BU 44-Loyola 56

[Old Coach]

Did you seriously think that Loyola's talent was so much better than Bradley's to thump us on our home court? There was not a single player on that LU team that would make our team.

I thought the kid who had 19 and 10 was decent. He appeared to be better than the two kids who combined for 2 points for us.

To answer your initial question, no I don't think Loyola's talent is better than Bradley's. It just played better tonight. However, as a whole, I think that Bradley is seriously lacking in talent.

[Bravesfan]

I have attended all home games this year except for the Drake game. I expected this team to finish last in the Valley, but I expected some improvement during the season. I am most disappointed in the lack of progress of this team. I know they are generally overmatched in size and talent against most of their opponents, but Loyola is a bad team and even they could get the ball inside to score. We have no defense and continue to play the same offense. It is frustrating to watch how many turnover we commit that are unforced. Too many times our players shoot the 3 point shot without looking to pass the ball. I see Bradley in last place for next year and I do not want to watch this again without some improvement. Okay, one positive item for today. Jason Crawford is a player and has improved.

Good for you to have attended almost all the home games. That requires a lot of patience on your part!

Agreed about Crawford. Hopefully he can step up as a leading scorer next year.

[Da Coach]

...It is frustrating to watch how many turnover we commit that are unforced...

I was also dismayed to see some of the terrible passes this team makes. There were 2 passes that stand out- both would have lead to easy baskets except for wild passes- one that was thrown 6 feet over the reach of Jake Eastman, and the other was when JP tried to pass to Jake but threw it at his feet from just 8 feet away.
Everyone around us was wondering if these guys ever practice together.

Fans just want to see some signs of improvement, which is lacking. That's why there is such excitement after the few wins we've seen.

[Beninator]

Completely honest question here with no hidden agenda.

Do you feel that Geno won back to back COYs without coaching fundamentals or team concepts? Is the MAC such a bad league that none of those elements were required?

Honestly, I haven't watched the MAC and don't really care. I have seen the RPI's of the teams in that conference while he coached there and to be honest, there are some pretty poor teams in that conference. Geno never won the conference tournament while at KSU either. Since Geno was selected to be the coach here, I have watched some youtube videos and have seen a lot of similar sets that I have seen this year. I realize that those videos are only a small sample size, but it appears that Geno recruited players whose talent levels were superior to his opposition. Some coaches get by with recruiting superior talent while other coaches get by with x's and o's. Can Geno recruit better talent than the other teams in the MVC? That question remains to be seen. But you certainly know that I am not impressed with what I have seen from an x's and o's standpoint from him this year.

[Old Coach]

Honestly, I haven't watched the MAC and don't really care. I have seen the RPI's of the teams in that conference while he coached there and to be honest, there are some pretty poor teams in that conference. Geno never won the conference tournament while at KSU either. Since Geno was selected to be the coach here, I have watched some youtube videos and have seen a lot of similar sets that I have seen this year. I realize that those videos are only a small sample size, but it appears that Geno recruited players whose talent levels were superior to his opposition. Some coaches get by with recruiting superior talent while other coaches get by with x's and o's. Can Geno recruit better talent than the other teams in the MVC? That question remains to be seen. But you certainly know that I am not impressed with what I have seen from an x's and o's standpoint from him this year.

Fair enough. Thanks for your candid answer.

[Beninator]

Fair enough. Thanks for your candid answer.

We can always agree to disagree but it is safe to say that we both want wins!

[Old Coach]

We can always agree to disagree but it is safe to say that we both want wins!

Yep. It's easy to be a fan of a team that wins 25 games every season.

[Da Coach]

Loyola is a very poor outside shooting team (about 30% from three for the season), and tonight they were not hitting from outside (they were only 1-11 from three). But they kept getting the ball inside and scoring with ease from the first posession to the final horn. Isn't there anything a coach can do to adjust for that and stop the layups and offensive rebounds and putbacks? Why weren't we able to make such an adjustment? Why not play a tight zone and make them take threes? Is it all because of lack of player talent? Most fans I talk to would like to believe it is, but they know better.

