I don't understand this concern. UIC's smallball lineup gave us fits in the first have and we adjusted well. Schweiger gave us the ability to play a bigger small ball. "growing pains on the sideline" about a game in which we looked bad and went down by 10 in the first half and then adjusted at halftime to win by 18. Are you really complaining that Drew made the adjustments necessary to win?

One thing that surprised me a little was that Chris Knight didn't get a few more minutes. It seems he is a smart player who is very good at slipping to the basket. UIC was pushing their D very high, maybe trying to push us off the 3-pt line, so it seemed a guy who could slip to the hoop might be a real problem for them. My only concern moving ahead to the Michigan State game is that we haven't played anyone with a 200 Ken Pom rank or higher. I hope we can adjust quickly to that level of play.

This happened with around 2:00 remaining, I believe.

It just never really occurred to me that the shot clock wouldn't start until the inbounding team touched the ball. But of course it does not because the referees use it to monitor the 10 second backcourt rule.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

I didn’t say anything about the adjustments. What I wrote is that he needs to play more players and that’s where the growing pains are. I think he coached that game not to lose. It happens, we saw it w PM for 5 years as we milked clock and squandered leads to lose late. I think PM coached not to lose back in those early days.

If you’re confident in your team, you’re not playing Lucas and Uguak as much as you did in this game. Whenever we get Clemons back, you’re looking at a 7 -8 man rotation depending on the team we play.

Right now, in my opinion our young coach is trying to make this year a statement season. He’s gonna ride those 7 the way Thibs did for the Bulls! That’s fine — it might work and the team may have another deep run in the tourney.

I think he will ride whoever his best seven/eight are at any given moment. That's just how you win games. I don't understand at all the idea that his rotations for the second half of this game displayed a lack of confidence in the team. It displayed that he had a match up advantage and was going to use it to run the score up. Your derogatory tone towards relying on a core of experienced players to win basketball games befuddles me. And besides, the person who he utilized the most is a newcomer! Not even a sit-one transfer. Maybe there's a moral victory somewhere in dropping a home game to a worse team and rival because you wouldn't adjust your rotations in the name of "confidence in the team" but I think we can safely say Drew is not a minor league coach.

Sorry but this doesn't make much sense. It was a smaller rotation because UIC went smallball on us. It's not like we're going to just not play our big men for the rest of the season.

I’ll try to be clear. I was not complaining about his rotations. I was pointing out that he played 2 extremely experienced players too much in the game. And that was at the expense of even 3-4 minutes for St Thomas. I am not saying Lucas should’ve played 20 minutes - only that he should NOT have played 39 in a 18 pt victory.

I also said - after Drew watches the film, he would not make that mistake again with Williamsons playing time. He is a young 1st time head coach and on Saturday I saw the first deer in the headlights moment. This is Normal. He’s never been a head coach before! It’s hard. And - I think he will continue to get better, just like this team.

I think UIC did three things that dictated what we did. 1. They played small....I dont think Hutson, Knight, Thomas could have guarded the guys that UIC used other than the freshman, Skolibj. but we switch on screens and he would have been isolated on a smaller guard. as was, they tried to post Norris on switches....but Norris is tough. We were kind of forced to play small to make sure on switches we still had decent defensive matches. Will be interesting as many teams are playing a similar 5 out concept with simple screens and isolated cuts... 2. Defensively they only doubled on screens momentarily and played one on one and covered the long skip passes not giving us the 3s....so we took what they gave us...the one on one drives to the basket. Just the opposite of Coppin St who double so much we almost always had a man open for the 3..UIC stayed close, within arms reach for 90% of the game...Didnt they have it within 8 points at the 3 minute mark.....
So we played a fairly decent veteran, well coached squad and had a decent win..
Side notes...I do not think we will see much of Thomas as the year goes on. and when and if Clemmons gets back to say 15 minutes we will see better rotations...
We are lucky to have someone as versatile as Tate Hall and since he was pretty much our center in the 2nd half and is Lucas WIlliamsons replacement most the time,,,it kind of left us playing Lucas.

We did play a scrimmage against Wisconsin. Plus this Loyola team is stacked with experienced veterans that have competed against current NBA players.

FGCU is ranked 197 now!

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart