ST. LOUIS (March 5) – When you’re in the postseason in your conference tournament and your leading scorer and first team all-conference star is less than 100% and is still recovering from illness and injury, you take wins however you get them.
That was the approach Valparaiso head coach Matt Lottich took after his Crusaders gutted out a win in the first round of the 2020 Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Thursday night. Seventh-seeded Valpo scraped by No. 10 Evansville 58-55, moving on to a quarterfinal game Friday night against No. 2 Loyola Chicago.
“We didn’t play great,” said Lottich after the Crusaders won in the first round at Arch Madness for the second straight year. “We’re going to have to play better to win tomorrow, but we played well enough and tough enough to get a win, and we’ll take it. In a tournament-like setting like this, you’ve just got to survive and advance, and we were able to do that.”
Valparaiso (17-15) won without a big game from sophomore guard Javon Freeman-Liberty, who returned after missing the past two games due to mononucleosis. Freeman-Liberty was back but clearly not up to full song even before hitting the floor hard a couple times during the game. The sophomore scored eight points on 4 of 15 shooting, and was especially quiet with just two points in the second half.
Valpo also won in a way foreign to the sport these days: it didn’t hit a single three-pointer. The Crusaders were nil-for-10 from behind the arc, not even testing the waters often from long range with more than 80% of their shot attempts as two-pointers.
Instead, Valpo took advantage of its size inside, outscoring the hard-driving Purple Aces 38-24 in the paint. Six-foot-7 freshman Donovan Clay was the leader with 16 points, while fellow frosh Ben Krikke came off the bench to also add 10 points.
It was Clay along with sophomore guard Daniel Sackey who came up with big plays down the stretch. Sackey hit two free throws 5:56 left that wound up putting Valpo up for good at 49-48. Clay then flipped a pretty reverse layup in to make it 51-48, but after Evansville’s Sam Cunliffe answered with a bucket, Sackey hit a pull-up jumper in the lane to put the Crusaders back up three with 4:19 left.
The teams then went scoreless for more than three minutes until K.J. Riley scored and was fouled with 55 seconds left. Riley missed the free throw though, something Clay did not do next time down. The native of Alton, Ill., just outside of St. Louis, scored, drew a foul and converted the three-point play with 31 seconds left for a 56-52 lead. If that wasn’t enough, it was Clay who snuffed out Evansville’s final attempt to tie at the buzzer, stuffing Shavon Givance’s three-point attempt just before the horn.
Lottich cited the contribution of Sackey afterwards, specifically noting how the sophomore guard has responded after moving from a starting role to the bench late in the season.
“Obviously, I’m sure Daniel would prefer to start, but it’s what we’re asking him to do for our team right
now,” said Lottich. “When I was going to make that change and I brought him into my office and talked to him, he said, ‘Coach, it’s not a problem.’ In moments like that where there can be some adversity, if you put your head down and get in a ‘woe is me’ attitude, it would be impossible for you to perform, and that’s been the opposite of what Daniel’s done.
“We don’t win this game tonight without Daniel Sackey. Absolutely, 100 percent do not win this game. His integrity, his fight, his heart, that’s really the backbone of a lot of what we’re trying to build and do. He is a key component, whether he’s coming off the bench or starting for us. He’s a big, big member of our team.”
“My mindset has just been I’ve got to help the team any way,” said Sackey. “It would be very selfish of me to not perform and be like, ‘man, forget this.’ We have a saying called ‘we above me’ always. That’s always been my mentality.
“Whether I’m starting, coming off the bench, whatever it is, I’m just going to play my hardest to help the team and try to get a win. I can’t win by myself. I need my teammates. I need my coaches. I need everybody, and they need me to be my best all the time no matter what the situation is.”
With Freeman-Liberty laboring, Clay was outstanding. Along with making 6 of 12 from the floor and all four free throw attempts, he added a game-high seven rebounds plus two blocked shots. Quietly he has been one of the Valley’s top freshmen, and with Freeman-Liberty could give Valpo a big-time 1-2 punch the next couple years.
“Donovan…there’s no denying his talent,” said Lottich. “What Donovan’s done a great job of is just learn to play, learn to pick his spots within what we’re trying to do. Tonight again, he was fantastic. Hit big shots, big layups. Then he’s a lockdown defensive player too.
“Donovan’s going to get — he’s gotten a lot better this year. He’s going to get a lot better this off-season. There’s big things to come from him, but, again, without Donovan tonight, we don’t win this game. He was huge.”
Of the bright lights of playing at Arch Madness for the first time, Clay said: “I’ve definitely been on the stage before at Arkansas (earlier in season), and I kind of froze up because it was different. It was a big crowd. But I mean, I came in here with the mindset to just play hard. Coach told me to go out there and play hard, and that’s what I did. I’m from this area, so I have a lot of family here, so I felt comfortable.”
Valpo held tenuous control for much of the game, starting with a 9-0 run midway through the first half for a 19-12 lead. It appeared the Crusaders were ready to run away when Freeman-Liberty swooped to the hoop on the break to make it 29-18, but never-quit Evansville came back and closed within 31-25 by halftime.
Despite finishing 0-for-19 in MVC play this year, though, Evansville (9-23) per usual was not an easy out. The Purple Aces had their own struggles with 15 turnovers but continued to chip away and had their chances down the stretch.
“Javon hadn’t been practicing much, so we had to kind of get the feel for playing with him,” said Lottich. “You know, it’s hard. It’s hard to play in games where in a lot of ways you’re expected to win. They’re playing really with nothing to lose. So I was proud…very pleased with the ability of our young men to keep their chins up when really there was probably ample opportunity for them to put their heads down and fold, and they didn’t do that. They made enough plays, enough shots, enough free throws down the stretch to win a game, and we’ll take it.”