[JMM28]

I'm sure not. I wouldn't expect to hear anyone actually voice it.

I'm sure most anyone with half a brain see straight through a lot of the blather spewed forth the past couple years here from a handful of posters.

Who needs enemies when you have fans like them?

[JMM28]

Loyola is a very poor outside shooting team (about 30% from three for the season), and tonight they were not hitting from outside (they were only 1-11 from three). But they kept getting the ball inside and scoring with ease from the first posession to the final horn. Isn't there anything a coach can do to adjust for that and stop the layups and offensive rebounds and putbacks? Why weren't we able to make such an adjustment? Why not play a tight zone and make them take threes? Is it all because of lack of player talent? Most fans I talk to would like to believe it is, but they know better.

It's very easy to armchair qb about the defense. The fact of the matter is with all of your adjustments the team still scored 44 points.

So coach, what do you do for the pathetic shooting percentages?

Your criticisms are the equivalent of ripping a pitcher for giving up 2 runs in. 2-0 game.

[bigjimmy]

I did something tonight that I'd never thought I'd do during a game, leave a game early. Not because I had somewhere to be but because of just how pathetic we played and I couldn't watch anymore of it. You keep thinking it can't get any worse and that we've hit rock bottom. Yet we keep finding ways of going lower. I don't fault our effort but effort only gets you so far. We have some guys with physical ability, (DSE, WL, JC, TB, JP, SS), but we don't have real high basketball iq on this team plus no natural shooters. No excuse to get beat by a bad Loyola team at home by double digits. I admit that I was one of the polyannas who thought that this years team would do better than 9th. No one can say if JL had stayed that we would have done any better than we had done during the previous 9 years. But it certainly would have been better than this.

[BUFanatic]

Well, while my future was being decided, I wisely decided to go win some money at Balmoral Park. Still shocked that Loyola beat BU in such a way. I still believe in this program! (Of course I won't be making my decision based on the outcome of a basketball game though )

[shaunguth]

I don't think anyone who posts on this board is happy about how this season has gone. But I do see a few posts from time to time from people who are shrugging the season off as something that was to be "expected".

What's even more interesting to me is these are probably the same people that follow the "it can't get any worse" (than last season) thought process.

[shaunguth]

Completely honest question here with no hidden agenda.

Do you feel that Geno won back to back COYs without coaching fundamentals or team concepts? Is the MAC such a bad league that none of those elements were required?

I honestly haven't seen too many games involving MAC teams, but here is the current RealTimeRPI comparison.....

Conference RPI Rank
MVC - 8
MAC - 16

Conference SOS Rank
MVC - 8
MAC - 17

Team RPI Rank
13 - Wichita State
28 - Creighton
61 - Akron
62 - Northern Iowa
78 - Buffalo
79 - Kent State
87 - Missouri State
99 - Ohio
119 - Indiana State
123 - Illinois State
124 - Drake
146 - Evansville
153 - Bowling Green
178 - Western Michigan
219 - Eastern Michigan
230 - Bradley
234 - Southern Illinois
240 - Miami (OH)
244 - Ball State
255 - Toledo
263 - Central Michigan
333 - Northern Illinois

I'm not sure if it was indeed said or not, but I remember someone claiming Geno said something about the Valley being a comparable league to the MAC. I don't think so!

[shaunguth]

Loyola is a very poor outside shooting team (about 30% from three for the season), and tonight they were not hitting from outside (they were only 1-11 from three). But they kept getting the ball inside and scoring with ease from the first posession to the final horn. Isn't there anything a coach can do to adjust for that and stop the layups and offensive rebounds and putbacks? Why weren't we able to make such an adjustment? Why not play a tight zone and make them take threes? Is it all because of lack of player talent? Most fans I talk to would like to believe it is, but they know better.

Didn't we just see Drake do exactly that to us a few nights ago? I guess we just don't have the talent to make adjustments with.