Texas A&M Preview and Game Thread -- 11/20/2022

[Blers42]

I miss Norris’s confidence and grit, remember that the past two years? He’s timid now and looks uncomfortable.

[RAMBLOR]

I miss Norris’s confidence and grit, remember that the past two years? He’s timid now and looks uncomfortable.

Best we can hope is that he shaves off that soul patch thing, and thus ends the "Evil Braden" era

[goramblers2011]

Hey look, we set a tournament record! Unfortunately it's for turnovers in a game. But they'll be memorialized in the Myrtle Beach Invitational record books.

Only a matter of time before we pop a 30 turnover game.

48 points Friday, 51 points today. That's pretty damn bad. Especially when Texas A&M just gave up 103 points to Colorado. And with our new "fast pace" offense too.

[NuncEstBibendum]

https://insanelygoodrecipes.com/turnover-recipes/

This is amazing.

[ahunte1]

Turned it over on a truly astounding 45% of our possessions, smashing our previous Kenpom era record by seven percentage points!

Previous record: 38%, January 27, 2012 vs Wright State.

Couple more like this and we'll knock the UIC game from last week clear out of the top ten.

[natetheskate]

So if we made no turnovers( Scwieiger and Norris each had 6) and with those extra shots we would have had 21 more point...( figured it with attempted 2s) and shot the same free throw % as TAM would have been 4 more points...25 more points. If TAM had no turnovers they would have had 10 more points... so a gain of 15 points for the Ramblers...and we lose by 1. shift around a couple decimal points and we tie and WIN in OT......gotta be optimistic.
Good news 38% from 3 and we out rebounded them
Their coach is kind of a jerk.

[ahunte1]

Yeah, I mean it's obvious that if we hadn't turned it over so much, we would have been closer, but you're right...

We scored almost 1.5 points per possession when we didn't turn it over. Cutting down 10+ turnovers makes a gigantic difference.

When every single guy is guilty, I don't know how fast it can get better.

[Mertz2003]

Well, that was not great. We knew this would be a transition year, but this is going to be tougher than I expected. Not only are we dealing with almost entirely new players, but it appears that the most talented players are the ones with no previous D-1 experience.

Loyola has always overachieved based on playing incredibly well together, but right now we are trying to get by purely on talent. Having watched a lot of the top A10 teams this year, we definitely don't have the talent or physical maturity to compete on that basis. Hopefully we can build more chemistry over the year and become a functional unit for conference play.

This is definitely going to be a developmental year. On the positive side, there have been some flashes by the freshmen, and Alston definitely belongs at this level. I really would like to see Edwards and/or Thomas become a consistent go-to guy. I think we need one of them to take a big step in order to become a top half A-10 team.

I am no longer thinking about the NCAA Tournament this year and instead just want to see the guys get better and give us optimism toward the end of the season. We will learn a lot about how good of a coach Drew is this year based on how the squad develops.

[JCT]

Going into this tournament, the hope was that we'd face Tulsa, Boise State, and Texas A&M. We did, but came out of it with zero wins, 63 turnovers, our KenPom dropping from 70 to 122, and maybe even a damaged psyche.

It was one thing to watch Loyola play this badly back in the days when we had mediocre talent, tight budgets, bad facilities, and a loser reputation. But to see play on the court that statistically you have to go back decades to come close to.... it's amazing.

Somewhere around the middle of the exhibition game, I realized this was not going to be a triumphant year. I saw I had overestimated the skills and abilities of some newcomers, that the players I'd hoped would make huge leaps had not, that the speed and quickness was not there for several players, and there was a whole lot of confusion on the court on both offense and defense. (I was also positively impressed by Alston and Quinn, and thought they had a huge upside).

Now that the benches have shifted over to the other side of the court I get a better look at the coaching that goes on, coach and player reactions, body language and dynamics. It looked pretty ugly in the second half of that exhibition-- Coach Valentine was sarcastic, beside himself, rolling his eyes, mumbling to himself, disgusted by the whole thing. The other coaches looked concerned and scrambling a bit. I thought/hoped maybe it was just the rotations and jitters of the newcomers. Also I thought/hoped that when Kennedy and Edwards got healthy that would make a big, positive difference.

But this tournament kind of stripped away those hopes. This is a deeper problem. I don't know how you go from a program that made valuing the ball such a fundamental part of their mindset-- so much so that it plainly lowered the ceiling for the team several years, I think-- to a team that is on pace to possibly lead all 363 Division I teams in turnovers. It's crazy-- 106 turnovers in 5 games. 119 fouls in 5 games. 127 opponent free throw attempts in 5 games. All of these stats are in the top 5 percent of all teams in college basketball, and we've only played 3 games against average or better opponents.

You can try and say it's youth and inexperience, but Norris' turnovers per game (3.8) is nearly double last year (2.1) and almost three times the rate of his first season at Loyola (1.6). Saint Thomas made six turnovers all last season in 169 minutes played. This year he made six against Fairleigh Dickinson in the very first game of the season. Fifteen turnovers on the season, and he's only played 115 minutes so far. This is the most basic, fundamental skill in basketball.... holding onto the ball. Ball control. Not throwing it to the other team. Not charging into other players.

Take care of the ball. Value the ball. Run plays. And play some defense.

[ahunte1]

I agree with you, JCT.

Young team, November, whatever you want to say, losing is one thing, but there's really no excuse for playing godawful basketball like this.

I assume we will get better, but the coaches are supposed to have the team ready to play and something is not clicking. People saying the system is complicated.. okay but if we can't run this complex system, shouldn't we do something we're capable of executing?