Can't really add much to what's been said. No inside game and cold outside shooting is a recipe for disaster. They did exactly what Notre Dame did in the second half: zone press, zone defense, and we had no answer. Our rebounding was really pathetic. I felt like I was home watching the gamecast of the Asheville game again.

Pretty tough pill to swallow at the beginning of this eight game stretch.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

The zone defense killed us. For some reason Loyola decided it was best to try and screen for the ball at the top of the key against a zone that wanted to trap the corners. It allowed CSU to guard two Loyola players with one CSU guy and let everyone else sag into the middle. It was obivious that it wasn't working yet we kept on trying
The object against a trapping zone is to spread the floor and use ball movement in combination with cutters to take advantage of the zone chasing to the corners. We had size and speed over these guys and it was just god awful to watch that advantage squandered.
I was befuddled to hear Porter yell at Earl to slow down. When do you do ever tell a player to slow down? I think the answer must be to let the other team catch up and play five on five. I guess my inadequate Loyola B.A. and M.B.A. failed to educate me that playing 5 on 5 was a greater statiscal advantage than playing 2 on 1, 3 on 2, 4 on 3 and 5 on 4.
I've seen some God awful losses but this one ranks way up there.

As I said--Porter was out coached --We SHOLD have obliterated the Vikes--Instead we played their game--This one on Porter.

86 is right as far as I can tell.

Speaking of the inconsistency/every other year thing, in seasons that end in an odd numbered year, Coach Moser's teams are 107-78 (.569). The worst years he's had in even-numbered season is a tie at 15-16 with Illinois State in 2006-07 and the same at Loyola in 2012-13. All of his other seasons that ended in an odd number were above .500, and his best season was last year's 24-13.

In seasons that end in an even number (including this one so far), he's 59-99 (.373).

This is my first post - but have read threads over the past year. Yesterday evening was a terrible loss, no question. However, the team has one dynamic player (Doyle) who has not been the same since injuring his ankle in the beginning of the ND game. Couple that with James' injury and you have the potential to lose to almost anyone left on the schedule.

As for being outcoached, I think if you are to make that statement, you also need to give PM credit for the Creighton game where he ran circles around McD. But, in the end its all about the players and right now the 2 top threats are either out or playing hurt. The lack of depth in the frontcourt is just brutal and that is on recruiting. It's hard to find good big bodies at this level - but PM needs to get one in a major way next year.

Overall - this program has some talent, particularly Doyle. Let's hope they get healthy for conference and can make a push to be above .500 in the Valley.

I don't really understand what our zone offense is trying to accomplish, either. We did get some decent looks at threes last night, but they weren't falling. From there we had no backup plan. I'm not the most sophisticated observer, but even a high school zone offense is based on ball movement, cutting, and screening away. Get the zone moving and create space. It seems like it's pretty easy to guard ball screens with a zone if you can't shoot from outside. We let them just jam everything up.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

The knock or Moser has always been his coaching... At ISU he was a terrific recruiter, but really underachieved with the talent he had.

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The Roundhouse

I am a UIC grad with a son at Loyola, so I follow both teams. UIC also got killed by a press and by zone last night against ISU, after holding an 8 point lead in the 2nd half. I guess we are going to see a lot of it in both directions if the coaches are paying attention. Could be a really ugly game, UIC has been turning the ball over like crazy as well. Will be at the game Saturday, sitting on the fence as a fan of both teams.

Yes, we had quite an impressive variety of turnovers last night. Stepping out of bounds, dropping an alley-oop, passing it away, dribbling it away, not catching passes, 3 seconds in the paint, 5 seconds inbounding the ball, 10 seconds in the backcourt...

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MBB Scholarship Chart

This is the third straight December I've made a 3 1/2-hour trip up to Chicago to see Loyola lose to a non-conference team they had no business losing to, with a half-assed, lackluster effort before a lousy, lifeless crowd.

December 18, 2013 - 55-49 loss to Northern Illinois, with a crowd of 1517.
December 3, 2014 - 83-70 loss to Tulane, with a crowd of 1378.
December 16, 2015 - 60-54 loss to Cleveland State, with a crowd of 1189.

I should know better by now than to do keep doing it-- and the trendline of attendance confirms I'm not the only one who's decided that it's not worth considerable effort and devoting most of a day to see a team that doesn't appear to care much. I don't know whether it's the time of year, the opponents, a letdown after bigger games (Creighton, Notre Dame), or what. I did see one win at home against a non-conference team in December-- a 73-70 "kinda felt like a loss" win over UIC on Dec. 7, 2013. That was the year UIC won only 4 DI games, and they were so bad they couldn't beat us even with the crappy sub-minimal effort our guys carelessly dumped out on the court.