http://www.loyolaramblers.com/sports/m- ... 15aaa.html

Here are the teams: Alaska-Anchorage, Drexel, Middle Tennessee, UNC Asheville, San Diego, San Jose State, and Toledo.

I think we might be the favorites in this tournament.

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Cigarboy sucks!

Nice field. Will be a fun trip. The AD Steve Watson said Loyola was looking to potentially do something for this trip in the way of hotels and maybe a Thanksgiving get together.

Toledo will be down next year. This year was supposed to be "their year" to win the MAC. They had a season much like ours Blake Schilb's senior year. The expectations were very high and they had three seniors in Juice Brown, J.D. Witherspoon, and Justin Drummond that were all quality players. They were pre season picks to win the MAC. All signs pointed to them breaking their streak of not making the NCAA (their missing streak is as long as ours). They were good.. But lost a lot of games they shouldn't have.

Todd Kowalczyk (former Green Bay coach) was so disappointed in the team sputtering at the end of the season that, dispite 20 wins, declined bids to the CIT and CBI. His rationale was that those tournaments are for younger teams who could benefit by getting exposure to post season play and get the extra reps in for next year. Since his team relied heavily on its seniors, he did not feel it was worth it.

Loyola has grabbed two wins off them in recent years. The best being our tip in win at the buzzer in toledo. We also pounded them the next year in our first game of the season.

I would love to play them in Alaska because I really hate "coach k". Also it would be cool to win Vegas, CBI and Alaska all within 1 year.

While I am not as excited about the Shootout field as is 45, its just fairly good. We should be seeded number one, if they do such things. We are now getting to where we will be scheduling--not being scheduled--We now have a rising team with apparent student backing--(I hear that the crowd for the Monroe game was good but more important, it was loud) My guess teams will wish to play us, wanting to really beat us--Soon we may be seeing mid-level A-10, Big 10 teams et al coming to Gentile.
Our AD will see to it.
This season--unexpected as it was--will be the start of the road back--We are now on the move.
---My predictions--recruits will be knocking at our door--even better Milton style ones.
---Upgrade in Porter's contract
---We will be in a position to turn down NW and DePewl--IF WE CHOOSE. We are the best in town, why bother with them except for the revenue

Where we are put doesn't seem to matter too much. All you need to do is win 3 games. There is no far and away elite team in the field, and it will be too early in the season to really know how any team is going to be for the season.

I'm happy with the field because it is 3 guaranteed division 1 games that are winnable. Any of these match ups are better and more beneficial than non-Division 1 games at home. Better for RPI, better for experience, and if we win--better for our reputation. I wouldn't want us to go all the way up there to potentially get blown out by someone. I'm not saying these teams suck - I'm just saying the odds are slight that we get murdered by any of them.

I think it's vital that we follow this season up with another 20 win season ... So it's important to get D1 wins where you can. I don't want to go into another death sentence of a game like we did last year at Michigan State.

The only thing I'm dissappointed in this year is that we finished with a losing record in the Valley. My expectations for next year are:
1) a 20 win season (20-division 1 wins)
2) a Winning record in the Valley
3) an appearance in the MVC Semi Final game
4) any post-season bid.

A strong showing early on in this tournament would really set the tone for this.

On point fellow Ohioan ! Except maybe for the RPI part. Oh . those teams are better than Rockhurst et al--but on paper at least, we are the best of the lot. I really feel we can and should win this tourney, for a solid three tourney wins out of four (Valley one). I say "on paper" as so much can happen between now and Nov--Good stuff for us I hope.

This used to be one of the best in-season tournaments (they've been doing it for around 30 years), but with the plethora of new tournaments in warm and exotic locales like Cancun, Vegas, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Virgin Islands, and Florida, it's lost a lot of its luster.

Two of these teams, non-D1 Alaska Anchorage and San Jose State combined for ONE D1 win in 2014-15 (Anchorage beat Rice on its own floor). San Jose State HAS to be better than a 335 RPI in a good league next year-- I think they lost a couple scholarships a few years ago because of graduation progress, got a new coach, and sent some players packing. Toledo usually has very competitive teams but as Toledo Rambler points out, they may be down next year. Drexel had a down year this year after winning 29 games just a few years ago. San Diego and Middle Tennessee could be pretty good. The key here is to avoid playing non-D1 Anchorage, which usually means winning in the first round.