Every single team in the country is facing these types of situations. If we are as good as we say we are, we should be able to overcome and win these games. We have an experienced team full of talent. While the scheduling change sucked, we need to be able to beat a team like Indiana State...even on 48 hours' notice.

I thought you had a personality disorder back in 2007-08 when you kept emailing me about the people you thought were tracking and menacing you on the old board. I asked you why you didn't confront them, and you said: "I'm not as spry as I once was." I have those messages still, in case you want me to post them for the public.

I asked some other people why you were kind of nasty about Terrance Whiters' death, and they couldn't figure it but they were shocked.

And now you're zeroing in on me. I tried to incorporate your ideas when I started this site/forum-- I traded dozens of emails/messages about what you thought. I still have those messages. You used to try to corral me at games to ask what I thought about the team. I've tried to do a good job to keep this forum going and somewhat sane. The message boards of SIU, Evansville, Bradley and Illinois State have had hand-wringing drama and some thermonuclear explosions, but I've tried to keep this thing going with sane and literate and respectful dialogue. Yes, there have been several times where my experience downstate (and a couple of cocktails) caused me to make some injudicious comments. (Yet I can't help but stand by those comments, especially in light of the past week in the Nation's Capital).

So go ahead, Swella. I'm not going to-- nor have I ever-- banned you or censored you or even confronted you until this moment. But I'm telling you now I'm sick of your fucking bullshit. You're a weak coward. One of your recent messages revealed you know nothing about the current process for selecting NCAA Tournament teams, but you still tried to use the fragments of your ignorance on NCAA tournament selection as a weapon against me. Pathetic.

I run this site because I love the Ramblers. I started this site in the 90s, because no one else was doing it. I handed it off to Big Joe in 2004 when the athletic department didn't like some things I was writing and another person would have done a better job-- and he did. In 2013, when Big Joe was involved in business and personal concerns and I was living in/familiar with MVC Country, I took the site over again as Loyola joined the MVC.

Personally, I get nothing from this site. All the ad revenue goes into keeping the site online. We've built up a $500 cushion of revenue that might be used soon to update graphics. I've cut down on writing feature pieces because I don't feel like getting more ridicule from a certain former lawyer poster who finds a flaw in every word I write now.

So in that spirit, I nominate Swellafelon to write the preview for tomorrow, and I hope he doesn't mention that Loyola might have suffered from lack of preparation for the game...... because I will mock him mercilessly.

OK... SCRAMBLE!!!!

When every team has to face another team with no notice or prep, who benefits.... home team or road team?

This isn’t what happened in the game though. We were up double digits with 12 minutes left and collapsed like Valpo last year. If it was a difference in preparation, then we would’ve been down big early and middle — not falling apart with an 18-0 run late.

Maybe it's the recency bias that's affecting my judgement at the moment. Maybe it's the bourbon shots I took from like 6 minutes left in the game until well into the night. I will however say that if Porter were to ever leave Loyola for a P5 school, these types of performances will get him fired really fast. I'll use BC as an example because it is a trendy job for him as a fellow Jesuit school with a former Loyola administrator as AD. If he went there, he'll get eaten alive in the ACC by games like this. In P5 leagues, you have to assume at the outset that you'll lose to Duke, UVA, Louisville, Florida St., UNC, Syracuse and whatever other big boys in that conference that I'm forgetting. You can't afford to lose "should win" games like this one where your team is more talented. Quite frankly, if we ever want to be the Gonzaga of the Midwest like everyone was talking about in 2018 and not just merely an above average mid-major fighting for a 12 seed at-large bid, we can't afford to lose them either.

The home team, of course.

But the way this loss unfolded wasn't, in my opinion, because of shitty scheduling changes. We've seen it happen before. Look good, establish a big lead, go on a long draught, panic at the end and lose. We are a better team than Indiana State in all aspects. You should be able to tell us to go play them on the drop of a hat and the result be a Loyola win.

I think it is too easy to blame the scheduling change (although it had a factor). I think we should break this down as a normal game (because this is what a normal game is in 2021). Few massive reasons we lost this game:

1. Offense shut down and no one stepped up to score. As others have said, when we go a few minutes without a point and can't find flow, we should give the ball to Quise and clear out.
2. Krut only payed 22 minutes, struggled from the field early and finished with 11 points and zero assists.
3. Hall, our supposed second best offensive threat, finished with FOUR points and played pretty bad defense.
4. Uguak regressed to his old self...put up zero shots (one free throw), had one rebound and zero assists.
5. We panicked when they pressed and tried cross court passes over and over causing too many turnovers late in the game. Clemons and Braden need to take control in those situations. They are our ball handlers, especially Braden.

I'm with you. Remember the year after Final Four, where we lost at Evansville and Missouri State (two of the worst teams in the league that year) by a combined 64 points? That doesn't happen at P5 schools.

This year, there's even more we don't know than usual, but I don't understand why Kennedy is getting less than 20 minutes a game, especially when our other guards have been inconsistent. If it's defense, I don't know that he's been much worse than anybody else.

Both he and Welch have been dynamite offensively. When the offesne bogs down, it seems reasonable to sub in those guys for Hall and Uguak.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I'd like to look at the tape again to see who covered Key the best, but......

Oh wait, this is what the preview should cover, and that belongs to Swellafellon tomorrow. so I'll wait for his advice.

Agreed especially watching Hall's defensive lapses tonight. I get you're trying to teach/coach a young kid like Kennedy, so you have to emphasize mistakes in order to correct them down the road. Hall as a senior though should be held to a higher standard, and he looked lost at times out there. It's one thing to let him sink in order to figure it out in a game like North Texas where you have a nice lead. I don't understand the logic of leaving Kennedy on the bench especially when you need a spark on offense.