Today's interviews https://on.soundcloud.com/mqUc6

Highlight reel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHKiYRmpbm4

_________________
Scott Sudikoff (X/IG @Sudikoff)
Voice of the Ramblers
Men's Hoops Radio PXP (X/IG @Rambler_SN)
ESPN+/NBC Sports Chicago PXP
https://loyolaramblers.com/watch
http://www.soundcloud.com/ramblersn

Hi All

I am a little late, but here are my thoughts:

Ugly. TOs came down from previous game, 12 still a bit high when you consider how and when some of them occurred. We are still getting a few TOs that are forced or careless. We seem to have a couple every game when we have poor angles and try to lob into the post. The way you make the pass into the post easier is to swing the ball and have the big pin the defender on his backside. This has to be cleaned up. We also seem to get key rebounds and rush to get the ball up and throw it to other team. We had one late today when we are up and needed to protect the ball and not give RI a chance to get back. Couple of slow lazy passes as well keep popping up.We have been better, but has to get cleaned up. Officials got a bit crazy in second half. Seems like we called for every infraction, many away from the ball. RI got away with a few that were the same as what were doing. Call them all or don’t call any.

Bad: Our 3 point shooting was not good today at 25% (6-24). With that said, Braden and Dez hit big ones late in the game. Too many fouls again today. We caught a break in that RI was horrible at the line shooting 59.1% (13-22). RI is the worst FT shooting team in the A10. Too many fouls too far away from the basket. Also, seems like Dame and Miles pick up a couple of cheap fouls a game. Miles can be excused as he’s a Freshman, but Dame needs to better.

Good. We got another highly ranked prospect! Strange when recruiting news over shadows another road win for a 1st place team. How things are changing! We shot the ball well on 2’s shooting 45.9% (28-61). If you subtract our off day shooting 3’s it increases to 59.45% (22-37), which is off the charts good and why we won. Dame, Phil and Tom were a combined 62% from 2 (18-29). Many of the misses saw us battling for rebounds which were converted. We had 11 offensive rebounds. Dame, Phil and Tom accounted for 48 points. BTW, Dame must lead the free world in “And 1s””! Our FT shooting is starting to tun into a strength as we shot in the 88.2% (15-17). Phil was 9-10! We have shot in the 80’s several times recently. Breakfast Club Baby! We did have 15 assists, which is a tad below what we normally do, but with the second chance points lowered the amount a little. We won the glass 43-28 and only gave up 5 offensive rebounds to RI. We continued the trend of executing well in the last 5 minutes of games. Kudos to Tom. He hasn’t played much recently, but he was fantastic today He’s a great teammate and he stays ready. Great role model and Culture guy. We have some time off, as we don’t play again until next Saturday. 11 players got into the game today. We have the best depth in the A10. Good time to continue fixing stuff, rest up for stretch run and hopefully get Jaden back on track. He did continue to struggle shooting again today.

Grinding along. Keep stacking wins and gear up for hectic next 4 games when play George Mason (Home), St. Bonaventure (Away and KenPom Quad A), Dayton (Home KenPom Quad A - Net will call is Quad 1), Davidson (Away KenPom Quad B). We finish with La Salle which is struggling, but will be a trap game for us after the next 4. We are now 102 in KenPom and 100 in the net. Bonnies are 70 in Net and Dayton is 19. If we finish strong, we can perhaps jump below 100 in big way.

Let’s GO!

That Bonaventure game concerns me most. It sets up as a big look ahead spot with Dayton at home in a sold out stadium next.

GM at home and off a five day break should be a win.

From the Rhode Island Message board. Someone saying something good about the Ramblers. (I removed one very short sentence that didn't fit)



I would LOVE to be in their shoes. They are playing their best basketball now... They have one of the best young coaches in the NCAA. Remember how positive we were when we won four straight this year? Imagine being 9-1 in our last 10 and 13-2 in our last 15... This board would be going absolutely nuts with excitement.

They went to the tournament in 2018, 2021, 2022. Sister Jean became nationally known. I believe they will return Watson, Dame, Dawson, Rubin with a loaded freshman class. Who knows who else they can land because they can recruit impactful players. Either way, they should be in the hunt for a bid next year and likely the next few years if Valentine sticks around. They are 100% good enough to land the automatic bid this year, too. With the way they are playing, it wouldn't surprise me if they did. They help make this a tougher conference. I'm happy the A10 brought them on.

Most of the thread was pretty complimentary of us. A lot of folks saying we are great addition to the league, they wished their guys played as hard our guys, Drew is coaching his ass off, that we can beat anyone in the A10 and have a great shoot in Brooklyn, etc.

Love to see that. Especially after the abundance of negative comments from other fan bases, including some we beat / swept this year....

In his weekly "Power 36", Andy Katz has us ranked #35: https://twitter.com/MarchMadnessMBB/sta ... _&ref_url=

Probably a bit high considering we aren't even close to the bubble, but we are red hot and certainly trending upwards!

The way I read it was there were a couple of folks on their board (nowhere near a majority) who raised a stink about us joining the A10, and the majority is pushing back on them now that we turned around from last year and look like a good team. They want to slam the door on the complainers that raised a stink. No matter how you look at it, it's a better situation than our entry (and our exit, too, come to think of it) in the MVC.

Miller had similar sentiments about his team's effort as GM coach had about his. I have seen it a few other times. I think Loyola's D may make it look like the effort isn't there.

I appreciate that other fans think we can beat anybody but the truth is we are 0-2 against the top of the A 10 with no truly signature wins throughout the year. We have been bumslayers up to now, feeding on .500 teams in conference.