This game may have cured me of any semblance of hopefulness for this season.

At least we'll get a good draft pick for next year.

That's ten points better than Saturday.

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I was critical of the Drew hire at length on this board when it happened...seeing this happen with 2 major pieces still playing from last year and sweet the 16 team is really disturbing.

Much more difficult conference doesn’t help either.

The turnovers and lack of offensive productivity is killing us. Alston and Schweigs the regular shotmakers. Braden finds and then loses his 3pt touch. Welch takes the occasional shot but not a lot recently. Golden seems most improved though I think his defensive play is lacking which I don't get cuz the Big East is just as fast if not faster play. Not impressed with Thomas' play hence why he no longer starts or gets regular minutes. Same with Hutty. Kennedy seems a step slower since his injury, just not as explosive as last few seasons.

I agree this has turned into a total rebuild year, give the young guys Quinn, Shweigs, Hutty, Thomas et. al. the playing experience. Getting basically blown out in our first two A10 conference games shows how far behind we are based on our current veteran talent pool. Not sure how we got here or why the coaching staff isn't correcting these issues but it's frustrating as a fan and season ticket holder.

Will the new Dean have the patience to keep pumping millions into our basketball program?

If they show improvement in the A10, yes. It drives enrollment and school spirit, especially the way they've been marketing it lately.

Hopefully we can live on the hump from the MVC final four and Sweet 16 years, not sure how much our share was but it must've been a decent haul.

The killer for me is the mistakes that just shouldn't happen. 10 second violations, inbounds violations, awful FT shooting, near impossible passes that get picked off, and the defense of year's past is all but forgotten. They came out of a timeout today with a shot clock violation, that just can't happen.

Everyone is young, most Ramblers fans are nothing if not patient, this season and next could be a slog, but hopefully we see improvements and eventually it clicks.

1. In losing Williamson and Ugak we lost two elite defenders and broke up a team that has had interchangeable parts on defense. We have tried to play the same defensive scheme with players who do not have the skills to play like that.We would switch on all screens and there were no mismatches except occasionally Norris would end up defending the post. We now have several players who cannot guard every position and all over the floor. We got away w/o a center last year..and no shade Tom Welch's way. He is a smart player but is not a physical defensive center. I think he over achieves but still...
Offensively we just do not have a real shot creator or anyone who can demand a double team like Lucas Williamson. While I think a change in defensive scheme would help..I do not know what they can do offensively. We no longer have the personnel to run a 4 guard one center offense...
I noticed WIlson has been getting more time and looked good today. Dawson not so hot today but looks like he belongs. Quin looks like he belongs. At this point Thomas is not giving us anything.
This is the first year that Coach Valentine has experienced adversity...Big test for him..
But as others have said...I hope the fans keep the faith cuz the game day atmosphere is the real prize in all this. Coming together as the LU community.

Hard to add on to what has already been said. Incredibly frustrating and disappointing season thus far, especially considering what seems to be a high level of talent (on paper) on the roster. Can hope this is a rebuild year to gear up for next season with nearly everyone back, and maybe improve enough to make a run in the conference tourney and have a couple upsets in the regular season. Really just hope this doesn’t affect attendance at Gentile, which is what makes Loyola and the atmosphere so special.

They also posted post-game comments tonight which is atypical, so thought some would be interested to see what Coach Valentine has to say:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QB7AMSzluHk

Thanks for posting the link. I wonder what was edited out in the middle.

Anyway, Drew said something I was going to mention last night which is we can talk about having new guys, some freshmen, etc. but we have seniors turning it over 5x a game. Braden, Marquise, and Welch all have multiple games with 4-6 turnovers. At this point in the season there's no excuse for it.

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