Last night after I wrote the post two spots above, I was considering taking it down. Some of it seemed petty and conspiratorial in places. I wrote it angry, off the top of my head. But Toledo replied to it just as I was ready to delete, and I decided to keep it up, because Toledo makes some great points.

I slept on it. But when I woke up, I was still angry.

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We have only TWO home league games from December 29, 2020 to February 5, 2021. That is not right.

We have SEVEN road conference games in that period, and FIVE road conference games IN A ROW, in THREE different states. That is not right.

We're fighting for a potential tournament berth, and our top rival just cancelled our games with less than 48 hours notice. We will have to play them whenever they are ready, at their place, with fans in the stands that we aren't allowed to/are too cautious and considerate to have at our home games. If they're really "serious" about Covid, why do they allow hundreds of fans to attend? Officially, they had 995 fans come into the arena last Sunday and Monday (there were a lot more people than that with staff, officials, managers, players, media, security, concessions, etc.) Do you think THAT might have had something to do with transmitting Covid to a key basketball member that resulted in these game cancellations? Maybe?

But this has happened two weekends in a row.

Our second top rival gave us four days notice of cancellation, and then we had to scramble to find a non-con game (I assume with many expenses paid by Loyola). And again, we're going to have to shove a road trip to their place into our schedule this month. No fans (AFAIK), but still..... "Hey, uh, sorry top competitor that we've lost to four straight times in Chicago ... our appointment for X date in Peoria, where we've won 2 of the last 3 and have the top home court advantage in the MVC, the one you've been preparing and game-planning and practicing and making travel plans for? It's off.... You just hold on and wait until we decide when we're able meet you.... Like maybe when our point guard is healthy... Be ready to come to our place... when we say so."

If you WANTED to deliberately sabotage the tournament hopes of a front-running team in the league, a really good way to do it would be to give them the toughest road slate in an unbalanced schedule featuring back-to-back games. Do you know what date the MVC's Home-Home, Road-Road conference schedule was released? The answer is December 4, 2020. Note the time stamp on the Twitter announcement below.



Coincidentally, December 4 was the very same day UNI (the only "top team" we play at home) announced AJ Green's injury to the public.

With UNI losing the reigning conference Player of the Year and the preseason Player of the Year, and sporting an 0-3 record in to start the season, their stock had dropped into the basement. Would they even finish above .500?

Which teams were starting to look like the top teams (besides Loyola) on December 4?

Bradley (4-1 at the time with a 1-point loss to nationally ranked Xavier team on the road), and Drake (3-0 at the time with a 10-point win over Kansas State on the road) were impressive in early play. Indiana State (hadn't played yet) was picked 4th in the preseason poll, and Missouri State (hadn't played yet) was picked 6th.

And that's exactly what our back-to-back games on the road schedule became: Bradley, Drake, Missouri State, and Indiana State, almost exactly in that order. Home and road with our travel partner. Fans allowed to attend everywhere but Bradley. We got the teams with low expectations of getting any road wins as our home schedule, and we got the top dogs in back-to-back games on the road. And it was front-loaded to be early in the season, so if we lost any of these back-to-back games against our top competitors, we fall off the radar.

And even though the unbalanced schedule with Loyola facing all the top teams on the road was created to (let me get this quote exactly right with a copy and paste from the Loyola Phoenix story paraphrasing the MVC announcement) "adjust the men’s and women’s basketball schedules in order to prioritize the health and safety of all teams as COVID-19 cases surge across the United States," the fact is all our road opponents except Bradley will be inviting hundreds of fans in to watch and yell and breathe and improve their home court advantage against Loyola. (Just to be extra clear, the MVC announced they would implement an unbalanced schedule to reduce travel on November 20, but the schedule itself was not created or announced until December 4, when the league had games to see which way the wind was blowing in conference).

At the very least.... THE VERY LEAST... Drake and Missouri State and Valpo (too late now for Indiana State) should pledge to not have fans in attendance when we play there. The unbalanced schedule was created to protect from Covid, and fans in the stands indoors in winter does THE EXACT OPPOSITE-- while giving these teams another boost to their home court advantage. That is not right.

I totally agree with your last point. The two games in each series should be considered as one home game and one away. If you allow fans, it should only be at your designated home game.

Last I heard, Missouri State was allowing like 3,000 capacity.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

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It looks like ahunte was in on the conspiracy to screw Loyola through malicious schedule manipulation as well.

Ahunte posted this then cryptic message with the image of white smoke on DECEMBER 4, the same date the conference schedules came out...AND AJ Green's injury was announced.

I have recently learned from reliable sources in The Resistence that ahunte's post was a prearranged signal by the conspirators that all was well and that Loyola and their fans suspected nothing.

#StopThe Schedule

I can’t help but think now that AC remaining celibate during his NBA career contributed to this injury, causing all of this trouble for us.

Good point Grad!

The conspiracy runs deeper than even JCT suspected.

Mixed greens are my favorite salad.

Road games switch T3/T2 to T2/T1 so they actually help at-large chances. Two Q3 home wins over Bradley wouldn’t move the needle.

If I can decipher your code, what you're implying is that the MVC schedule JCT is complaining about might actually have been devised with an eye toward helping, not hurting, Loyola's chances for an at large bid.

Maybe that wasn't your intention but I think that's at least a logical inference one can draw by extension from your specific example of the Bradley series.

Very interesting and incisive point.

So if there was a conspiracy, it is for benevolent and not malevolent purposes. That at least makes some sense. I never could figure out why JCT thought the conference would want to screw with what is arguably their current flagship program.

I considered that, but you have to WIN the games to move the needle. Conversely, the .NET ranking now used by the NCAA as their primary tool for evaluating prospective tournament teams seems more sensitive to WINS, especially wins by more than 5 points. That's why despite Drake not having any T2 or T1 games at all thus far, they're ranked #13 in the .NET because they haven't lost and they've won all their games (but one) by 10 points or more.

if you LOSE those both of those tough back-to-back road games-- even by a few points-- you're going to get knocked in the .NET and you still don't have any T2 or T1 wins.

It should go without saying that you're going to have the toughest schedule with no break on the road, it makes it much tougher when your opponent and game site suddenly shifts the night before you travel. Maybe that's just a frustration point under these extraordinary circumstances. But if the schedule was made uneven because of reducing Covid exposure, fans in the stands erases any advantage of cutting travel and increases the difficulty of winning on the road.