2025-26 Around The Valley

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Wow, sounds like a top 6 Valley NIL program is around 1 million. Occurred faster than I anticipated. Still encouraged, thanks to the 2 large recent contributions.
 

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Didn’t want to start a new thread. And kind of valley related. But has anyone else seen the “consumer cellular” commercial with Barry Hinson in it? Just thought it was kind of funny to see him pop up out of nowhere
 
Tuesday's MVC Slate:

7pmESPN+Southern Illinois at Illinois State
8pmESPN+ISU at Evansville
8pmESPN+UIC at Murray State
8pmESPN+Valpo at Bradley
9pmESPN+Drake at Belmont
 
Belmont keeps rattling off wins...do we start to think about what they need to do to get an at large? Win out and lose on Sunday potentially gives them a quad 1 win and a 30-4 record. Net needs work. I mean I don't think they can do it but we just won and I don't want to go to bed yet.
 
Belmont keeps rattling off wins...do we start to think about what they need to do to get an at large? Win out and lose on Sunday potentially gives them a quad 1 win and a 30-4 record. Net needs work. I mean I don't think they can do it but we just won and I don't want to go to bed yet.
They’ll be in the discussion but I think pretty far out of the mix when it’s all said and done. Their loss to us is about as bad (maybe worse) than our loss to Illinois State two seasons ago. They played a really soft non-conference schedule, too. I don’t blame them for that because it’s impossible to schedule as a mid-major, but it’ll be a mark against them.

They should absolutely be in, but I think they’re going to get Sycamored by the selection committee if they don’t win Arch Madness.
 

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Valpo can’t catch a break. Their biggest donor just passed away. Paul Schrage who was 90 and One of McDonalds first employees and created Ronald McDonald as he was lead marketer. I know he pledged $1,000,000 towards NIL for them. Not sure how it was set up. Either way, that is a loss on tons of levels
 
Valpo can’t catch a break. Their biggest donor just passed away. Paul Schrage who was 90 and One of McDonalds first employees and created Ronald McDonald as he was lead marketer. I know he pledged $1,000,000 towards NIL for them. Not sure how it was set up. Either way, that is a loss on tons of levels
And one of their 2026 signees (Justin Curry) suffered recent injury, out for rest of season.
 
They caught a break when we played them. We couldn't hit free throws and the refs must have had money on the game. I can't imagine the crazy calls they would have made if we were hitting them.
 

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Same issue as a lot of teams: Can he hold his really good young players? He seems to recruit well, but then they portal out. Same problem E'ville has.

Losing Daughtry hurt ISU for sure. Against A10 #2 team George Mason, he played 9 minutes and scored 9 points on 3/4 from 3 point range with several rebounds. The Spiders, who have struggled in mid-season got the home court win over Mason. I believe he would have made a difference for ISU this season. Someone mentioned his heart issues may be lurking and limiting his playing time at Richmond. That may be as he was playing about 17-20 minutes/ game and scoring in double figures routinely. His reduced playing time coincides with UR's dropping close games the past month.
 
Same issue as a lot of teams: Can he hold his really good young players? He seems to recruit well, but then they portal out. Same problem E'ville has.
I have a buddy who saw Powell at a bar (classy place, just having dinner and drink) pulled up a chair next to him and started talking. He said Powell is super nice and everything. Said that Powell is essentially asking for a 2 year commitment from kids before they “move on”.

Obviously it won’t work like that all the time but doesn’t seem like a bad sales pitch in this day and age for an underfunded mid
 
Murray was up 19 and Belmont came all the way back and beat them by 17 in Murray. Jesus Christ. That pretty much locks up Belmont winning the regular season. I think the just need Bradley to lose 1 more and/or they need to Win 1 more. They have a 3 game lead over Murray and 2.5 game lead over Bradley with 3 games left. Coach Alexander will win COY. Tyler Lundblade most likely will win POY.
 
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