In our game against Fuman, Loyola scored .88 points per possession while Furman scored 1.22 points. Despite shooting over 56% at one point in the middle of the second half, Loyola trailed by 15.
The past two years, the Ramblers have not valued the ball like they did when they were often at a disadvantage in height, athleticism, or experience. The effort on the switch offs and double teams is not what it used to be. The focus on defense, valuing the ball, and making the most of an offensive possession is not there at all this year.
A lot of times when teams have success playing to value possessions, their stock as a program goes up. They win their conference. They beat some teams with four or five star draft picks. Maybe they have some success in the tournament. And then their recruiting aims change. Instead of getting the second or third best kid on the good high school team, they get the second or best one. Instead of getting 6'4" and 6'5" small forwards, all of a sudden 6'7" guys and transfers are interested.
Suddenly, there's no more room for the methodical, lunch-bucket, hustle guys who don't shoot or leap that well but play their ass off ALL THE TIME and compensate for their lack of physical ability by learning some tricks, hustling their ass off, or specializing on three-pointers, lock-down defense, steals, or a useful combination of all of the above.
Now you've got athletes-- top players on their high school programs who've had some offers to sit on the bench and practice at Power 5 schools. Now you've got guys who-- throughout their athletic experience-- could always kick it into a higher gear physically to blow past a defender, always had one or two inches over anyone in their high school conference, never got taken out of a game to think about a bad decision during their high school years, and played on an elite AAU team with some other D1 prospects.
I think the team needs to make a turn back to discipline, valuing the ball, making every possession important (or at least productive), and translating that collective resolve on the defensive side into points. Yes, we have better athletes now than we were able to attract six years ago. The trick is turning the great natural athletes-- to whom everything has come somewhat easily before getting to this level-- into hard workers on defense who revel in making the play rather than scoring the points.
In my opinion, that's what this team is missing. We have the pieces, we have the talent, we have the potential. But if we play well at home and get embarrassed on the road, it seems clear to me that we just don't have the solid/cohesive resolve.
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