Name: Valparaiso University
Location: Valparaiso, Indiana
So they just stole their name from the city, huh? Yep, and if we’re being honest, the city didn’t come up with the name on their own anyway. The city was founded in 1836 as Portersville and it was the county seat for Porter County. The change came in 1837, in honor of David Porter, the county and thus city namesake, as he had captained the USS Essex in the Battle of Valparaiso as part of the War of 1812 near the city of the same name in Chile.
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Wait a second.
[double checks who was on which side in the War of 1812]
[double checks the geographical location of Chile]
And that’s the story of how I learned about the Pacific Ocean Theater of a war between the United States and England.
Founded: 1859, because the residents raised $11,000 so the Methodist Church would establish a college in their city. The first classes were held at Valparaiso Male and Female College — no, seriously — on September 21, 1859.
But not continuous: Financial troubles led to the closing of the college in 1871, but Henry Baker Brown revived things in 1873 under the name Northern Indiana Normal School and Business Institute. Look, maybe that was okay in the 1870s, but that sounds like a scam here in 2025, even with the fact that doing these history bits has informed me that “Normal School” is old-timey language for “teachers college.”
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Okay, so…. The Valparaiso name came back in 1900 as Valparaiso College, and the school reorganized as Valparaiso University six years later.
Still not done: Apparently more financial problems very nearly led to then-university president Horace Evans selling the college to the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. This was in 1923, one year before Notre Dame students fought the Klan in South Bend, 50ish miles to the northeast. That deal was never finalized, and the Lutheran University Association bought the college in 1925 instead.
Lutherans 1, Methodists, 0.
Enrollment: 2,451 for Fall 2025, including 2,071 undergraduates. With 17 players listed on the roster, men’s basketball accounts for 0.82% of Valpo’s undergraduate student body.
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I wonder how they feel about AI: Valparaiso has an Honor Code. It’s only schoolwork related, it seems, so Brandon Davies is safe:
[“I have neither given or received, nor have I tolerated others’ use of unauthorized aid.”] is written on all homework, quizzes, and exams at Valparaiso University. Every student must write out the Honor Code in full and sign it for all work submitted for academic credit. The Honor Code expresses the promise of the student not to cheat through either action or inaction. The use of these words expresses the faith of the faculty in the student body.
Now, you’d think that would apply to using ChatGPT and the like. However, when you click on the menu/search icon in the top right corner of their website, you can either run a search of the school website, or you can click over to use the AI assistant/chatbot. Feels like you shouldn’t have an AI assistant feature when your students have to write about how unauthorized aid is bad on the top of every single assignment that they turn in.
Also: It’s 2025, how much handwritten work is actually being turned in at Valparaiso? Because I’ve got bad news for you, Valpo faculty: Nobody’s typing that out in full every single time.
Nickname: Beacons
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Why “Beacons”? I’ll let this quote from the Valpo website explain it:
“Our new nickname directly connects to the University’s motto, ‘In Thy Light We See Light,’ and represents the Valparaiso University community in many ways,” said José D. Padilla, J.D., University president. “We are beacons of light and hope in our communities. We are beacons of change on campus, in our region and in our country. We are beacons of knowledge for our students’ academic, social and spiritual growth. Above all, we are beacons of God’s light around the world. We light the way for our students, so that once they graduate, they shine their light for others. We are all Beacons at Valparaiso University.”
It doesn’t hurt that Beacon is also the name of the Valparaiso yearbook, and there’s a residence hall on campus with the same name, too.
Oh, I didn’t say this part out loud: This was in 2021.
Why? Because it was insane for a Christian school to be nicknamed Crusaders in 2021, much less at all ever, given the long and bloody history of The Crusades. Oh, and also the part where weirdo hate groups were adopting Crusades iconography.
