Evansville Preview and Game Thread -- 1-8-2019

[jmiller2794]

Disclaimer: I watched most of this game with the sound off so I can't really accurately comment on the announcers. However, I disagree with the Duke comment. We may not be a consistent national power yet, but we are definitely an established national brand and (no offense to the rest of the conference) the biggest attraction in this conference by a wide margin. It might be weird to think about for us diehards from the dark ages of Loyola basketball, but that one monumental season radically changed the whole program. Even for the younger among us, remember that first year in the Valley? Definitely a building year for us just like this year is for Evansville, but Wichita State was coming off a Final Four appearance that year. Yes, Wichita State was better that year than we are this year and they didn't have as dramatic of a turnaround into a winning program as we just did. But could you imagine how big it would have been for our program to beat them by 20 that year? So as much as the loss is disappointing, hats off to Evansville. It's tough to dump on them, and hopefully they use it to build some momentum around their program after kind of languishing the past few years.

As for our offense, there is no margin for error. Last year, we didn't really have a lot of shooting error so to speak of, which was why it worked so well. But completely conceding any offensive rebounds kills us if we have an off shooting night. Some of it is matchup (4 guards and 1 forward), some of it is philosophy (PM is willing to concede offensive rebounds no matter how terrible our shooting is). That said, if our guards can't make shots and Krutwig doesn't have his ridiculously high FG % touch on that first shot, we won't beat even a low major team. To win these kind of games, we're going to have to go big with Krutwig, Uguak, Negron, and Agunanne crashing the boards and getting garbage baskets. This game probably got too far out of our reach, but I think the Furman, Ball State, St. Joe's and maybe even the Maryland game could have been wins if we went to a less guard oriented offense, sacrificing 3s and outside shots for putbacks.

I could not agree with the first paragraph more and the second paragraph less lol.

[ahunte1]

Fatigue and complacency will do that. This was one time when there was nothing in the tank when we put the pedal to the metal. Its going to happen.
Congrats to Evansville.

Well said. If I'm being generous, we did have three flights in four days prior to the game. Hopefully whatever we lost Tuesday is found again Saturday.

[natetheskate]

25 and AHunte....might be right on....maybe it was the perfect storm....Evansville super pumped and us worn out.....Remember for our new guys this was the first leg of what will be many back to back road games.......What is different now is a win against Loyola is now a prized trophy....kind of cool.......

[ToledoRambler]

25 and AHunte....might be right on....maybe it was the perfect storm....Evansville super pumped and us worn out.....Remember for our new guys this was the first leg of what will be many back to back road games.......What is different now is a win against Loyola is now a prized trophy....kind of cool.......

This is exactly what I would say if I was Cooper Kaifes if Porter asked me why I didn’t get on the ground for that loose ball.

[ahunte1]

"Coach, the three charter flights this weekend really took it out of me."