VCU Preview and Game Thread -- 01/23/2024

[JCT]

That is a really tough place to play, and VCU has just peaked in terms of their personnel and refining their systems. Those aren't excuses, they're facts. Bamisile, playing for his 4th team in 4 years, is playing at an NBA sharpshooter level the past few games.

Like others said, I was proud of the way the team fought. Love the energy. Hope this game and the one-week layoff doesn't deter them from having the same effort and energy coming back.

Much better free throw shooting, Miles took another step forward thrown against really strong, athletic, and experienced frontcourt rivals-- encouraging. Another fantastic thing--- out 2-pt defense continues to be elite. We held VCU to 37.8% shooting on two pointers..... Only Houston, out of the 362 teams in college basketball, does better than Loyola defending shots inside the arc.

But the bad things.... How can you let opponents shoot 60% on three-pointers? This is the sixth game where Loyola has allowed an opponent to shoot over 40%, and all are losses..... Creighton, Tulsa, Richmond, UIC, South Florida, and VCU. Only one time when opponents shot 40% or less have we been beaten, and that was when FAU shot 34.8% on threes. Turnovers and fouls are too high (they hit over 80% on 20+ freebies), some of that can be from the heightened energy we play with, but it needs to improve marginally to support the good things we're doing.

[sudikoff]

Tonight's postgame interview with Drew. https://soundcloud.com/ramblersn/drew-v ... al_sharing

Obviously a tough one, but overall encouraging and 2 winnable home games coming up with a chance to be 7-2 at the A10 midway point...

[goodknight]

It would have been great to have won tonight. The boys played tough and although we came up short we stayed in the game.

Drew did pretty well overall

The Breakfast Club seems to be paying dividends. Thank you Drew. The team FT % was 76 tonight.

It was nice to only see 9 TO’s.

Question Drew: Any chance you have a Breakfast Club for 3 pt D?

Hey, still looking much better as a team than last year.

SLU coming to the Joe in a week. I hope we rout them!

[goramblers2011]

Interesting that Tom got 0 minutes and Mwamba only got 3. Thought Mwamba would have matched up well on Bamisile. The Trey Lewis minutes were....odd.

[Mudville21]

Interesting that Tom got 0 minutes and Mwamba only got 3. Thought Mwamba would have matched up well on Bamisile. The Trey Lewis minutes were....odd.

Mwamba was bad in his minutes. He got beat back door and lost Bamisille once. He was lost on defense.

[AMDG]

this strong defense is going to play on the second and third days in a row of tournament basketball

[440Rambler]

Not the result any of us wanted but I think overall pretty encouraging. Got to win Jesuit Jam in a week.

[Sloth84]

This was an encouraging loss - if there is such a thing. Thought we played really well - just didn’t shoot it well (as others have pointed out). Had a few loose ball / funny bounces go against us in the first half that VCU quickly turned into points.

Mwamba was not good in the couple of minutes he played. His lack of awareness cost us on one of those loose balls and he looked bad on that back door play. His zero minutes in the 2nd half is another indication of Drew’s progress as a coach. He’s locked in on his top 6 (after spreading the minutes around early in the season) - and is doing a nice job spotting minutes to JQ Dolan Mwamba and Welch based on match ups or in game performance.

[Mudville21]

Stupid end of the half. 4 plus seconds, Dawson with the curl just shy of half court with a full head of steam and we throw a crazy pass to Alston. Give up a 3 off of TO. Stupid.

Thanks Scott. Heard interview where Drew stated he was telling Tom not to throw the pass (he threw it in right in front of Drew). Love Tom, he has had so many different roles at LU and has always been played out of position as he's a tweener, more of a 4 than a 5. He has always given 100% and has always been a class act and great teammate. Unfortunately he tried to do a bit too much on that play.

[Ohio Rambler]

Just listened to Drew’s post-game interview and think he was spot on that Loyola is playing too much one-on-one basketball. Loyola takes some poor shots and it shows up in the stats and in the W-L column against better teams.