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I guess that's what happens when the Crusaders fall to a Division II team that was predicted to finish 14th out of 15 teams in the Great Lakes Valley Conference.

Having not been in attendance for the game (front row at Lambeau), I don't have any words of wisdom for why things went the way they did. What I did do in the last 48 hours was pour over the box score, looking for any kinds of statistical trends that could help show why the Crusaders lost to a team that was 9-18 last year against Division II competition.

The most telling stat is that the Crusaders had 23 different five-player combinations on the floor on Sunday afternoon. The starting lineup of Brandon McPherson, Brandon Wood, Howard Little, Michael Rogers and Cory Johnson played a little more than 11 minutes together and no other group logged more than four minutes of court time together.

In terms of +/-, a tool that coaches love to use, the starting unit scored 29 points while on the floor together and they gave up 29 points together.

Individually, Brandon McPherson and Michael Rogers both were +11 while Matt Kenney was +10. Cameron Witt was the only other player in the black while Milos Milosevic had a +/- of 0. Based on a 40-minute game, Kenney was the most efficient player at +25.6 while McPherson and Rogers were both barely over +25.

I had a chance to speak with coach Homer Drew on Tuesday night and he gave an immediate reaction to the amount of player-combinations.

 "That's way too high," Drew said. "We wanted to give a number of the guys a chance to play. As we go forward that number will go way down. The hope is to find eight or nine guys."

Eleven different players were on the court for the Crusaders on Sunday with the exceptions being freshmen Hrvoje Vucic and Chris Halvorsen. Halvorsen was a late scratch.

"Chris is dealing with a bad thumb right now, so it's really hard for him to catch or shoot," Drew said.

Other than Halvorsen, Drew said there were no other injuries on the team and that his team was slightly banged up after the game, but nothing serious. Drew did not mention McPherson when we talked about injuries.

Going forward, the Crusaders have a closed-scrimmage scheduled at Chicago State on Saturday. This scrimmage is in league with a NCAA rule that prohibits Division I teams from playing exhibitions against each other. Two years ago, Valparaiso traveled to Northwestern for a scrimmage where legend says Howard Little didn't miss a single shot. Last year the Wildcats were at the ARC and this year Drew setup a scrimmage with the Cougars.

"Both (scrimmage and exhibition games) are important," Drew said. "In the scrimmage, we don't keep score and we can stop play if we need to. We get a lot from it. With exhibitions, we need those because it's the dress rehearsal. We need to play in front of people and get that experience."

After the loss, the players were given Monday off before returning to the ARC for a 6 a.m. practice. on Tuesday morning. Drew also held a 5 p.m. practice Tuesday afternoon and has another 6 a.m. practice scheduled for Wednesday. Drew called Tuesday's early morning practice "the best of the year."

Stepping back and looking at the loss, I can see why there is cause for alarm. Granted I wasn't at the game, but looking at the box score, I can see that Ryan Broekhoff has never met a jump shot that he didn't like. 19 turnovers is way too high against a Division II team. Erik Buggs is apparently to be feared as a shot blocker. Milosevic picking up three fouls in three minutes is Aris Williams-like.

Hearing Drew talk, I could almost buy the fact that winning or losing truly didn't matter to the coaching staff in this game. Again, 23 different combinations on the floor is about 10 higher then what we'll see during the season. If evaluating the talent and seeing how the players mesh on the floor with each other was the goal, then there is plenty of film for the coaches to go through.

"I wanted to get a feel as to where we were," Drew said. "I thought we were further along than we are. Maybe my expectations were too high, but we do have nine players, including Brandon and Cory, that didn't play last year. We've only had two weeks of practice. Maybe we needed to have the scrimmage first."

I'm not sure how the scrimmage will go on Saturday. I'll try to get a first-hand report from someone, but it's obvious the Crusaders have a long way to go before Ball State on Nov. 13. I'll be there to provide a blow-by-blow account of what happens in Muncie.