friday night against IPFW, Skara came off the bench to play 27 minutes and score 10 points and pull down 7 rebounds.
- Alec Peters (6-9 230) Junior forward from Washington, Illinois. Peters averaged 16.8 points and 6.7 rebounds per game as a sophomore last year. An offensive force, Peters has the ability to hit jumpers from anywhere on the floor; last season he averaged 48% FG, 82% FT, and 46% 3PT in route to becoming the first player in Valpo history to score 1,000 points by the end of his sophomore season. Last year, Peters was First Team All-Horizon-League; this season he is the likely choice for Horizon League POY honors. This year against IPFW, Peters had 24 points and 7 rebounds to lead the Crusaders. Without diminishing the impact on the final outcome that Hassan Martin will likely have when URI meets Valpo on Tuesday morning, the matchup between Alec Peters (6-9 230) and Kuran Iverson (6-9 215) will likely be the game within the game.
- Vashil Fernandez (6-10 260) Redshirt senior center from Kingston, Jamaica. Over the summer. Fernandez was granted a fourth season of athletic eligibility by the NCAA after originally being penalized one year when he first enrolled at Valparaiso. Fernandez is a game-changing defender, and is also a credible offensive player with a sweeping hook shot. A preseason Second Team All-League choice this year, Fernandez was named the Horizon League Defensive Player of the Year in 2014-15, having last year set the Valpo single-season record for blocked shots (98), averaging 2.9 blocked shots per game (good for 11th in the nation), while ranking sixth among all Division I players in block percentage. In the season opener against IPFW, he was in foul trouble both halves, and finished with 4 fouls, 4 points, 3 rebounds, and 3 turnovers in 19 minutes played. By the way, he is married, and has a daughter; he graduated in May of 2014 with a bachelor's degree in international business, and is currently pursuing a master's degree in international commerce & policy.
- Derrik Smits (7-1 235) Freshman center from Zionsville, Indiana. Although he is the lone freshman on the Valpo team, he is the backup center, and was expected to get at least some minutes most games this year. His teammates have been quoted as saying that during the Canada trip Smits hit shots and played good defense. Unfortunately, he sprained his ankle in practice last week; on Friday at the opener against UIFW, he was limping around, wearing a walking boot. According to Coach Bryce Drew, Smits is still being evaluated in regards to his ankle, and definitely won't be dressing for Sunday's game against Iona. And, yes, in case you were wondering, he is the son of former Indiana Pacers center Rik Smits.
Valpo this season has a team with a talent level that is as high as it has been in years for Valparaiso men's basketball.
Like Rhody, Valpo is a strong defensive team. Last season. the Crusader defense ranked 6th nationally in field goal percentage defense and 17th in scoring defense.
Valpo’s offensive system is complex, with a lot of sets and a lot of plays. The team chemistry is good, both due to the length of time that the returning players have been in the system and due to the 5 game Canadian road trip that the Crusaders took this summer to Montreal and Ottawa.
In short, Valpo is deep and dangerous. In addition to all those returning weapons at his disposal, Valpo head coach Bryce Drew also has the opportunity to slot new faces into positions on the court for the Crusaders.
Look -- Valpo is a well-coached, NCAA-bound, talent-laden team. The Crusaders will be looking to steal a victory from a Rhody team still reeling from the loss of E.C. Matthews. Miss class or miss work, but don't miss this game.
GO RHODY
