Hey first look at the team this year. The defensive effort was pretty impressive in that they were able to adjust to the height advantage for the most part. Statistically we got out-rebounded by 2 which all things considered aint that bad. With some steals 7(5) we kind of equaled out possessions.There was a lot of energy on D and that may have to be the game plan to make up for the height disadvantage, which means we have to play guys to keep everyone fresh and we played 9 guys 10 minutes or more and no on looked lost or out of place. Dante Ingram is athletic. Had 5 rebounds in 14 minutes. A little concerning that Milton Doyle was leading rebounder. Montel James looked like a small 6'7. Chrisman still tends to be the glue on defense. Turk is getting better on D.
Offensively ...yikes.....We hit some big threes but there were times I thought we really struggled getting to the hoop.Plus we seemed to struggle against the zone. Also it would seem that Milton will be getting a lot of attention and we will need another option to score. I thought Earl Peterson was supposed to be a scorer but he did not seem very aggressive with the ball. Maybe when Jeff White is back at full strength(he looked a little slow last night) he will be the alternative.
Any way I kind of liked the effort they gave,Seems like a group I can feel good about rooting for.Still have concerns about the lack of bigs and the problems that cause.Still think we need to have some other kind of pressure defense and have other offensive options other than Milton Doyle

Thanks for the report, Nate.

Did we play just a straight up man to man defense, or did we help out when the ball went into the post, hedge on screens, etc.?

I agree we should occasionally switch up defenses. Last year we ran a trapping zone once in a while which I think might be effective given our abundance of wing players this year.

This team should be built to destroy a zone defense. Not to bash CT and James, but it's not like we're going to be relying on a ton of production down low. Turk's production is going to be a key to that. Also, Doyle, White, Richardson, and maybe Crisman could be shooting threats.

Also, definitely belongs in random thoughts, but our road jerseys look ugly as hell. I mean, I get that we're not Oregon, but jeez get it together Loyola.

We used a lot of weak side help on the post and hedged and played straight up defending the screen....I am guessing this depended on the skills of the guy with the ball. Thought they communicated really well in terms of who helped. they seemed really determined to keep the ball out of the paint and pressured the ball well.
I just thinks this all takes tons of energy which they have now but will they later in the season? This is why I would love to see them have some sort of trapping half court zone.They seem athletic and long enough to pull this off. I used to watch Bill Carmody and his NU teams use that 1-3-1 with un-athletic guys to pester some teams into losses..
Seems to be PMs mo.....work,work, work...which is fine if you have advantage but this year the disadvantage in the post I think calls for some creativity which I am not sure is a strength of PM

You're right nate, throwing in some traps at the half court line might keep the team from having to work so hard every defensive set and possibly lead to some easy points on a steal. And we do have the personnel to pull that off.