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Good read on Loyola’s move to the A-10.
https://theathletic.com/4237862/2023...shared_article
CHICAGO — It is Red Panda’s first appearance along this particular stretch of the Lake Michigan shoreline, and the people at Gentile Arena treat the occasion with the awe and reverence it deserves. Most fans remain in their seats for the halftime entertainment. Some create a fire hazard in a tunnel entrance, bunched together with smartphones ready to record. Not far away, Sister Jean looks on and smiles. A woman flipping bowls onto her head while riding a 7-foot tall unicycle is a sight a century in the making. A very big deal.
Also, Loyola Chicago is playing a men’s basketball game against Dayton. This should be a big deal, too, when one of the conference’s marquee programs visits on a Friday night. Going by the four TODAY’S GAME SOLD OUT signs on the box office windows, it is that.
Going by what happens on the floor, it’s defeat No. 17 by the end of the night. A 14th loss by double-digits. Another bill come due for a reasonable and probably inevitable decision.
A March darling seizes its moment to leap into the Atlantic 10, to swim in deep water, and what do you know: Here be dragons. “Realistically, I didn’t expect to be a top 25 team, like we were last year,” says Drew Valentine, the Ramblers’ second-year coach burdened with a first-year transition that’s caught in a rip current. “Anytime you lose that much (personnel) and you go into a league with significantly more individual talent, you’re going to take a step back. It’s natural. We’re not Duke. We’re not Kentucky. We’re not a blueblood.”
This is the other side of realignment, where the smiles and optimism of the press conference splinter against competitive reality. Six straight winning seasons and three NCAA Tournament appearances — including a Final Four (2018 ) and a Sweet 16 (2021) — created a national profile that earned the school an invitation to a more secure and lucrative athletic future. But building a brand is not the same as building a roster prepared for the jump. It didn’t put Atlantic 10 talent and size on the benches. So Loyola’s two basketball teams have four league wins in 28 tries. The men started the week 266th in the NCAA’s NET rankings and already have more losses overall than they did in the previous two seasons combined.
The Ramblers asked for it. And they weren’t ready for it.
Which might’ve been beside the point, in fairness, during a process prioritizing footprints and media markets and postseason access, among other things. And it takes way, way more than 26 games to decide whether this amounts to a colossally bad call, particularly when the Ramblers rank 253rd in minutes continuity in 2022-23, thus creating a transition within a transition. It’s nevertheless striking how far Loyola has to go, compared to where it’s been.
“With 11 new guys, you’re bound to strike out from a basketball evaluation standpoint,” Valentine says. “You’re bound to strike out, too, because you’re in a new league and you don’t know exactly what it takes to be a championship team in that league. You really don’t know until you’re in it, what it takes. But we didn’t miss on character. We might have missed on what it takes to be a championship-level team on the floor, but as far as our culture standards and the people in the locker room, we haven’t missed a beat.”
It’s not nothing. It’s also not enough. It’s not “what it takes,” not entirely, if the idea is to protect a brand so meticulously built over the last decade.
Blessed with identity or cursed with anonymity. These are the stakes.
Of this, Loyola’s 31-year-old coach is well aware, sitting on his office couch a day before the Dayton game and awaiting delivery of a lunch salad from Tropical Smoothie Cafe. He started this job scouting prospects and crafting rosters for Missouri Valley Conference success. That is not the same as equipping a team for the Atlantic 10, especially when you’re given basically no notice to do so. “The individual talent on a game-to-game basis freaks you out a little bit more,” Valentine says of Loyola’s new league. He’s not insinuating Missouri Valley players aren’t good. More that they’re a different good. Versatile and even a little unpredictable, with the way the conference’s coaches deploy them night to night.
The Atlantic 10 has dynamic guards who pressure the rim with playmaking and pressure opponents with athleticism. It has excellent big men who are actually big. Straight jabs, every night. “It’s almost like a mini-Big East,” says Bryce Golden, the 6-9 grad transfer center who previously logged 103 appearances in four years for Butler. “Every team has a very unique style. Teams are tough. Teams are gritty. You’re leaving with cuts on your arms and things like that. And everyone has good players.”
