Observations and musings from the game.

I had the opportunity to briefly chat with Steve Watson prior to the game. He stopped by the Hall of Fame room to say hello to old friends and supporters. Loyola is in great hands with Steve. We were really bummed to see him go. However, I am thrilled that he is at Loyola. He is a huge reason the Ramblers were invited to the A10.

I really enjoyed seeing the Ramblers in person. Drew has done a good job of recruiting A10 caliber players after the difficult transition last season.. The Ramblers definitely pass the "eye test" in terms of size, agilty, toughness, and moxie. The Ramblers came to play, they did not lack intensity or effort. There was a lot of physicality between the two teams and both defended hard and fought on the boards. I witnessed competitive chippiness between several players. The refs had multiple conversations with the squads. At one point an official said, "There will be no more warnings." The competitive spirit between the teams was evident. Loyola never appeared to give up. The Ramblers are definitely capable of winning the A10 Tournament.

The Bonnies flipped the script on the Ramblers. I had anticipated Loyola speeding up the Bonnies. Instead the Bonnies sped the Ramblers up resulting in turnovers or off balance low percentage shots. The Rambler turnovers and poor free throw percentage were the difference. Bona scored 24 points off turnovers. 14 Bona turnovers only resulted in 4 Rambler points. The other key was the Bonnies free throw percentage.

Loyola missed a number of open looks. I was impressed with their ball movement and cuts etc. They run good offensive sets. It was simply a tough night for them.

I am really excited about Miles Rubin. He just needs to get stronger. IMO the sky is the limit for him. I also like Jayden Dawson a lot. He can shoot off the bounce and has a very quick release. He has all conference potential.

I hope Dayton gets an "angry" Rambler team on Friday night. It's going to be a great showcase opportunity for Loyola. There is a lot of hoops to play. The A10 Tournament is going to be insane. I honestly think that 6 teams are capable of winning it.

If the Bonnies and Ramblers meet again this season, I sure hope it's in the A10 finals.

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Loyola '86
St. Bona '83

Seems like once Miles got into foul trouble the Bonnies went on their run and never looked back. Venning really killed us, and that seems to be the kind of player that gives us the most problems, match-up wise. Might be wise to try to find a big beefcakey post player in the portal.

Poor shooting nights from Des and Sheldon didn't help. I think the turnover problem returning is kind of related to the poor shooting, after some misses I noticed a reluctance to take open 3s, followed by a lot of ill-advised passes.

On the plus side, looks like JD is rounding back into form right when we need him. There was a lineup with him, Norris, Des and Sheldon on the floor at the same time against Mason that seemed to do really well.

Hopefully we get revenge against the Bonnies when it really matters -- knocking them out of the A10 tourney.

Thanks for the "boots on the ground" report, Jimmy Chitwood. Will never forget your game-winning shot to win the state championship.

I agree about Bonnie's speeding us up. I was impressed with their on-ball defense. They doubled/trapped us quite a bit but recovered really well when we passed out of it. Those double traps also led to a ton of turnovers via errant desperate passes and steals.

Also agree on us getting some open looks. Despite the turnovers and bad passes, we did have a few possessions where passed out of tough defense to get wide open 3's for Braden/Watson/Sheldon (the guys we want shooting 3's). Unfortunately, those three struggled to hit from deep tonight. Watson, in particular, had a rough game. He shot 1-6 from deep, 2-5 from the charity stripe and had 4 TOs.

Banks III really killed us too. He shot 4-8 from deep and a massive 12-12 from the FT line. We also had a lot of trouble with Venning, especially in the first half. He ate us alive down low, finishing with 18 points and a very impressive 6-7 from the FT line.

The Bonnies are a tough team. They are VERY capable of winning the A10 tourney. Cut out 4 or 5 TOs, hit a couple of those wide open 3's and make better FTs, and this would have been a very close game. All things we are capable of doing.

I am not sure there is much to take from this game. We played sloppy. We were staggered in the first half when the Bonnies punched back after the opening round. We got careless with the ball and gave the Bonnies the opportunity to run us out of the gym. To their credit, they took it and never looked back. The good news is that we kept fighting and had plenty of opportunities to make runs in this game, but didn't hit open shots. Also, there appeared to be several calls that could have gone in our favor. On to Dayton.

Major suckage losing @ St. Bonaventure, but putting things into perspective it's not the end of the world. We should all remain ecstatic about everything up to this point. As others have stated elsewhere online, traveling to and playing @ Bonnies gym is like getting lost in the bermuda triangle of the A10. It appeared that way last night.

First half was as bad as we've seen all year. This team doesn't win too many games when it gives up 40+ in a single half.

I am in agreement with Drew's evaluation of the second half. It was much improved, guys got great looks, the quality of play was winnable, yet too much was still coming short.

The game got off to a 9-2 start. I honestly thought we looked great those first 3-4 minutes. Then Miles got into trouble, which took him out of the game, and the Bonnies run began. That run decimated us and was the end.

It kind of feels like our squad is preparing themselves right now for Brooklyn, and whether they win the regular season title or not - it is what it is. Lock in, play with the connectivity we have seen these last two months, re-establish with our scorers (Des, Jayden, Phil), and we are in GREAT position to do something really great in a few weeks.

The next impressive winning streak starts Friday.

At the last minute, I was able to attend the game last night after an invite from a St. Bona friend.
My 2 cents--
The SBU defense was the difference in the game. They hard-hedged every screen and Loyola could not solve the double teams, leading to a lot of wild passes and turnovers. On the flip side, LUC switched on almost every screen and Bona slipped a lot of screens and waited the extra second to find an open man.

Venning looks big on TV, but in person, he is a massive post player, he made Dame and Tom look small if that is possible.

Braden played 37 minutes which is a lot to ask based on how much pressure was put on him, it was clear that they were trying to wear him down.

I think Drew is an excellent young coach. Schmitt is an excellent and experienced coach. It showed yesterday.

As others have stated, time to put this one away and get ready for Dayton.

Some of our losses this year have been due to bad play(Tulsa, UIC, South Florida) all the early games some component of new guys gelling ( I believe we run some version of a FLOW offense which takes a lot of decision making as opposed to rote running a play) and there have been a lot of different keys to a lot of the wins and losses but whether we have won or lost the post battle has been a big( factor. Dame and Phil and Tom are for the most part undersized post players and Phil really a forward. Miles is still developing. I think the Bonnies game showed us that one of our priorities this off season will be a big,Big to pair for Miles next year.