Notable Alumni: Jay Christopher, co-founder of Pampered Chef; Paul Schrage, former chief marketing officer for McDonalds, credited with the design of the Golden Arches logo; Wrigley Field organist Josh Langoff; actor/writer John Lutz, best known as Lutz on 30 Rock; ESPN play-by-play man Adam Amin; actor JoBe Cerny, former voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy; Keith Kizer, former director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, serving from 2006 to 2014, aka the ascent of UFC & mixed martial arts in general; George William Norris, United Stats Senator & credited as the father of the Tennessee Valley Authority; and finally, Caleb Powers, convicted of accessory to the assassination of Kentucky governor-elect William Goebel in 1900 and, after his pardon in 1908, four-time United States Congressman from 1911 through 1918.
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I imagine his campaigns went something like this:
Hey, as far as famous Valpo people go…. Yes, yes, Bryce Drew, let’s watch the 1998 NCAA tournament game winner:
Fun Fact: If you watch the whole video, you can see Bryce’s older brother, then-Valpo assistant coach, and current Baylor head coach Scott Drew behind head coach Homer Drew (yes, their father) on the sideline.
Last Season: 15-19, with a 6-14 record in the Missouri Valley Conference. Made it to the conference tournament semifinals as the #11 seed, though.
Final 2024-25 KenPom.com Ranking: #205 out of 364 teams
Final 2024-25 BartTorvik.com Ranking: #207 out of 364 teams
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Preseason Poll: As far as I can tell, the Missouri Valley only announced the top five, but I can say that Valparaiso is not in the top five.
This Season: 5-2, with five sub-260 KenPom.com wins and losses to #11 Kentucky and #295 Southern Indiana…. with that one coming at home.
Current KenPom.com Ranking: #208, up from their preseason position of #283
Current BartTorvik.com Ranking: #235, up from their opening night position of #287
Returning Stats Leaders
Points: Justus McNair, 4.5 ppg
Rebounds: Justus McNair, 1.3 rpg
Assists: Justus McNair, 0.3 apg
Current Stats Leaders
Points: Rakim Chaney, 14.0 ppg
Rebounds: Shon Tupuola, 7.1 rpg
Assists: Rakim Chaney, 3.3 apg
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Head Coach: Roger Powell, in his third season at Valparaiso and third as a head coach. He has a record of 27-46 with the Beacons, with a 9-31 mark in Missouri Valley Conference action. Yes, that is the Roger Powell that averaged 12.0 points and 5.7 rebounds for Illinois in 2005 when Bruce Weber coached them to the national championship game.
Bigs? 6’10”, 245 pound center Shon Tupuola starts at center for Valparaiso. He averaged 14.5 points and 12.2 rebounds at the NAIA level last season, and now he’s putting up 8.6 and 7.1 for the Beacons in just over 22 minutes a night. 6’11” freshman Carter Hopoi is playing just over 19 minutes a night with two starts so far this year for Valpo, but he’s only averaging 3.0 points and 2.9 rebounds. Hopoi is only listed at 220 pounds, so he’s not really likely to be able to throw his weight around inside, and to be honest? His rebounding rates on KenPom.com are kind of not good for a guy at his height.
We’ll probably also see Tucker Tornatta a decent amount, as he’s averaging nearly 13 minutes per game this season. The 6’8”, 235 pound sophomore was at D2 UIndy last season, and averaged 7.6 points and 5.8 rebounds per game there. 5.0 points and 3.3 rebounds per game is pretty solid for his relatively limited minutes, so we’ll see how all of this shakes out on Tuesday night.
Shooters? Rakim Chaney is burning up the nets so far this season. He’s knocking down just short of 47% of his 4.6 three-point attempts per game. As you can see from the stat leaders up above, the 6’3” freshman is making an impact right out of the gate for Valpo.
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Brody Whitaker and Owen Dease need to be watched carefully, especially since they might be coming off the bench. Those two are shooting slightly over and slightly under 35% from long range this season respectively, although Dease is the more likely shooter at 4.3 attempts per game. Whitaker did start for the first time this season last time out for the Beacons, while Dease has been coming off the bench after starting in Valpo’s first two games of the year.
The Golden Eagles may need to be careful about Mark Brown. Yes, if he continues shooting under 27% on a team high 4.9 long range attempts per game, that’s actually great news for Marquette. However, he was a 36% shooter last year at Snow College in the junior college ranks, and he’s coming off a 3-for-5 night in an 84-55 win against Western Michigan on Saturday.
What To Watch For: If you unplug Valparaiso’s shooting, they lose. Not their long range shooting necessarily, all of it.
I know, “stop team from hit shot, win game,” deep analysis.
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But Valpo’s two losses this season have come when their effective field goal percentage went under 40% and when their two-point shooting went under that number as well. That’s not just Kentucky doing that to them, that’s also a Southern Indiana team that is 3-4 on the year right now and their win over the Beacons is their only Division 1 victory this season. The Screaming Eagles held the Beacons to just 36% shooting inside the arc and a very awful 15% outside of it, and as a result, they just strode confidently away from Valpo for a 64-56 victory last Wednesday.
Other than that, there’s nothing that jumps off the page as an obvious flaw for Marquette to exploit/worry about. Valparaiso is pretty good at keeping track of the ball as a team, so it might be a spot where more pressure from the Golden Eagles forces them into rushed shots…. but also maybe a stay home and mind your knitting type of defense will provide a better foil to Valpo’s shooting. Marquette should have a notable advantage on the offensive glass, as they’re actually top 70 in coming up with a second chance so far this season. But if you just hit shots — and that has absolutely been a problem for Marquette this year — then you don’t have to worry about taking advantage of Valparaiso’s perceived weakness there.
And finally: This is Marquette’s last buy game of the season. After this, they play at Wisconsin, at Purdue, and then it’s the 20 game Big East slate. After Caedin Hamilton put up a KenPom offensive rating of 27 against Oklahoma while playing 17 minutes, missing all four of his shot attempts, committing three fouls, and not playing at all in the final nine minutes, it’s very clear that even the coaching staff doesn’t trust him. This is Marquette’s last opportunity this season to be a little bit experimental with their game plan. In this case, however, the experiment needs to be either A) Royce Parham takes the spot in the starting lineup or B) Josh Clark plays as much as he can/wants to. Caedin Hamilton has an offensive rating of 70.7 in Marquette’s three games against KenPom’s top 100 opponents, and that doesn’t even count the Maryland game because a home game against the Terrapins doesn’t count as top 100 adjusted right now. He is, with a turnover rate of 25.9% overall and 36.2% against top 100 opponents, unplayable for long stretches at best and completely unplayable at worst.
It is time to shift the focus of the operation of this team away from playing Hamilton between 15 and 20 minutes a night. Running Hamilton out there in the starting lineup again on Tuesday night would seem to be proof that the coaching staff isn’t interested in fixing an obvious problem, and after Tuesday night, there’s no more time to be trying to let guys figure it out. After all, in the wake of the events of Friday afternoon, Marquette’s chances at an at-large bid in the NCAA tournament have dwindled to nearly zero.
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All Time Series: Marquette is 21-5 all time against Valparaiso. I know! I was surprised, too!
The series began in January 1952 with a 63-60 Valpo victory. In December 1953, they played their third game against each other and began a run of in-season home-and-home sets. They played each other twice a season through 1955-56, took a year off after Marquette reached their seventh straight win, and then played each of the next three years. Valpo was a frequent opponent in the 1960s, but the series went quiet between 1968 and 1981. In February 1985, Valparaiso was back on the schedule as a yearly opponent through 1988-89. Marquette won that one, as they have won the three meetings in the 21st century in November 2003, December 2005, and November 2006.
The November 2006 game is notable, as it was the first time that MU had played at Valpo since 1988, and Marquette went into the game ranked #8 in the country. That game was on a Monday, so that ranking had just come out earlier in the day, and MU had moved into the top 10 in the AP poll for the first time since the Dwyane Wade Final Four team finished the 2002-03 season at #9. The other notable part about it is Dominic James ripping Valparaiso’s still beating heart out in front of them as he scored the final 18 points of the game for the Golden Eagles across the final 8:49, including this game winning three-pointer with five seconds left.
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