¡Los excursionistas GANAN 84-51 y terminan el viaje de España 4-0! ¡Recapitulación y toques de luz para venir!

There's no way to figure what kind of competition that last game was, but here are a few of my thoughts from following via twitter and loyolaramblers.com:

1. Good mix of basketball and tourism, it seems. Visiting Toledo, Barcelona, Madrid, and Valencia, busing around Spain with a lot of new players and a chance to bond in a foreign country. Maybe several of the players might end up with careers in Europe, so it's more than just a lark and extra practice.
2. That question about who are your best players? After this trip, I'd put it in this order: Doyle, Richardson, Ingram, Custer, Jackson, Chastain, Satterwhite, Granic, Kirby. Glad Lisha, Baughman and Burt got to go on the trip and played a bit. Saw Townes in some pics on the sidelines, glad he got to go. Hope Skokna can provide something this season, as threes seem to be coming from limited sources--anyone know how serious his injury is? I guess Tyson will be fully recovered and ready to go by November.
3. Need work on free throws. And threes. Hard to tell if the high turnovers were because of FIBA rules vs. NCAA rules (apparently Purdue had some problems with turnovers on fast breaks because of those rules).
4. If Granic can hold his own on the glass and doesn't score much at all (except for put backs), that would still be a huge help. Kirby is disappointing. Had one good game, one awful game, one meh game. At 6'9", 240, Kirby needs to at least learn how to move to key spots in the paint, hold up his hands and stand there without getting called for a foul.
5. Jackson is apparently pretty skilled and confident, not tall, but tenacious. Kind of a lurker on offense who will pounce if he has an advantage.
6. Chastain is really efficient, and not pushing to do too much right now. My impression from box scores and glimpses on video is he's keeping his head down like a typical freshman until he feels more comfortable. My guess is that by conference play, he could be an EXPLOSIVE inside scorer.
7. I know Custer is just coming back from sitting a year, but from the box score it looks like he's more of a streaky shooter than I expected. When he hits the threes, he's able to score 20, but when they're not falling we could be in trouble if we're depending on his outside shooting.
8. Donte Ingram played very solid, and limited his threes. He shot only 4 threes out of 24 shots from the field, and it seemed to help his inside shooting to not be attempting much outside the arc. He was 2 for 4 on his threes, and 14 of 20 from two. Did great on the boards, also-- 19 boards in 4 games averaging about 20 mins. Where he had problems last year was before Montel James really stepped up on the boards and when he was trying to shoot from outside. If we get 9.5 points and 4.8 rebounds per game from Donte this year, I'll be ecstatic-- would have been more but for uncharacteristically bad free throw shooting.
9. Richardson was 11 for 20 from three on the trip. The pictures look like his upper body has a little more strength than last year. We're going to need someone to step up from behind the arc to take Turk's place and spread the defense. Satterwhite and Custer didn't shoot well from three (besides Custer's last......... uh, game). Hoping Skokna can shoot from range-- he seems like the type.

Claro.

I think I saw Bruno running conditioning drills on one of the videos so I hope he'll be ready when official practice time rolls around. I don't quite know what to expect from him but he has a great resume in international play.

Speaking of expectations, Chastain has exceeded mine in the very early going. I figured it would take him some time to adjust to the higher level of competition, but he seems to be more than holding his own. He also seems to be very mature for his age.
I'm also pleased that Satterwhite appears to have recovered nicely from his knee surgery to the extent that he has been cleared to play in competition.
I am excited about our freshmen's potential!

It looks like Porter's comparison of Jackson to Thomas was apt.
I don't know if Custer is streaky or just rusty. He is the key to our season.
Yeah, I noticed that Richardson had bulked up too.
Kirby seems like a great guy. He hustles and tries his best; he's just not blessed athletically or skill-wise. With us being short-handed in bigs, his role will be to eat up some minutes without doing too much damage.

Really solid analysis JCT. I agree on every point.

I gotta believe that Custer is able to lock in his shot when the season comes around. Watching him in the open practice his shot was shockingly fluid so I was surprised to see him struggle with it; I believe it’s rust and maybe some jitters, he’s getting the keys to an offense after not playing in games for the better part of 2 years; by conference play I think he’s ready and making 3’s at a solid percentage. Milt’s efficiency really impressed me this trip. Hopefully the added weight helps him finish while driving and keeps him upright and healthy throughout the season.