Loyola does not have enough of any of that, at the moment. The Ramblers struggle because they make too many mistakes (22.8 percent turnover rate, 356th nationally as of Tuesday), they don’t get enough second chances (24.6 percent offensive rebound rate, 298th nationally) and the math on fouls doesn’t work out. To wit: They’ve taken 415 free throws. Their opponents have made 409. It’s all not very Loyola-like.
Then again, a 9-17 record suggests Loyola has to redefine Loyola-like, anyway.
Valentine very much craves more length and athleticism on his roster. Hence the signing of three-star 6-9 forward Miles Rubin out of Chicago’s vaunted Simeon High School. He also wants those longer and more athletic players to fit the ethos of a program that relies on patience at its core. Valentine views 6-6 freshman Ben Schweiger in that light, as the next evolutionary step in a line that started with Final Four starter Ben Richardson and continued with 1,300-point scorer Lucas Williamson. It’s tricky — find championship-worthy raw talent that’s willing to marinate at least a little bit — but it’s the only elevator button to hit. “Yes, the A-10 is a high-level league,” Valentine says, “but the teams that are going to be good in this league are teams that have camaraderie and develop their guys.”
As if on cue, Dayton rolls into town the next night to underscore what Loyola isn’t and wants to be. The Flyers have the fifth-best minutes continuity rate (74.6 percent) in the country. Loyola’s lineup introductions begin with two true freshmen and also include leading scorer Philip Alston, who’s playing Division I basketball for the first time this season. Then Dayton gets a combined 36 points on 15-of-19 shooting from 6-10 sophomore DaRon Holmes II and 6-8 junior Toumani Camara while Loyola, as a team, scuffles to a season-worst 30.4 percent from the field. There’s Holmes, making his first four shots from the floor. There’s Camara, on a Eurostep slalom through defenders or picking off a pass and finishing with an uncontested windmill dunk. There’s Loyola, with no one who can do stuff like that, losing by 16.
It’s not for lack of trying — “We fought back,” Golden says — but for lack of everything else. And, unmistakably, some frustration simmers in the building. The student section hecklers shift from unabashed (“Hey, Toumani, welcome to hell!” one shrieks during warmups) to more muted irritation with shot selection and play calls as the night wears on. The exits start to fill with three minutes to go.
No one is used to this. No one wants to get used to it.
Valentine, meanwhile, calls timeouts and coaches possessions into the final 40 seconds before relenting. He’s trying, too. During film sessions, he reframes corrections in a positive direction: It’s not the Ramblers doing things wrong, it’s the Ramblers allowing opponents to stay with them. He tells his players to have a “four-minute mentality” in practice; whatever happens in that segment, forget it and move on to the next. He talks to his players about success pyramids, and the unwavering belief organizations have at the top of the pyramid, and how they’re climbing to that level game by game.
He understands his group’s reality — “They gotta go through it, for them to have a really good perspective moving forward,” the Ramblers coach says — while trying to talk them into thinking they’re something more than they are.
“For as bad as our record is, it doesn’t feel like it every day,” Valentine says. “Obviously it feels like it right after the games, and when you look at your phone, or you open up KenPom — you feel it. But on the day to day, when you’re prepping for Dayton? When I get into the film room with the guys or I get on the practice floor with the guys or I’m coaching them in the game? It doesn’t feel like that to me.”
He says he and the administration are aligned in their commitment to what Valentine calls the long game. He’s not worried about having the resources necessary to make the move a success, not when athletic director Steve Watson stops by at least once a week to make sure the program has everything it needs.
Still, Drew Valentine needs some help to relax. Something to make him feel like he’s done enough.
So every night before a game, at 8 p.m. sharp, Loyola’s coach gets a massage. A new routine, picked up midway through a season twisted into knots. It puts his mind at ease. It lasts long enough to roll into his night of sleep. Which is perfect. He wants to think clearly when tomorrow comes.
