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PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2022 8:41 pm 
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Posts: 129
JCT wrote:
Going into this tournament, the hope was that we'd face Tulsa, Boise State, and Texas A&M. We did, but came out of it with zero wins, 63 turnovers, our KenPom dropping from 70 to 122, and maybe even a damaged psyche.

It was one thing to watch Loyola play this badly back in the days when we had mediocre talent, tight budgets, bad facilities, and a loser reputation. But to see play on the court that statistically you have to go back decades to come close to.... it's amazing.

Somewhere around the middle of the exhibition game, I realized this was not going to be a triumphant year. I saw I had overestimated the skills and abilities of some newcomers, that the players I'd hoped would make huge leaps had not, that the speed and quickness was not there for several players, and there was a whole lot of confusion on the court on both offense and defense. (I was also positively impressed by Alston and Quinn, and thought they had a huge upside).

Now that the benches have shifted over to the other side of the court I get a better look at the coaching that goes on, coach and player reactions, body language and dynamics. It looked pretty ugly in the second half of that exhibition-- Coach Valentine was sarcastic, beside himself, rolling his eyes, mumbling to himself, disgusted by the whole thing. The other coaches looked concerned and scrambling a bit. I thought/hoped maybe it was just the rotations and jitters of the newcomers. Also I thought/hoped that when Kennedy and Edwards got healthy that would make a big, positive difference.

But this tournament kind of stripped away those hopes. This is a deeper problem. I don't know how you go from a program that made valuing the ball such a fundamental part of their mindset-- so much so that it plainly lowered the ceiling for the team several years, I think-- to a team that is on pace to possibly lead all 363 Division I teams in turnovers. It's crazy-- 106 turnovers in 5 games. 119 fouls in 5 games. 127 opponent free throw attempts in 5 games. All of these stats are in the top 5 percent of all teams in college basketball, and we've only played 3 games against average or better opponents.

You can try and say it's youth and inexperience, but Norris' turnovers per game (3.8) is nearly double last year (2.1) and almost three times the rate of his first season at Loyola (1.6). Saint Thomas made six turnovers all last season in 169 minutes played. This year he made six against Fairleigh Dickinson in the very first game of the season. Fifteen turnovers on the season, and he's only played 115 minutes so far. This is the most basic, fundamental skill in basketball.... holding onto the ball. Ball control. Not throwing it to the other team. Not charging into other players.

Take care of the ball. Value the ball. Run plays. And play some defense.


The part about the coaching is potentially concerning. One of the pitfalls inexperienced coaches can get into is overconfidence in themselves to compensate for their lack of experience. I've also been somewhat worried that he's being really hard on players as a way to overcompensate for the fact that he's only a decade older than them.

Drew does have some great mentors in his corner, so hopefully he has enough humility to take their advice and adapt his approach if it's not landing. We will find out as the year goes on.


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PostPosted: Sun Nov 20, 2022 10:34 pm 
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Joined: Sat May 04, 2013 6:28 pm
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Turnovers are certainly a major concern. Another one for me is the play of the Loyola "big" men. They were completely dominated in the game today.
Welch, Golden and Hutson played a combined 35 minutes. They attempted zero shots and each collected one rebound.


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:51 am 
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Joined: Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:32 am
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Lets be honest...we rolled the dice last year bringing everyone back. It got us a Missouri Valley Conference Championship and a shot in the Dance...But left the cupboard somewhat bare and little valuable experience for the youngsters.
Also lets remember Drew is the youngest coach in DI, am I correct and has shown some of that. His technical at UIC when he was stomping his foot. With a young team like this would seem better to protect and encourage the youngsters. Also Drew had mostly defensive responsibilities as an assistant coach. But now that we know what we have I hope a young coach who must be worried about his own rep...is encouraging and supportive of our players. In seasons like this it is easy to forget that no one feels worse than the players. And through some bad losses it sure seems that at this point our players are playing hard and together...just not well. The good news is that we have a high ceiling


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 7:44 pm 
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Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 am
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Earlier I posted a link to how we used to play defense. So, I thought I post a video on how we used to play offense.

https://team.fastmodelsports.com/2021/0 ... breakdown/


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:45 pm 
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Part of the Moser philosophy was offensively to "make the extra pass" and we did but part of that philosophy was to make the other team play defense for the whole shot clock...so they had less energy on offense which made our defense more effective...Remember how we used to complain about no offensive rebounds because we were not going to give up any transition baskets...Offensively one of the changes Drew has brought in is to shoot earlier in the shot clock.
What is interesting to me is that Drew's responsibility was defense and it seems that he has forgotten how we ran the offense led into us being more effective on defense....and thanks for the videos..love to watch em.


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PostPosted: Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:43 am 
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Joined: Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:29 am
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I am a proponent of not necessarily shooting earlier in the click. I believe that you shoot the ball when good shot presents itself. If it is early in the clock great. This only works if your guys understand what is a good shot for them. A lot goes into shot selection. Things like is it shot where the player is comfortable shooting, is he open, did he receive the pass in rhythm. Right now, we are passing on shots or just pulling the trigger or blindly driving into trouble.

Right now we lack a little self awareness on shot selection.


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