One computer ranking views chesteron and valparaiso as virtual basketball equals this season

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Chesterton’s basketball game at Valparaiso, a DAC finale for both teams set to tip off Friday at 7 p.m., has all the markings of what announcers like to refer to as “a trap game.”
It has fit that description since late last July, when the Vikings’ best player, Indiana Junior All-Star Jack Smiley announced on social media that he was transferring to La LuMeiere for his senior season.
When a player averaging 23.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.9 assists leaves, it’s only natural to dismiss that team as less than a serious threat. Couple that with Valpo’s 9-13 record and 2-4 mark in DAC play and it suggests the Vikings performed about as would be expected after losing the lefty who scored 1,164 points in three seasons and signed scholarship papers to attend Division I Belmont.
Not so fast.
A closer look reveals that, like Chesterton, the Vikings started the year against a particularly challenging schedule and head into the rivalry game on the strength of their best post-Smiley streak of basketball.
Valpo had its five-game winning streak snapped last Friday against Crown Point 63-47 in a game that was tied 26-26 at halftime.
The Trojans (12-8 overall, 3-3 in the DAC) are trying to extend their winning streak to five games.
The Vikings aren’t the same since Smiley’s departure, of course, but according to one respected computer ranking, they are about the same as the Trojans in terms of strength relative to the rest of the state.
Johnharrell.net, a comprehensive, compelling website that covers Indiana high school boys basketball, girls basketball and football with results, standings, coaching records and other interesting data, features Sagarin computer rankings. One ranking is called “recent” because it weighs recent results more heavily.
Valpo is ranked 81st in the state in that category, Chesterton 82nd.
A look at the rivals’ common opponents also projects a close game Friday night.
They have played 10 common opponents. Valpo has gone 4-6 against them, Chesterton 5-6 (played Portage twice). The average score of those games: Opponents 52.9, Chesterton 51.7; Opponents 54.4, Valpo 52.8.
Smiley is gone, but 6-3 junior KJ Avery and 6-4 senior Caden Crowell are back, better than ever, and both shooting 3-pointers at a 41% accuracy rate.
Crowell leads Coach Ben Lieske’s team with 12.9 points per game and Avery is next at 10.6. Crowell scored 19 points and kept his team close to Crown Point until the Bulldogs pulled away in the fourth quarter.
The game also features two of the state’s top baseball prospects. Crowell, a left-hander, signed to play baseball with Notre Dame and projects as an early round draft choice. Trojans center fielder Rob Czarniecki committed to play at Kentucky after considering Notre Dame. The friends have been teammates for an elite baseball travel team, and they both play key roles for their high school basketball teams. Czarniecki is the Trojans’ second-leading rebounder and is a skilled, focused defender, on and off the ball. He recently has heated up from 3-point range as well after shaking an early season shooting slump.
Three Valpo players match the size Chesterton has with its two 6-7 centers, junior Caden Schneider and freshman Bradly Basila. Maddux Wagner, a 6-6 sophomore, 6-7 Corbin McConachie and 6-7 senior Isaiah Keene 6-7 get playing time for the Vikings.
Trojans coach Marc Urban hasn’t fallen into the trap of believing Smiley took the team’s chances of making noise in the postseason with him to LaPorte and will see to it that his players don’t fall prey to the misconception either.
“They played some really good teams early. Their schedule probably lightened up a little bit as of late, but they’re also playing better with it too and Ben does a good job, so they’re starting to figure it out as well,” Urban said. “And playing Valpo, we could be 0-22 and they could be 22-0 and you could throw it out the window because it’s just the way the game is played.”
Urban referred to records being so worthless in rivalries that they can be thrown out the window. The official cliché is “You can throw the record books out the window.”
An aside: Long-time Pittsburgh columnist Gene Collier has awarded an annual Trite Trophy for the past 41 years. He puts cliché words to action. One year, when a pair of small college football programs renewed their rivalry, Collier conducted an experiment. For the sake of argument (Trite Trophy-worthy?), let’s say the rivalry was the Tartans vs. the Spartans, Carnegie Mellon University vs. Case Western Reserve. Collier visited the sports information office of one of the schools and was granted permission to open a window and toss a record book to the ground. A few pages came loose, but nothing else of note happened.
Cliché or not, it does seem to play out that big rivalry games bring out the best in underdogs. But in this case, based on computer rankings and results against common opponents, it’s not so easy to identify which team that is.