The Cougars will make the short hop across the border to play the Beacons on December 16 at 3 PM. The game will air on ESPN Plus. This will be the second Missouri Valley Conference opponent for Chicago State, the other being Southern Illinois back in November.

First year VU coach Roger Powell also coached against the Cougars last season when they visited Spokane while he was an assistant at Gonzaga.

The series versus Valparaiso has been heavily tilted in favor of Valpo, and Chicago State has never won in the Athletics-Recreation Complex in their 16 attempts. However, Chicago won the last time out 87-74 in Chicago a year ago during Chicago’s undefeated 8-0 home streak.

Valparaiso comes in 4-6, 0-2 MVC, and are on a 4 games losing streak. Their wins have been versus NAIA Trinity Christian, Green Bay, Western Illinois, and Southern University.

Valpo is currently 290 in the NET.

Great start! Can we keep it up?

Guard the perimeter! They are killing us on 3s.

Jernigan is The Man so far today.

Halfway through the first half and only one foul. That is a good sign.

Green 5 assists against 1 turnover. Those kind of numbers will win games.

Half of Valpo's attempts have been from the arc. So far they have been dying by the 3, since they have made only three of them, but I hope they don't heat up from out there.

Did Coach get mad at Jernigan at halftime?

Bad time to hit a cold spell.

They would’ve been better off letting Jean-Charles sit again. He has struggled so much..

Wesley Cardet Jr taking over again! His main downside is the amount of turnovers he commits. Corbett has another solid game too.

Two big road wins in a row!

The Cougars have won 3 out of 4 and seem to be coming into their own. Ended a 15 game (I believe) losing gun streak to Nortjwestern, and won on the road at Valpo which the Cougars have never done in history- 0-16 coming into this.

On one hand, why constrain Cardet? Let him go and score as much as he can. When you have a talent that big, why not use him?

On the other hand, the whole team needs to be involved to have a strong team. The more everyone else is involved (and ready and capable) the better this team will be. And even though teams aren’t really stopping Cardet at all, he’s getting more attention and people are going to start finding ways. The rest kf the team has to be able to carry some more of the load as well.

And I actually think Chicago State is already in a good place with this balance. Cardet doesnt just start off every game scoring all the points or hog the ball. He gets points pretty naturally and at opportune times. A few times he does try to do too much and has some turnovers, but when he also possesses the ball a lot.

Edit: I am going to watch this full game later because I was unable to watch most of it. I’ll likely have more to say later.

A win is a win. And this was a nice comeback win on the road. But that’s about it.

Not great play from Chicago for much of the game. Good some of the time though, but not great. At times there was bad play, silly turnovers, etc. But those traits seem to be getting sorted out slowly.

And the offense ran a little smoother. There was better movement and less possessions where there was either empty ball movement that wasn’t really doing much or too much standing around. And without Ked Green on the court, it’s been less dynamic in general. But even without him on court, this game was better offensively.

Defense was OK. But Valpo themselves looked disjointed and out of sorts in their offense, so I’m not sure a lot of the possessions were such great Chicago defense as much as Valpos own issues. Of course, Chicago watched film and was doing things to keep them out of sorts, but VU didn’t look good on offense regardless.

What lets me know the defense was playing well and hustling was the pressure, steals, and forced turnovers. Valpo does seem turnover prone at times anyway, but it was nice to see Chicago actively taking advantage of it. One of the best plays of the game was Davis steal of the inbounds pass at tur 7 minute mark of half 2. The quick bounce pass to a streaking Cardet was just amazing. Davis barely had the ball for a split second in the air and came down with that pass. A real basketball IQ move.

On the basketball IQ level, Jean-Charles needs more. He’s has physical talent, for sure. But his reads and reactions are just off sometimes. Not sure that is coachable other than to minimize the times he is put in those positions. Use him on set plays. Shorts drives. Around the rim. But the more space he has, the worse his decisions are. I think that as a 6’7” guy he’s spent more of his court time down low. When he gets out in the open court more, his level of play decreases. But some of that might be a personnel issue where they depend on him to do more than he is “made” for. He has plenty of upside, but he does frustrate me at times.

Jernigan had a decent game. Not a lot of points, but he looks a little better each game.

Getting 2 in a row and 3 of 4 is great for this team. With the winnable games they have coming up, being up for them will be critical. It will help them beat a team like Bethune or RGV and turn this into a little more of a streak and set a new tone that isn’t easy to pull off when you win one, then lose one. This way, if they loss to a team like, say, Wisconsin, it’s “back to normal” with the more winnable games on their schedule, and not trying to dig themselves out a hole of having lost 5 out of 6 or something.