Few predictions based on this trip:

1. Aundre Jackson ends up as a top 3 scorer on this team
2. Richardson steals a spot on the All Conference Defensive team
3. Chastain plays the most minutes of our freshmen, makes a run at the all freshmen team... I say he makes it.
4. While we’re longer across the board with players like Granic, Satterwhite, and Chastain we’ll get killed on the boards in at least a few games this season. Specifically against teams like Northern Iowa and Illinois State
5. Bruno and Tyson will be essential at spreading out the floor when Ben’s not out there.
6. I think finishing at 5th in conference is still reasonable to believe in, with a ceiling as high as 3 and a basement as low as 7.

I think we should be a fourth place team this year, and with some luck and good bounces, third. Really, we should have finished last year as a 9-9 team in 6th place, except for those two home losses to Missouri State and Bradley by a combined three points (teams we later beat on the road by a combined 24 points). We also beat Southern Illinois by 14 on the road after losing by 10 before an empty Gentile to open the season. If we'd won that as well as the Bradley and MSU game we'd have finished at 10-8, tied with SIU for 5th, and ahead on the tiebreaker. Shows how important EVERY GAME is, especially in conference. And ATTENDANCE helps our chances quite a bit-- our only home losses with more than 1700 fans were by one point against Evansville and a blowout to Wichita State.

We should be headed into this season healthier and deeper than at any time since the beginning of the 2014-15 season. Northern Iowa and Wichita State will be retooling; Evansville will be completely different; Illinois State loses their 1st and 5th leading scorers; and some of our longtime nemesis players in the league-- Anthony Beane, Devonte Brown, Bola Olaniyan, Camyn Boone, Khristian Smith, Dominik Olejniczak, etc.-- have either graduated or transferred. Only three of the top 13 scorers from last year are back. The top four rebounders-- and nine of the top 20 in the league-- are gone.

I think this might be the year we get our first win against Wichita State, probably at home (we've come somewhat close a couple times). I'd like to see us get our first road win at Indiana State, and we'll need sweeps of SIU, Missouri State, Bradley, Evansville, and Drake (maybe sweeping 4 out of 5 of those). That should put us at about 11-7 or 12-6, which should be good enough for the top four in a year where the top programs are re-sorting their lineups.

Has anyone else noted the similarities between this year's team and the 2012-13 team?

That team had 8 newcomers
One of which was a transfer point guard from a power conference team (in Iowa!) - Cully Payne
Also had two freshmen playing significant minutes (White and Turk)
The team had a fifth-year senior in Jordan Hicks who had missed a good deal of time with injuries
They took a trip to Italy and played pretty well there, going 3-1

That year, the Ramblers got off to a 9-3 start including a win at DePaul and a loss at Michigan State by just 12 (I think we led at halftime). We started the conference season with a win at Valpo before some absolutely crushing defeats. We lost something like 6 conference games by 10 points combined. Despite the 5-11 conference record, that was not a bad team.

Maybe we'll take down San Diego St. and St. Joe's - and give NC State a run? A little luck in conference would be nice...

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Sorry for the double post, but I agree with this completely. We'll have to find our way a bit with a lot of new pieces, and I think Wichita and ISUr will both be pretty good. At the very least we need to be competing with UNI, ISUb, and whoever else for 3rd. It starts with burying Drake, Bradley (who should be better), SIU, and Evansville. But the other part is not conceding losses to Wichita. Screw those guys. It's time to stop being so deferential toward them. Take it to them and see what happens.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

OK !! The Spain trip is over--as we are doing on this post---SIC TRANSIT GLORIA !!!!!

We truly must have done well--Undefeated--against somewhat decent competition--Like another coach ours did not go nuts !! Of course he would not--He is far to classy and respects his team and the GAME too much.

It appears we have a decent team which can go to high places. We appear to be quick and fast and a tad bigger. Most of our League competition has LOST key players--We have improved--I think--

We have a nice non-con schedule, one which we can do well against , but one which will set us up nicely for league play--
NOW let us hope the incoming Freshmen Students will get behind this team--the other students were HOPELESS with the exception of the hundred or so faithful ones !! Big things can happen IF this team gets real support.

VAMOS LOBOS !!!!