(Top photo of Loyola Chicago’s Tom Welch defending Stanford’s Michael O’Connell: Stan Szeto / USA Today)
https://theathletic.com/4237862/2023...shared_article
CHICAGO — It is Red Panda’s first appearance along this particular stretch of the Lake Michigan shoreline, and the people at Gentile Arena treat the occasion with the awe and reverence it deserves. Most fans remain in their seats for the halftime entertainment. Some create a fire hazard in a tunnel entrance, bunched together with smartphones ready to record. Not far away, Sister Jean looks on and smiles. A woman flipping bowls onto her head while riding a 7-foot tall unicycle is a sight a century in the making. A very big deal.
Also, Loyola Chicago is playing a men’s basketball game against Dayton. This should be a big deal, too, when one of the conference’s marquee programs visits on a Friday night. Going by the four TODAY’S GAME SOLD OUT signs on the box office windows, it is that.
Going by what happens on the floor, it’s defeat No. 17 by the end of the night. A 14th loss by double-digits. Another bill come due for a reasonable and probably inevitable decision.
A March darling seizes its moment to leap into the Atlantic 10, to swim in deep water, and what do you know: Here be dragons. “Realistically, I didn’t expect to be a top 25 team, like we were last year,” says Drew Valentine, the Ramblers’ second-year coach burdened with a first-year transition that’s caught in a rip current. “Anytime you lose that much (personnel) and you go into a league with significantly more individual talent, you’re going to take a step back. It’s natural. We’re not Duke. We’re not Kentucky. We’re not a blueblood.”
This is the other side of realignment, where the smiles and optimism of the press conference splinter against competitive reality. Six straight winning seasons and three NCAA Tournament appearances — including a Final Four (2018 ) and a Sweet 16 (2021) — created a national profile that earned the school an invitation to a more secure and lucrative athletic future. But building a brand is not the same as building a roster prepared for the jump. It didn’t put Atlantic 10 talent and size on the benches. So Loyola’s two basketball teams have four league wins in 28 tries. The men started the week 266th in the NCAA’s NET rankings and already have more losses overall than they did in the previous two seasons combined.
The Ramblers asked for it. And they weren’t ready for it.
Which might’ve been beside the point, in fairness, during a process prioritizing footprints and media markets and postseason access, among other things. And it takes way, way more than 26 games to decide whether this amounts to a colossally bad call, particularly when the Ramblers rank 253rd in minutes continuity in 2022-23, thus creating a transition within a transition. It’s nevertheless striking how far Loyola has to go, compared to where it’s been.
“With 11 new guys, you’re bound to strike out from a basketball evaluation standpoint,” Valentine says. “You’re bound to strike out, too, because you’re in a new league and you don’t know exactly what it takes to be a championship team in that league. You really don’t know until you’re in it, what it takes. But we didn’t miss on character. We might have missed on what it takes to be a championship-level team on the floor, but as far as our culture standards and the people in the locker room, we haven’t missed a beat.”
It’s not nothing. It’s also not enough. It’s not “what it takes,” not entirely, if the idea is to protect a brand so meticulously built over the last decade.
Blessed with identity or cursed with anonymity. These are the stakes.
Of this, Loyola’s 31-year-old coach is well aware, sitting on his office couch a day before the Dayton game and awaiting delivery of a lunch salad from Tropical Smoothie Cafe. He started this job scouting prospects and crafting rosters for Missouri Valley Conference success. That is not the same as equipping a team for the Atlantic 10, especially when you’re given basically no notice to do so. “The individual talent on a game-to-game basis freaks you out a little bit more,” Valentine says of Loyola’s new league. He’s not insinuating Missouri Valley players aren’t good. More that they’re a different good. Versatile and even a little unpredictable, with the way the conference’s coaches deploy them night to night.
The Atlantic 10 has dynamic guards who pressure the rim with playmaking and pressure opponents with athleticism. It has excellent big men who are actually big. Straight jabs, every night. “It’s almost like a mini-Big East,” says Bryce Golden, the 6-9 grad transfer center who previously logged 103 appearances in four years for Butler. “Every team has a very unique style. Teams are tough. Teams are gritty. You’re leaving with cuts on your arms and things like that. And everyone has good players.”
