I wasn't able to go, but looks like we lost in overtime. Box score: https://loyolaramblers.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2025-26/depaul/boxscore/6960

Anybody go? Depaul should be pretty decent this year, but it looks like our usual early-season bugaboos of too many fouls and turnovers (and possibly our defense not gelling yet) kept us from winning.

I also see that Amos, Harris, and Young didn't get any minutes -- are they hurt?

I will get back on track to posting game previews and updates when November 3rd rolls around.

Checking box score, Justin Moore stands out.

26 points?

In last year's glimpse his shooting was yuck. No confidence whatsoever at times. Unless DePaul was giving him the open lane all night that seems to be a very efficient 26. 9-15, 2-3, 6-9... Who saw, please tell!

We clearly missed this guy and suffered as a result of it last season.

With all the foul troubles I am going to assume officiating didn't allow LUC to play its tight defense.

Amos had his fingers wrapped, looked like maybe two?

Harris wasn't dressed, but didn't show any signs of an injury. Maybe the same thing that kept him out of the legends game flared back up.

Honestly don't remember seeing Young on the bench (might have missed him)

I did not go, but listened to the game (late first half and all of second half) on the stream.

There was not great flow to the game. There were a ton of fouls called and quite a few people fouled out. Late in the game at a big spot, you could hear Drew yelling at the refs "How was that a foul?" De Paul shot 50 Fts. LU shot shot 32. The announcers seemed like they were not too happy with the way the game was being called. In the end, the fouls are what saved DePaul as they scored 14 points more than we did at the line. With being said, we shot 62.5% from the line and lost by 2 points in OT. Had we shot better at the line, the game was there to be won. We also turned the ball over 21 times. These are the two things that always seem to lurk in the background with our teams the last few years.

There were some good performances with Moore (9-15 from floor, 2-3 from arc, 6-9 FT, 6 assists, 26 points) and Rubin (7-11 from floor, 2-6 FT, 7 rebs, 3 assists, 4 blocks) and Ola-Joseph (5-6 from floor, 2-2 from arc, 4-4 FT, 6 rebs) had a good second half. Foul trouble caused a lot of the guys to play so can't really read into what a true rotation would look like, and all seemed to have a moment or two in the game. Depth seems to a good thing early.

Some great numbers:

FG%: 53.6% on 30-58
3-Pt %: 55.6% on 10-18

When you shoot it like that, you should win, but we could not overcome the the TO's and poor FT shooting (20-32 for 62.5%). You notice, I did not mention the refs because we played better than DePaul, but gave it away with TOs and poor foul shooting.

Overall, with a lot of new faces and first time out, I expected the TO's but it has to be cleaned up. The FT shooting has to improve.

Finally, the new faces logged a lot of minutes totaling 94 minutes. The fewest were by Nic Anderson at 2 minutes.

Other new faces minutes:
Ola-Joseph: 27
Tavarez: 25
Love: 13
Richardson: 7
Dotson: 22

Some of these minutes may have been limited to foul trouble.

Justin looked great, played with a lot of confidence. Got to his spots very well. Didn't have the best game when it came to ball security, but that was more on the entire team, not just him.

Not sure how to feel about the Refs, they did have some questionable calls, but the guys didn't help themselves either, a lot of silly mental mistakes leading to fouls. (Main one that comes to mind is Miles going to set a pick, and he just shoves someone from behind with both hands)

In the Ramblers Roundup podcast that Sudi posted, Drew said that Moore had been working with Clemons on his shot mechanics. Seems like Houinsou's jumper has improved as well -- if he can use it like Aher used to, that would really help keep opponents honest when he's off the ball.

CT talked it about it as well during the broadcast (sometime in the 1st half)...
https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Archi ... pe=Archive

I went to the game, paid very close attention to minutes, rotations and even when DePaul was rotating their guys/when their best players were on the court. Because I did this I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of the game. Feel free to ask about anything, but here are some notes I have:

• About 60-70% of the game, the scoring would tell you basically nothing because either Loyola or DePaul had a rotation out there that would never actually play in the regular season. So given that, you can take a pretty big grain of salt with a lot of this game

• Our shooting looked fantastic. If they shoot at that clip this season they are going to be very tough to beat. Just by shooting percentages alone, Loyola was clearly much better than DePaul

• The refs were actually that bad. I get that there were moments where Loyola looked undisciplined, but particularly down the stretch when DePaul "came back", that was primarily just help from the refs. I would guess that at least 75% of their points in the final 3 minutes of regulation were from the free throw line, and some of the calls were extremely questionable or just unnecessary

• Turnovers/ball security seemed to be lacking at moments. Oddly it was primarily from Kymany and Rubin, which seems pretty uncharacteristic, so hopefully it is not a huge problem to worry about

• Now the big plus from the night that no one is reporting, but I am sure the coaches know because they kept track, when it was Loyola's top guys against DePaul's top guys, Loyola was clearly better. The first 8 minutes of the game opened with this and Loyola was up 17-13 before the rotations began to shift for both teams. The other moment of the game where it was this setup was to start the second half (barring that DePaul made 1 change to their lineup). In the 7 minutes to start the second half, Loyola outscored DePaul 16-7. CJ Gunn for DePaul, one of their best players, fouled out fairly early in the second half, so was never really another good chance to compare apples to apples the rest of the game. But basically, by my count, when it was top guys vs top guys, Loyola won 33-20.

• I think this team is going to be really good if there is just some semblance of better discipline when the regular season rolls around. Usually in November I am not pleased with how prepared the team looks, but this offense actually looks like they know what they're doing already which is exciitng

Thanks for this! Any guess as to what the starting lineup/rotation might look like? Obviously Amos and Harris were out, so not sure how they fit into things.

As I stated in my earlier post, I listened to the game (late first half and all of second half). I can't comment on your comment about the beginning of the game, but LU did come out on fire to start the second half. I think they had a 9-0 run to start the second the half. After reading your comments, I am even more encouraged about this year's team. I think our depth and talent level are good and this early, with all the new faces, I expect some of the rough edges (TOs, lack of some discipline leading to fouls). These are things that when you have talented guys who work hard that can be corrected. Lack of talent can't be corrected.

I spoke to Clemons at Sister Jean's wake service and he was very upbeat about this year's team and the new faces and freshmen. Hopefully this group will buy in and put the work in to smooth out the issues. Need a fast start in pre-conference games and can't afford "bad losses". Hopefully, the entire A-10 will perform early so it can get some respect and make those conference wins more important from a KenPom and Net standpoint.