Am I going to get yelled at again for saying that this was typical Loyola?

_________________
Cigarboy sucks!

just looked at box score, and to follow up my earlier comments.
We took 12 less shots than ISUb. How slow can you go?
45 total shots vs 57 and only 8 assists. Lots of dribbling....
The other three Valley games were all won by the home teams....
Any updates on Negron and Avery?
I think Custer back will help the flow, and the pace.
Teams scored more PPG when there was no three point line..way more possessions per game.
Not that I think it changes the outcome, but it did seem that I hear the buzzer before Scotts shot. I was watching on TV. The replay I saw did not show the backboard, so I couldn't tell for sure. But it did seem late.
I gotta put this away, time to move on...
Goodnight Moon.

Why do I bother getting excited about Loyola basketball? When will I learn? If Porter can't win at least 10 conference games with this squad....

Tried sleeping on it. Didn't work. Still mad.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

Yeah, that was a tough one to endure. Since I started subjecting myself to this in 1996 the Ramblers have been good for at least a handful of these losses every season. Hell, sometimes the whole season was like last night.

Immediately what I thought of a couple minutes after the game last night. I got tricked so badly into thinking we were going to roll through conference play this year except for the top couple teams. Maybe Custer coming back changes that, but all I can hope for now is Arch Madness and that we don't have to play Thursday so we have a chance.

Custer will help, but there are some real worrying signs.

- The slow starts. Is there an explanation?
- Are our seniors leading? It seems like all the motivation has to come from the coaches. I don't see us huddling up on dead balls and playing like a team. Then you saw the bad shots taken late in game last night. And the offensive rebounds we gave up... effort, focus, energy... we need it on the court. You have to play together.
- It seems like in our best games Krutwig is a force. Need him to keep progressing through conference play.
- We really need Richardson to get it going offensively. He played 30 minutes and had 2 points last night. Vs D1 he's shooting 18% from three

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

I think there are 2 ways this season plays out. Either we keep playing to our opponents level and have bad starts leading to a frustrating and really disappointing year or this game is the wake-up call we need, and we hit a winning streak or two before the season's done.

Call me crazy, but I'm still on the "don't worry we'll be fine" train. I think we'll finish with 10 or 11 conference wins, and stay out of Thursday. Once we stay out of the Thursday games, we've got a statistically significant shot at winning the tournament.

Custer is hopefully returning in the next 2 games. After sitting out for awhile, I think Richardson still needs to get back into things offensively (especially shooting as stated before), but I can see that coming around. To me Ingram has been disappointing so far, but I felt that the past couple games he's shown some signs of getting back to what he was last year. While I'm upset that we lost, all it takes is a game or two for us to forget about it. We always play UNI tough, and I think we can eek one out of Normal with depth. It's going to be a season of ups and downs, so I'm going to try and keep an even head through it.

As of now Richarson really might be best off the bench; he's great on defense but he's a negative on offense right now, too timid, the pass out of bounds mid jump shot yesterday was a prime example. I get he didn't get much in season practice with the newer guys but he just looks out of sync a lot on offense. I don't think it's a season thing, just let him find his own rhythm.

Ahunte I'd also agree about Krutwig. I think part of it is a lot of pressure (probably too much) is on a freshmen big to facilitate the offense. As a freshmen it was only natural he'd have ups and downs;I think we've seen him struggle more recently as a part of natural growing pains along with a lot of added pressure of having Custer out.

It's also fair to say that I underestimated Custer's importance to the team; I looked and he was shooting over 50% from the field, averaging 4.2 assists and 1.3 steals per game against only 1.5 turnovers. Those are pretty great numbers for your true point guard; but the eye test shows it even more; too often the offense looks disjointed; there are flashes where we have great movement, but it's far less consistent than it was.

This is gonna be the whole season for every team in the Valley. There have been a ton of upsets already; the league is well balanced, but (for now) we're a team that's going to get everyone's best shot. We have the conferences best win, we were a sexy pick in the off season. Indiana State didn't jump on the court when they beat Valpo, we're a team that others get up for. We need to play our best game every game. No games off. I was impressed with Donte's energy; he didn't pout, he just played his ass off and single handedly pulled us back into that game. We need that intensity from the rest of the team from first whistle.

If Arch Madness started today, we'd be the #7 seed playing on Thursday against #10 seed Northern Iowa.