Friday, November 18, 2022 8:30 p.m.
HTC Center, Conway, S.C.
Going into the last game of the first day of the 2022 Myrtle Beach Invitational between Loyola and Tulsa, every underdog had taken down the favorite. The two P5 teams, Texas A&M and Colorado, the two teams ranked above Loyola in KenPom, both lost. Boise State, the other top 100 KenPom team in the tournament and the Ramblers' probable next opponent also lost. This left Loyola with a wide open path to winning the event, favored by 7 points over Tulsa. But as the team has done 65 or so times in their last 3 games, the Ramblers lost the handle on it and kicked the opportunity out of bounds for yet another turnover. Loyola lost 85-66 to Tulsa after being tied 30-30 at the half.
Now
Loyola is on the loser's side of the bracket with all the pre-tournament favorites, so it's not going to get easier. Friday's opponent is Boise State, who got smoked by Charlotte, 54-42. In that game, the Broncos scored only 11 points in the first half and trailed by 20 midway through the second half. BSU's leading scorer Max Rice (son of coach Leon Rice) was limited to only four points, and second-leading scorer Marcus Shaver, Jr. was held to nine.
The Broncos lost a lot of players after last season, when they won the Mountain West tournament for the league's auto bid, and worked their way into the AP Top 25. This year they were picked to finish 3rd in the resurgent league's preseason poll, behind San Diego State and Wyoming, just ahead of Colorado State. But they're looking a little shaky in the early going, having lost to South Dakota State in their home opener, and to Charlotte at Myrtle Beach. They picked up a win over regional rival Washington State at home. Boise State sits at 97 in KenPom, down from 83 yesterday. The Ramblers have fallen from 70 to 84 overnight.
BSU is likely to start 6'7" sophomore forward Tyson Degenhart, 6'10" junior center Lukas Milner, 6'7" junior guard Chibuzo Agbo, 6'5" senior guard Max Rice, and 6'2" senior guard Marcus Shaver, Jr. Coming into the MTE, Rice was BSU's leading scorer at 18 per game, and Shaver averaged 16. Degenhart led the Broncos in scoring on Thursday with 14 points, but it took him 15 field goal attempts and some free throws to get there. Shaver was the leading rebounder with 10. Naje Smith, a 6'7" senior forward, is the sixth man-- the rest of the bench players do not usually play more than 6-8 minutes per game.
This young college season has been full of crazy upsets-- Louisville losing to Bellarmine, Florida Gulf Coast over USC, Sam Houston State over Porter Moser's Oklahoma team at Lloyd Noble Arena, Temple over Villanova, Prairie View A&M over Washington State, UC Irvine over Oregon, UC Davis over Cal, Cal Baptist over Washington, etc. Every game on the first day of the Myrtle Beach Invitational has been an upset. Boise State lost their home opener to South Dakota State (a buy game), and Loyola needed a full-court heave and a buzzer-beater to keep from losing their opening night buy game. The backlog of experience because of an extra year of eligibility for the COVID year and the revolving door of the transfer portal has evened out the talent and experience levels, especially in the high mid-major ranks. St. Bonaventure returned four points from last year's team; not four points per game, four total points-- two baskets from an entire season.
But inexperience and a lot of new faces is no excuse for the turnover situation through the first three games. Last Friday's game at UIC was the program's single worst game for turnovers (25) in at least the past 12 years (I don't have the game-by-game records before that). Last night's 22 turnovers has only been exceeded twice in the 350+ games played over the last 12 years. And 18 turnovers in Loyola's first game of the year was the season high in turnovers in several whole seasons over the past decade. So the first three consecutive games to start the season have had turnover totals that would be the worst in a typical season, the worst in a typical a four-year college career, and the worst in a generation-- back to back to back.
Last season Loyola made 404 turnovers in 33 games, which was about the middle of the pack in college basketball (12.2 per game). That was up from 364 in 31 games (11.7 per game) in 2020-21. Through three games so far this year, Loyola leads all of college basketball in turnovers and is on pace to make 715 turnovers in a 33-game season. Until the turnover problem is fixed, there are likely to be several more embarrassing halves of basketball where the opposition buries the Ramblers with 55 points.
Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _Notes.pdfBoise State game notes: https://broncosports.com/gameday/mens-b ... bball/134/TV/Streaming video: ESPN+
https://www.espn.com/espnplus/player/_/ ... 4a6801f31c Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=122&type=LiveLive stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=435064Vegas odds: Loyola by 0.5