Mercifully, we get the W that feels a little bit like an L.

It doesn't get any easier from here on out: our next game is at Wichita State (where they're demolishing Bradley 44-21 at halftime) and our remaining schedule at home is basically a climb up the standings... Indiana State, Illinois State, Evansville, UNI and WSU for Senior Night.

Granted I am negative re our team--Sad to say !! No reason to see how our team can improve . Lacking size, we MUST hit shots --We are not, hence mediocre to poor.

Defense can carry a team only so far--

One of the guys said we must change our method--ACCURATE as our opposition has found us out. Same old same old--Other Coaches know this.

BTW--you see what Shocks are doing to Bradley ?? We just are not doing this by even half !! On PM !!!

With how this year has been going I am using happy to see a win. It has been a real struggle and I am just wishing Porter played the younger players more but doubt that will happen.

Why was it such a struggle? They had 12 offensive rebounds to our 4, which let them have 11 more field goal attempts (57 for them, 46 for us).

Arogundade, a Zion native who was recruited by Loyola but chose Drake, had probably his best game as a player-- a career high 12 points for the second straight game.

Until they start counting that toward the standings, I'm not going to worry about it.

A win is a win. I don't really get the negativity from you guys about this one.

Milt played much better. Montel had a huge game. Ingram hit big shots. Kirby looked much better. Everyone made free throws down the stretch. We did a nice job closing it out. Abrahamson hit two tough, contested threes to keep their hopes alive, but we responded.

Plus, we had a nice crowd that was into the game for the most part.

I mean, someone said that we only won because we hit shots? Well.. Yeah. You have to hit shots to win. thats the name of the game.

Good day at Loyola!

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

They won this game for me.

You're welcome, Rambler fans.

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

Cut down on the turnovers and we win that game comfortably. But, a win is a win.

We have four really tough games coming up. It'd be HUGE if we can split them. Most likely, that'd mean wins at home vs ISUb and ISUr. It is possible.

Offensive boards ?? Boards of any kind will help--We have NO height ! That is a huge part of the problem. No Bigs ? Not many wins as a rule .
Porter MUST get us BIGS !!
BTW it appeared THEY were driving the basket on us with their BIG screening us away.
Face it Gang--We almost got smacked again. Our "heart" got us this win--no question.

If we beat BOTH ISU and ISU we could finish well. WE MUST win both.

TURK ?? Could he have been ill ???

Agreed. In conference play, I'll take a win whether it's by 1 or 50. And with UNI's loss to Illinois State, we're essentially 7th in the standings right now. Just take it game by game, and take any win you can get, any way you can get it, to give you the best shot in St. Louis.

I will say, that the biggest thing that still concerns me was still evident in this game: turnovers and poor ball handling. Milt is extremely athletic and can hit some key shots, but I've started to cringe every time he drives into traffic. It feels like the odds are 50/50 whether he gets a shot off or turns it over. He's not the only one guilty of this, but just used as an example. We need to be able to drive to the hoop...I'm just not sure we have good enough ball handlers right now to do it as much as we need to.

Drake has a bad record, but they've been in most of their games this year. Including losing by only 6 to Iowa. Iowa, who is currently ranked in the top 10 and tied for first in the Big 10.

Agree. All true. And again, the defense was exceptional, allowing for just being overpowered by size on some occassions. But the offense mostly struggled and I think that's the reason for the bad taste in people's mouths. The offense needs to make the zones move. I think they're moving the ball much too slowly to do that and not making enough shallow pentrations. And way too many turnovers for that kind of conservative approach.

One head-scratcher for me was the Loyola timeout with 8.7 sec left, allowing Drake to set up a play for a three.