Loyola does not have enough of any of that, at the moment. The Ramblers struggle because they make too many mistakes (22.8 percent turnover rate, 356th nationally as of Tuesday), they don’t get enough second chances (24.6 percent offensive rebound rate, 298th nationally) and the math on fouls doesn’t work out. To wit: They’ve taken 415 free throws. Their opponents have made 409. It’s all not very Loyola-like.
Then again, a 9-17 record suggests Loyola has to redefine Loyola-like, anyway.
Valentine very much craves more length and athleticism on his roster. Hence the signing of three-star 6-9 forward Miles Rubin out of Chicago’s vaunted Simeon High School. He also wants those longer and more athletic players to fit the ethos of a program that relies on patience at its core. Valentine views 6-6 freshman Ben Schweiger in that light, as the next evolutionary step in a line that started with Final Four starter Ben Richardson and continued with 1,300-point scorer Lucas Williamson. It’s tricky — find championship-worthy raw talent that’s willing to marinate at least a little bit — but it’s the only elevator button to hit. “Yes, the A-10 is a high-level league,” Valentine says, “but the teams that are going to be good in this league are teams that have camaraderie and develop their guys.”
As if on cue, Dayton rolls into town the next night to underscore what Loyola isn’t and wants to be. The Flyers have the fifth-best minutes continuity rate (74.6 percent) in the country. Loyola’s lineup introductions begin with two true freshmen and also include leading scorer Philip Alston, who’s playing Division I basketball for the first time this season. Then Dayton gets a combined 36 points on 15-of-19 shooting from 6-10 sophomore DaRon Holmes II and 6-8 junior Toumani Camara while Loyola, as a team, scuffles to a season-worst 30.4 percent from the field. There’s Holmes, making his first four shots from the floor. There’s Camara, on a Eurostep slalom through defenders or picking off a pass and finishing with an uncontested windmill dunk. There’s Loyola, with no one who can do stuff like that, losing by 16.
It’s not for lack of trying — “We fought back,” Golden says — but for lack of everything else. And, unmistakably, some frustration simmers in the building. The student section hecklers shift from unabashed (“Hey, Toumani, welcome to hell!” one shrieks during warmups) to more muted irritation with shot selection and play calls as the night wears on. The exits start to fill with three minutes to go.
No one is used to this. No one wants to get used to it.
Valentine, meanwhile, calls timeouts and coaches possessions into the final 40 seconds before relenting. He’s trying, too. During film sessions, he reframes corrections in a positive direction: It’s not the Ramblers doing things wrong, it’s the Ramblers allowing opponents to stay with them. He tells his players to have a “four-minute mentality” in practice; whatever happens in that segment, forget it and move on to the next. He talks to his players about success pyramids, and the unwavering belief organizations have at the top of the pyramid, and how they’re climbing to that level game by game.
He understands his group’s reality — “They gotta go through it, for them to have a really good perspective moving forward,” the Ramblers coach says — while trying to talk them into thinking they’re something more than they are.
“For as bad as our record is, it doesn’t feel like it every day,” Valentine says. “Obviously it feels like it right after the games, and when you look at your phone, or you open up KenPom — you feel it. But on the day to day, when you’re prepping for Dayton? When I get into the film room with the guys or I get on the practice floor with the guys or I’m coaching them in the game? It doesn’t feel like that to me.”
He says he and the administration are aligned in their commitment to what Valentine calls the long game. He’s not worried about having the resources necessary to make the move a success, not when athletic director Steve Watson stops by at least once a week to make sure the program has everything it needs.
Still, Drew Valentine needs some help to relax. Something to make him feel like he’s done enough.
So every night before a game, at 8 p.m. sharp, Loyola’s coach gets a massage. A new routine, picked up midway through a season twisted into knots. It puts his mind at ease. It lasts long enough to roll into his night of sleep. Which is perfect. He wants to think clearly when tomorrow comes.
(Top photo of Loyola Chicago’s Tom Welch defending Stanford’s Michael O’Connell: Stan Szeto / USA Today)
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