LOTS OF INTERESTING THOUGHTS AND PERSPECTIVES. WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE HOW THE TEAM DEVELOPS, EVOLVES AND CHANGES THROUGOUT THE SEASON. ALL THE NEWNESS MAY CAUSE US AN L OR TWO BUT BY THE END OF THE YEAR IF THEY HAVE ALL FIGURED IT OUT AND WE STAY HEALTHY SHOULD BE FUN

Agree with everybody on rotations.

I also get the matchup with having Hutty/Golden guarding essentially guards, but it also feels like we played right into their style. FDU wanted a boat race, and they got one with all of our 3 point shooting and turnovers.

I would have been pretty happy to see a couple Golden/Hutty post ups. They have to guard us too, and a double on the post would have made some easy shots and also slowed the game down. Weird to me we almost never saw that

I think we all expected some bumps in the road early on. Even with the talent, we've got a lot of new faces. Our best defenders are ones who have been in the system for at least 2 years, so I'm not surprised to see some bad breakdowns defensively. Didn't expect as many as we had, but hopefully it'll get better.

Rotations are usually whacky at the start of the year, and by the time conference season starts solidify the 7-8 guys who play. Last year, we had 9-10 guys that averaged double digit minutes in November and December, and Welch wasn't one of them. For March we had 7 who would play at least 18 minutes a piece, and Welch who would get 8-12. It just takes time to figure out what rotations work, and which ones don't, and that's hard to do in practice.

I think the 3s will even out. I know between the tournament game last year, and the 2 games this year, it's frustrating, but last year we started hot from 3, and it eventually evened out over the season. I anticipate the same thing this year. We may be cold now, but it'll get better.

I'm less worried about conditioning. There's nothing to suggest a sudden drop in what we've seen in the past few years. Between injuries and sickness that we might know or not know, we could just be catching up to being fully conditioned.

My biggest concern is just the situational stuff. Fouling a 3 point shot in OT after going up by 4, turning the ball over in the last minute on an inbounds because we threw it in versus calling a timeout, inbounding the ball into the corner and then getting trapped late in the game. Those are things that can kill you in a game. The inbounding is something to keep an eye on since Lucas did a lot of that the past few years.

BUT, I'm happy we have some actual basketball to talk about again! Even if it isn't pretty, it's nice to have Rambler basketball back!

According to KenPom, our game was the most exciting last night! The "Excitement Score" would be a top 10 score in every year since 2010, so it might end up being one of the best games of the year!

Student section won that game... no question.

I remember the raucous days in old ALumni Gym with the radiators on and Smokey Joe Loftus puffing away on a cigarette in an upper corner of the gym....It did not take many students to get the place rocking...But to see the recent high level, high energy fun loving student section is absolutely awesome. I wonder if there is a story here ...was Porter the guy that brought the students back?, is there someone in the Athletic Department? But I agree the student section has become the 6th man.

I caught the second half and overtime. I'm sad I missed Alston's debut. Is there any word on him for UIC?

Lot's of sloppy play but that is by far the most youth I've seen playing together in a Loyola jersey since I think 2012-13. I think they'll have cleaned it up by conference. We'll probably drop some games all of us expect to win this year, but I had a lot of fun watching the newcomers play. Dawson is fun to watch. I'm excited for Marquise to get back. Those two will give defenses fits if we can hit enough threes to keep the paint open for them.

Despite losing their conference championship game to Merrimack, FDU will be the NEC bid due to a technicality of the D-1 transition process. Interesting that this is the second year in a row that this has happened. With Bellarmine winning the ASUN tournament last year

The hero in FDU’s upset over Purdue just said on TV he started to believe the team could do something big this year when they came to our gym and hung close with us. Quite the complement.

FDU was ranked #301 in the NET rankings and Purdue was #5 out of 363 total D1 teams.

FDU had regular season and conference tournament losses to: Queens Univ. of Charlotte, SIU-Edwardsville, Longwood, Pitt, Saint Peter’s, Hartford (who are leaving D1), Richmond, Scared Heart, Loyola-Chicago, Wagner (twice), Central Connecticut, St. Francis, and Merrimack BUT defeat a #1 seed Big Ten regular and conference champion Purdue!!

Hartford ranked last in D1 had only 2 wins; one of them over FDU.

Unreal!

Loyola’s NET: #269/363