Congratulations to former Loyola assistant Pat Baldwin. In his first game as a head coach against a Division I team, his Milwaukee Panthers beat Iowa State in Ames, 74-56.

Loyola will play at Milwaukee on Saturday, December 16.

Interesting that Northwestern has struggled with their Defense early on.....I think they will miss him on their staff.......looks like this will give the Ramblers a chance for a win over a higher RPI team now.

Iowa State is not going to be very good this year. They were picked 9th in the Big 12 (which has only 10 teams). Nevertheless, they're going to have a very good RPI because they're going to play Kansas, Texas, Baylor, Oklahoma, and West Virginia each one or two times.

That game in Milwaukee is going to be tough, though...

The back half of our non-con is actually pretty of in my opinion.

UNC Wilmington and Kent State on a neutral floor
@Boise
Home vs a hyper athletic UIC team
@Florida
Home vs Norfolk- potential get your groove back game in case Florida goes bad
@ a potentially tough Milwaukee team

Not too bad.

If we could’ve inserted a decent D1 team like Toledo, Bowling Green, or even another D1 team like Ball State, Youngstown state, Cleveland State, or University of Detroit in place of the Eureka I would have been much happier with the overall schedule. I think we were one non conference game away from a “good” schedule. Hopefully they get that fixed next year.

Other teams are playing D1 opponents as exhibitions and we are still playing non-D1s during the regular season.. I too wish that we would stop this but it has become a trend ToldeoRambler

I completely agree with this Toledo. I'd even take an average Summit League team. I think the minor RPI hit playing a lower D1 team rather than a really inferior DIII team like Eureka is worthless unless you're playing for an at-large (which we've never been in a position to recently) and the cynical part of me thinks it's a way for coaches to better astroturf a winning record.

That said, I think the NC State backout hurt our schedule a lot unfortunately.

I am sensing a lot of displeasure about Eureka -- I really don't think it is about Coach improving his W/L record. It is a good gap game to get younger players adjusted to quick turnaround games that they will see throughout their first season. Should it be a D3 team? Probably not, but it is not unusual for D1 to schedule D3 teams early in a season.

As for the non-conf. schedule...I am not sure what all the complaining is about. UWM will be a tough game, At Boise St and At Florida (top 10 team), UNCW and UIC will be very good games. I would not be a bit surprised - given our injuries that we lose all 5. That does not mean this team is done. They need Negron and Avery by conference season to be healthy. Keep in mind, with those 2 players in the rotation, you will have 4 newcomers getting minutes. I like this team a lot. But we lost a player in the G league that was a beast on D and was the only player that was double teamed all year on offense. It will take some time and some bumps before they come around. Kinda of like a closer on the stretch -- they will make a strong run in the last 10-15 games of the season.

At least that's my prediction.

I think it's fair to say that our non-con schedules have been soft, and that's been a concern of plenty of people here (or at least myself) during Porter's tenure. Porter's conference winning percentage is around 150 points lower than his overall winning percentage. That drop off is flat out abysmal, and you can make a fairly strong argument that our guys are never adequately prepared for conference play
because we artificially add a few cupcake wins to our schedule to make ourselves look better.

I thought this schedule was a slight upgrade at the beginning of the year, although IMHO it's an upgrade from the fairly weak benchmark of our past non-conference schedules. Part of the reason this year's non-con schedule is tougher though is a little luck. Milwaukee finished the regular season last year with only 8 wins, so I think it's a really pleasant surprise that they could give us a game this year. UIC is pretty much in the same boat. Boise St. is a nice draw but is a game that is scheduled for us by the league. Had Wichita State stayed, maybe we don't get them in the MVC/MWC Challenge.

Either way, I think this stuff is moot as long as we make noise in March. If not, and we struggle during conference play, then I and a lot of people here would be really disappointed.

I guess we are forgetting the 09-10 season when we had St. Ambrose, SIU-Edwardsville (D2 at the time) and St. Francis of Joliet all adding to the win column!

The realty is quite simple - as much as we all would like to think our team is very good and should have these tremendous non-conference schedules, we are a solid team that anybody outside of the top 25-30 doesn't want to play. Too much to lose (NC ST case in point with Keatts buying out the away game). Depaul won't play us, NW won't play us -- Porter's fault?

As for the in conference coaching record I would argue that his tenure in the MVC has been terrific given the facilities and fan interest. Go to Peoria, visit Bradley's on campus facility, and tell me how any recruit would not choose to go there over Loyola. Even though its 8 years old it is state of the art with nearly 40% of the facility for men's basketball only. Our team is sharing a gym with 2 volleyball teams and the women's basketball team.

When PM was hired, did you ever think you would see LU in the top 1/3 of all D1 programs in the preseason? Picked for 3rd in the Valley??

As I said in my previous post, I think this time is pre-season overrated given how hard it will be too replace Doyle. BUT, I think they will gel in the back end of the season and make big push in St. Louis.

But, come on - we have by far the worst facilities in the MVC...how about a little credit to the coach and his staff for overcoming the hurdles and putting this program in a position to compete.

BTW -- I think he make's plenty of mistakes, yanks guys quickly etc - but to say his conf. record is abysmal and he is padding the non-conf. schedule is ridiculous. Go back and look at his predecessors and their scheduling.