Well, we won an ugly-ass rock fight. Thank God for Jalen Quinn (his best game this season, IMO), Sheldon Edwards, and Tom Welch. Revenge of the End of the Bench. (Just looked at the plus minus, and it was Quinn +18, Edwards +14 and Welch +14 in only 16 minutes while fouling out.)

Chicago State was super-pumped up. Saw Scott Spinelli, the Evil Genius, jawing with the players in the TO like he wanted revenge for being passed over in 2004.

Rubin showed some weaknesses and Dolan was not quick enough to keep up with the swarming/chaos defense. Dawson had a bad shooting night. Watson had a terrible first half and turned it around completely at halftime.

The adjustments after the under 12 TO were really effective... Cardet (their top scorer) was 0 for 4 in the second half and held scoreless. Quinn played every minute of the 2nd half and had 11 of his team-leading 15 points. Welch is one of the strongest (both mentally and physically) players we've got on the bench, and his 16 minutes-- all in the second half-- set the defensive tone that turned the game around.

Gross game. Was hoping we would come out fired up and looking for momentum after the spirited BC win. Instead, we were flat and uninspired. Thank God for the "End of the Bench Squad" for saving us from a loss that'd be mocked by national pundits.

Harvard is only a few spots below us in Kenpom (maybe above us after today's result is reflected). Great chance for a solid non-con win and revenge for last year. Hopefully we are a little but more ready from the jump than today.

Tonight's postgame interview with Drew: https://on.soundcloud.com/i2mPS

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Seeing Edwards and Watson on the court at the same time was entertaining. Drew needs to do that more often. both can attack or shoot from the outside...would keep defense on their toes.

Glad they got a win but i worry last night did more harm than good to the program. It seems student and fan support is already waning and I'm not sure grinding out a win against Chicago State does anything positive.

Saturday I think will be an interesting litmus test for student and fan support, hope to see a big turn around both on the court and in the stands.

Definitely. Booking games with Chicago State and next weekend with Goshen College (who? Google them) does absolutely nothing for us. Who would ever buy tickets or drop an entire evening for these two?

#5 Kansas only beat Eastern Illinois by 8 after we beat them by 24. Sometimes games like this happen, especially after the holiday break. Hope a more focused team shows up Saturday. Any word on Alston?

On the post-game interview with Drew (link a few posts up) he made it sound like Alston was almost ready for last night's game but they decided to rest him one more.

Interesting game. There was one lead change in the entire game.

It was a trap game. It was a Tuesday night game against a team that is the Washington Generals of Division I basketball. We were heavily favored. Chicago State was the only ones excited to be there. They were inspired early. We looked like we celebrated the BC game a little too much.

It was the first real cold night of winter - sparse crowd. I think we would have lost this game last year.

We didn't shoot well in the first half. 35% from the floor, 33.33% from 3 and 50% from the free throw line. Truly, uninspired. Chicago State made a miracle 3 at the buzzer. Brutal.

We played better in the second half. We took it to the rim and hit our free throws. There was a Sheldon Edwards sighting, which I find intriguing.

At the end of the day, Drew squeezed this victory out the team.

1.The transfer portal have made every team a possible threat. and when like CSU you play with great energy and aggressiveness, every game needs to be taken seriously.
2. This team has had some good moments in spurts....but what they have shown is the ability to play hard and pull some wins from the loss column. I think both the BC and CSU game could have gone the other way if we had not continued to fight.
3. Having teams with many new faces presents a set of problems, figuring out rotations, trying to find minutes, discovering the skills of the new players, whether to use systems to fit the new guys or try and get them to fit the previous system.
4. Only time will tell how we fare this year in the A-10. At our current level we may struggle...
5. I hope win or lose this year we keep the game day atmosphere going...We have a team of kids who committed to play at LU,,,and play hard...Hope things gel. Will be interesting to see.