Great fight by Alston to make the play at the end. Hard to think this team pulls out the W with their 2nd leading scorer and top rebounder playing.

Lotta room to improve still, but the conference is wide open.

Had to win this one at home….and somehow we did. Unfortunately Couldn’t attend - it must have been madness down the stretch. UMASS took some of our medicine and missed a couple FTs down the stretch. And then Phillip finally realized he is the best athlete on the court - and would not be denied. Please Phil - hit the glass like that on a regular basis!! If you do you can probably average 20 and 10!!

If they had made the 2nd FT to go up 79-76 he was going to use the timeout. At 78-76 decided to let it fly.

https://soundcloud.com/ramblersn/umass- ... al_sharing

_________________
Scott Sudikoff (X/IG @Sudikoff)
Voice of the Ramblers
Men's Hoops Radio PXP (X/IG @Rambler_SN)
ESPN+/NBC Sports Chicago PXP
https://loyolaramblers.com/watch
http://www.soundcloud.com/ramblersn

Heart stopping win! Crazy game. The Good, Bad and Ugly:

1. Ugly: Our FT shooting was ugly. We were again under 70% at 67.7. (21-31). And several were front ends of 1-1. In this league and how many close games get played, this needs to be cleaned up. At this point, its got to mental. The Officiating never let this game have any real flow to it. 48 fouls called in the game with a total of 55 FT shot between the two teams. Some were fouls, but a lot of them were cheap (both ways).

2. Bad. We had some great opportunities to stretch a couple of leads and had a lot of empty possessions. Several were times we just rushed, drove into traffic or took a crazy shot. We want to play quick, not fast. Just out of control a few times. Defensive rebounding was not great. We gave up 16 offensive rebounds. They shot 41.4% (24-58). Take away the offensive rebounds and they would have been in the 30’s. They had a few too many open looks from 3 and they are not a team that shoots a lot threes. They shot 40% (8-20). When you double the post, some open 3s will happen, but a couple were us going underneath the screen. We do this a little too much.

3. Good. Terrific , no quit effort! This group has become mentally tougher before our eyes. You have to give Drew credit for this. We are sharing the ball and had 20 assists on 26 made baskets. VERY Good! We only had 12 TOs tonight. You would like to be at 10 or below, but I can live with 12. Let’s talk bench. Dolan’s best performance tonight on a night when Dawson was in foul trouble. Combined they scored 15 (Dolan 8, Dawson 7), so from a scoring standpoint we still got 15 points out of what is in essence Dawson’s slot. I believe is about 2 below what Dawson has been giving us in A10 play. Quinn only played 14 minutes, but he scored 5 and 5-6 from the FT line. Let’s talk starters. Phil was in beast mode and for the second game in a row he really came alive late. Watson, despite not making a 3, found a way to get 15. The two of them were human highlight reels at time, including Alston last play and 1. Rubin was terrific. Stats said he had 3 blocks, I think they shorted him. Sure felt like he had more. We are a different team when he is on the floor.Norris was steady and despite the constant pressure held up fairly well as primary ball handler. I can excuse the 4 TOs as he was being harassed all day. He only scored 8 points, but he had 6 assists, 3 rebounds, and 1 block. Things are looking up and everyone seems to be buying in. Drew has re-ignited the “Culture” and we seem to forging an identity now. Less hero ball, more team play. I like it.


Final thoughts. Need the game Saturday against Fordham on the road. It get tougher after that with a road game at VCU. Need to keep handling pressure and work on our Zone offense. Have a feeling we will be seeing more of that until we show teams we can spread a zone. Tonight we beat the zone with dribble penetration and quick passed to cutters. Overall, as I said in the past, I have been hard on Drew but things seem to be improving, we still got some warts, but nothing that a little Compound W can’t cure.

At 12 TO’s, you can still win some games, but with 24 fouls, and 2 guys fouling out, and FT under 70% (67) we were a little lucky tonight. Especially that we won it before any possible OT. Norris was over 36 minutes and I don’t think he would have been too ready to play 5 more minutes. Maybe earlier in the game he would have hit that open 3 at the end?

Alston had fire in his belly tonight. Took us to victory. 23 pts, 4 offensive boards.

The UMASS big Cohen played calm cool and collected and although his 28 points trumped our guy Alston’s 23, our guy put in the last point when it mattered.

JQ no turnovers in 14 minutes of play. Maybe that is something promising? 5 pts and a steal.

Dolan in 17 minutes put up 8 pts and played smart possession ball and a steal, although a turnover did slip in. Overall, he tends not to hurt us. Calm and cool with the ball.

Miles again a good game, 3 for 3 with the 2 pointers, 3 blocks. If he were a businessman, I would say he is going places.

Although Watson fouled out he had 9 rebounds, 15pts, but 0 for 4 from 3 range.

2700 in attendance not too bad considering a weeknight and a bit too cold for some. At 4-1 now, we aren’t the doormats of the A-10 this year. Finally a better feeling about our team. Drew played 10 guys and the time outs and the rotations kept us in the game all night. We won another one tonight that we would have lost last year.

I think this is a team that has to be intense every night to win. They have enough talent to compete with everyone (maybe not Dayton) but not enough that even the bottom of the conference can't beat them if they are not on their game. It's nice to have relevant basketball again. It's a pretty quick development in only the second year of A10. I believe it mirrors our first two years in the MVC

Cohen was not in the game for the last few seconds, making it easier for Alston to do his thing. (I assume Cohen was taken out to better guard against the three.)

The Ramblers will see a lot of zone defenses if they don't improve against them.

Looking at the film, I may be wrong about Cohen not being in the game at the end.

Also great to see the contributions from guys who will (/should) be here next year and beyond--Rubin, Dawson, Watson, Quinn.

Anyone know if there's a chance Alston has one more year? "Covid year"?

I think since he was in D2 for 2020, the extra year doesn't apply to him. Obviously if there's some leeway to appeal or something, Loyola should do it. The 4 spot looks like a massive hole to fill next year, hopefully the portal continues to be kind to us.

As for the other need for next year, I thought JQ quietly had his best game. Decisively went to the hoop and drew fouls on about three straight possessions.