That post isn't even worth responding to.

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A part of me can’t help but sit back in awe, laughing a little, at the fact that we’re where we are this year, and still none of us are really satisfied yet.

Last night we won our 54th conference game in the last 4 seasons, and we have a chance to bump that number up to 56 wins (which would be an average of 14 wins/year).

In the 10 years prior to the 2017-2018 season, we totaled 57 conference wins. We’ve done in 4 years what it took us 10 years to do before!

And one of my favorite streaks (because it irks all the MVC schools who thought we weren’t good enough for their conference): We’ve never finished a season on Thursday night in St. Louis. And we won’t this year, either.

I disagree. I am definitely a more positive fan overall (what's the point otherwise) but this team has gone out sad the past two years based entirely on an inability to buy a bucket over long stretches. It's a weird balancing act. I am incredibly grateful to Porter (and Cam and Lucas) for the improvements the team has made over the past 4 years. With those improvements comes higher expectations. Regardless of how this season ends I will be happy and grateful that I had something positive to share with friends of mine who are also fans of the team, but if there's another can't-score-for-ten-minutes choke job to a mediocre team early enough in the MVC tournament to end our season there I might be willing to fire off some snarky messages on a fan forum. If Cam and Lucas leave this school only having gone dancing once you wouldn't be haunted by the sense of something unrealized? I wouldn't have thought that would be possible but the last two games have shown that this team may have some demons from the past two that I thought had been exorcised.

RE: “What if they only go dancing once”...Our first chance to get a ticket to the dance comes next weekend against SIU. Win those two, and we’re dancing no matter what happens in St Louis. Think about that for a second, to be in the position we are now, just having to beat one of the worst teams in the conference this year, at home, to essentially clinch an NCAA birth no matter what happens in the conference tournament. This has been an incredible year. I get wanting more, but realize that this team, despite its current struggles, has been an incredible group, and is having one of the best years in school history. In one of the strangest years anyone has ever had to play through.

Adding: I also think the stretch of games this team has had to fight through the last month should be considered as a HUGE reason why they look so tired the last two games. Their conference schedule has, IMHO, been the toughest in the league, by far. They’ve had to play the Drake, Missouri State, and Indiana State all on the road, in back to back games. If you’re keeping score at home, those are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place teams in the standings. 72 hours after the Drake games, they had to play a Valpo team with revenge and pride on their minds, playing a lot better than they were the first round. Now we get a much needed week to regroup and recharge. Let’s see what happens next weekend.

My point is that anyone looking for a coach is probably going to look at ~100 wins in four years, two (likely) NCAAs, a Final Four, an NIT (likely would have been two), zero off-court problems, etc. morseo than looking at why we missed 17 free throws in a game against Valpo.

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I agree with all of this. We’re ranked for the first time in 35+ years, are undefeated at home, our efficiency numbers have never been higher, and yet so many posts on this board lament the play of player x or predicting the future downfall of the program. It’s really disappointing because there’s never been a better time to be a fan of this program. I feel like decades of disappointing seasons have led some unable to fully give in to celebrating success, it just kinda bums me out. Meanwhile most Drake fans are just ecstatic...even with two blowouts in the last 5 games and another near loss to Valpo AND a way too close for comfort game against UNI. What we’re witnessing is the early days of cementing a real program. You can want more, but zoom out and this programs on a clear upward trajectory and the players on the court that joined the team after the Final Four only started playing last year. Many define last season by Arch Madness result, but I define it with our freshman Marquise sealing the Valpo game, the UNI overtime thriller in Gentile, and spoiling Bradley’s senior night. That team was light years beyond the 18-19 team that had a strong core, but ZERO depth (Bruno Skokna averaged 20 mpg that year and Isaiah Bujdoso averaged 13.2 for a whopping combined 5.6 ppg), and that team STILL won the conference somehow.

Regarding players I’ve seen chatter about Braden not bringing a ton of value to the team… He’s not perfect but that dude just carried the team against Evansville LAST WEEK and had a solid weekend against Drake. He’s also loud on the court and is tough as nails, which we need out of our underclassman moving into next year. If you want to celebrate “different guys different nights” that means you can’t expect everyone to go off every night.

Also, re: scoring droughts. That’s part of basketball – all teams have them. We’ve held teams to large scoring droughts in probably 80% of our games this year. Valpo came out with a great game plan yesterday that I haven’t seen them use in any other game which was to absolutely CLOG the paint. They said “beat us with the three” and we found a way like good teams do. It’s no doubt what SIU is going to try and do as well, and we now have 10 days to try and solve the newest blueprint to beat the blers.

In summation. The Drake loss sucks, last night was ugly but they all count as 1 in the win column. We have a good f’in team.

I think the issue with Norris, at least from my perspective, is that he would have been a more consistent scoring threat, particularly from 3, based on very solid numbers while at Oakland.

Fair enough. I'm not disagreeing that 1) Porter is an attractive candidate for a lot of schools and he's earned that and 2) most mid-major programs would sacrifice their centenarian nun if they had one for our last 4 year run. My point is that it's not a blaspheme against Porter or St. Ignatius to be frank about the fact that this team underachieved at Arch Madness the last two years and that it might trigger some bitterness to watch a team now with a ceiling so much higher struggle in very familiar ways.

This line of criticism is unfair and without merit.

They call it Arch Madness and March Madness for a reason. Teams that are suppose to lose - win - and teams that are suppose win - lose. You can't look at a single tournament loss as defining a player or a coach's career. If that were the case, Tony Bennett would not be the coach of the reigning NCAA champs. Last night, we saw 3 player's from Valpo's bench score 28 points. Anything can happen when you put 18 to 22 years out on a court. That's what makes it great. That's what made our Final Four Run great.

You need to look at the regular season. The past 4 years have been unexpected and extraordinary - other than Gonzaga and Virginia - how many other teams have had this type of run?

Who made this possible? PM and the kids who play. We don't have a significant talent advantage over other MVC, if have one at all. Both Lucas Williamson and Krut are very good college basketball players. I am proud to have them associated with our program - win or lose. From a talent perspective, they have worked to get better - to their credit. I have no qualms with them. With that said, they didn't turn down offers from Duke, Kentucky or North Carolina and we are not getting 5 star recruits. No one is putting them in a Chicago Bulls uniform yet. They may miss a shot or make a turnover - its part of the game. You can't blame them for a bad five minutes that costs a single game when we have seen them perform 100's of minutes of great basketball.

If you want to get started on coaching and talent, let's talk about Dean Smith - the only guy who could hold Michael Jordan to less than 20 points a game. .

My point on Northwestern poaching Shane Davis is not that the circumstances are the same. They are clearly as you say not.
But the main point was Northwestern recognized the results that Shane got and he was rewarded for it. But Northwestern did not hesitate to recognize the excellence Shane achieved at Loyola and respected Loyola enough to go after its men's vball coach. Porter would be in the same mold. A recognized success.
I firmly believe the Porter is one of a few people that could turn Northwestern into a Big "Ten" power.
Certainly I don't want Porter to leave but I would certainly be happy for him if he was able to parley his accomplishments at Loyola into a better opportunity. Sure NU would be a risky leap as many have failed but I believe Porter has the grit, smarts and work ethic to be successful.