Absolute ref show - felt like I was back in 1990 watching Mahorn and Laimbeer mauling Jordan there. The one working along baseline and our side of floor was abysmal. Too bad he never came by the water coolers for a refreshment.

More minutes for Edwards please. Its absurdity.. That’s the shooter and instant offense we’ve been missing all year.

Didn’t get the substitution patterns and lineups throughout this game. I’d be pissed if I were Hutson. Hopefully next few games he gets the opportunity to pull a hoop down onto the floor.

Golden looks confused every time he’s fed the ball. “What am I supposed to do?”

FT’s for the L and it’s bonkers our %%% hasn’t improved over the last 4 years.

Beer lines empty and inactive. Aramark was kind to give me two beers on the house for their junk card reader not working. Not surprising, but surprised by the kindness !!!!

My thoughts:

1. This was an ugly game by bith teams.

2. We can complain about the fouls or lack thereof, but we shot the same number of FTs they did. Now, we maybe should have shot more, but we missed 10 FTs tonight. Some front end of 1 and 1s I believe. Bottom line, we shoot FTs better we win.

3. Our 3 pt shooting has disappeared. Braden is lobbing up bricks on open 3s. It looks to me like his legs are shot. Reminds me of the year after Custer won Mid-Major POTY. Teams rode him hard and he just struggled most of the year. The guys making 3s tonight, Alston and Edwards. Let's hope Edwards can use this as a confidence builder heading into rest of years and next year. Let's hope Drew rewards him with minutes.

4. This was a another winnable game we let slip by. I have come to realize that the A10 maybe better than the MVC, but it's not the greatest conference. I don't think it will take that much to get us to the top. Fordham is in the running for 2nd place and quite honestly, they did not impress me.

5. Learned a couple of things tonight from some people in the know. Quise is really beat up and just trying to get to end of the year. I remember seeing him as a junior and senior at Brother Rice and his first couple of years here. He's just not the same player physically; and⬇️

6. The 3 seniors, Norris, Kennedy, Welch have refused to be honored next week for senior night and are all planning on coming back. You can decide if this is a good thing. Love them all, and would love to see them go out under better circumstances, but is it time to move on. I believe next year this team needs to be coached differently. Depending on who else we bring in whether addition Freshmen or transfers or JUCO kids, they need to play. Jalen, Jaden, Treyvon, Ben all need to play. We can't continue with the mindset that the 3 seniors must play. Build the next great LUC team!

7. Hang in there everyone. It's been a tough tear, but we'll be back and the greatest time of the year is fast approaching, namely... MARCH MADNESS.

"Absolute ref show - felt like I was back in 1990 watching Mahorn and Laimbeer mauling Jordan there. The one working along baseline and our side of floor was abysmal. Too bad he never came by the water coolers for a refreshment."

Ha, after we got on them a couple of games ago, the refs must of talked about our section by the water.!

On the subject of Braden’s minutes…if you take the last 2 seasons and look at games decided by 5 points or fewer, his minutes go up sharply vs the average for the season.

I agree he is totally worn down in my opinion.

Most of the time it's too loud in the arena to really get after the refs. At least where I am on the baseline.

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I'm probably repeating myself, but this is how I felt when we joined the league. Watching some A10 games in the past, mostly through the lens of watching SLU, it's like watching a ten car pileup. It's way too physical. You have to crash through bodies to win.

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I'm still peeved about Hutson, even after posting my overly emotional postgame thoughts last night. If I were him, I'd be looking to get out as it seems there's nothing he can do here to earn PT.

I think Welch is a tough kid and had a great early part of the season. But what has he done over the past month or so to earn minutes over Hutson? He hasn't scored double digit points since January 21. He is 0 for his last 12 on 3-point shots...3-17 on the year...and hasn't made one since the Harvard game, so he isn't exactly 'stretching the floor.' He is undersized on defense on constantly fouling because of it (or because he finds himself out of position). And yet, he is still getting 15-20 minutes a game while Hutty languishes on the bench.

Make it make sense.

From what I've heard, I fully expect Hutty to leave, and who could blame him. And no, it doesn't make any sense to me either. If I was Drew I'd be begging him to come back. He seems like a great fit for the frontcourt next year with Alston, Rubin and Welch. We could really use his size on defense allowing Rubin or Alston to play as more of a rover and hunt down blocks. And on offense, when he is not hesitant he does a lot of great things.

My suspicion is, he's slow, and Drew wanted to play fast this year, even though that was abandoned within weeks because it completely failed. It seems to me Drew's worst qualities as a coach are his petulance and stubbornness. The former is not surprising given his youth, and the latter was not helped by the "wunderkind" status bestowed upon him last year when he underachieved with 90% of Porter's best team coming back.

That being said, I would be thrilled if the three super-seniors come back. The issue is, can they accept roles in which they can be successful, or is Norris going to play 40 minutes of ineffective ball every game again? Will Drew recognize that he plays better off-ball and be able to actually implement that? Will Welch be OK off the bench -- Kennedy too if his health doesn't improve (speaking of which, if he's coming back, why not shut him down at this point)? Will Kennedy get the push/motivation to become the playmaker we all thought he could be?

The main target in the portal should be a experienced backup PG -- doesn't need to be a guy with huge upside, just a reliable ballhandler and a decent on-ball defender. Next priority should be trying to convince Hutty to come back, and try to get Wes Rubin to re-commit. Could we use another lengthy wing?

I'm telling you, the issue is not as much about the roster as Drew needing to mature as a coach, and I think a shakeup on the staff might be necessary to achieve that. Is the roster perfect? Of course not, but anyone can see Drew is not putting them in positions to succeed. Rotations make no sense, basic issues take way too long to correct (see the press issue from earlier), and more inexperienced coaches run circles around him in-game, both with adjustments and working the refs.

And Drew's petulance seemingly causes him to play favorites and get into weird interpersonal conflicts with players. For example, it's crazy to think about now, but Saint Thomas actually was one of Drew's guys at the beginning of the season, and we were all mystified at how he was getting so much PT despite playing so terribly. Fast forward a few weeks and the relationship blows up like a pair a jilted lovers. That's the downside of Drew's "player's coach" thing, it just gets weird because eventually there is only so many minutes available, and some players will really resent when the buddy-buddy act goes away. Drew himself has mentioned multiple times now that he has struggled to get the team to focus in practice/walkthroughs.

It struck me how much the announcers on the TV broadcast last night were confused on what was/was not a foul last night. The dunk attempt by Golden sticks out as one that they and I thought should have been a foul but there were times someone (from both teams) would look at another player funny and they would call a ticky tack foul.

I’ve never really had an opinion on Hutty either way. He’s had games when he helped us get to a conference championship game, and a monster game against ASU… and he’s had games where he looks completely lost and outmatched.

All I know is
1) we need to get bigger in the future
2) we need to develop (both personnel and style) for the future.
3) this season, whether 4,5 or 6 games left, is not OUR season to make noise.

If I were coach, I’d start and play primarily with:

C- Hutson
F - Golden
F - Welch
G - Alston
G - Norris

Forget worrying about foul trouble. Just run the biggest lineup you can. See if you can muscle and rebound your way to wins. That’s what we’re gonna have to do next year anyway.

Rotate Ben, Kennedy, Wilson or whoever to give starters short breaks. At this point it hurts nothing - and it throws teams off with a different look.