Some Thoughts:

1). Central AK not a great team, but they did play hard. Keep in mind who we were playing.

2) Turnovers were way down. We had 8 at halftime and ended up with 11. The extra possessionswhen we were shooting the ball well was why we were able to score in the 80s.

3). Drew shortened the rotation quite a bit. He is starting to figure out who he trusts. At one point in the second half one of his coaches sent a player up to sub in and Drew yelled No. He seemed to be telling the Coach to let the group on the floor play as they were playing well as a group. This is a big change.

4). The team played at a nice, under control pace tonight. There was more body movement side to side, some nice dives to the basket from off the ball, and our Shooters were ready to catch and shoot in rhythm. It looked more like Loyola Basketball.

5). We still have a lot work to do defensively. We did foul less today, but we are not taking the right angle with the bigs on switching and showing, we are also a bit late on the show. Also, besides Quise and Braden, the rest of the guys too focused on their man. So when a player dribble drives, no one from the wing is showing and angled right to play the passing lane out. Quise and Braden with the drop to the lane got their hands on a lot of balls tonight. We also did a bad job on closing on 3 pt Shooters.

6). Ben and Philip are absolute keepers. The rest of youngsters still have work to do. Remember, Ben has a year in the system and Philip played 2 years of college ball. Experience matters when you are dealing with 2.5 to 3 star kids.

7). DePaul is not a great team, but they are athletic and will be a huge test. It will let us know if tonight was a mirage or truly a beginning.

Sophomore Saint Thomas in 21 minutes has 7 assists, 1 turnover, 4 rebounds, and misses 1 shot. Some LU fans who has never played the point gives him grief. May all our players be perfect.

Go Ramblers!

To embed a Tweet, you want to delete the question mark and all the junk after it: ?s=46&t=4jKIPpTD5g7oFkTNj-mqQQ

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I agree with all of this. We looked a lot better. The shortened rotations lent a lot of clarity to what is happening. You could see at the end of the first half when we had multiple newcomers in, that's when things started to fall apart. When there are four guys with a clue and one who's out of place, that's a lot easier to coach up and hopefully get that guy up to speed compared to having total chaos on the court, which is what I saw in previous games.

It's clear that Norris, Kennedy, Schwieger, Alston and Welch have the best idea of what's going on. We are going to need Golden at that level sooner than later. I did see him directing the defense some (pushing Alston where he needed to be), which is encouraging.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Seemed like he was playing mostly as a 4 last night, that might be a good role for him as a good rebounder and passer. Would love to see him bulk up a little more.

The current Division 1 leader in assists to turnovers ratio is Justin Powell from Washington State with a 6.75 ratio (https://www.ncaa.com/stats/basketball-m ... vidual/473).

Against Central Arkansas, LU’s Saint Thomas had a 7 assist, 1 turnover game, better than the best in Division 1 is averaging this year. I think we should applaud Saint Thomas’ performance, as well as other solid performances by the Ramblers (like Schwieger's 3 point shooting last night) as the year progresses.

I would like him to take more than one shot in 21 minutes.

Plenty of players make an impact without shooting much. Sometimes the shot opportunities just aren't there, and making the right pass is better than forcing a shot up. Seems like that was the case, with 7 assists.