Loyola-Chicago Postgame Report

#1

cncchris33

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#1
Since BTO didn't do one, I'll step out of retirement for one last go at it now that I have emotionally let it sink in that we blew our best, and easiest path to the Final Four we may ever have.

1. Alexander not playing was a backbreaker. He would have provided so much better interior defensive presence, and if only 4 rebounds, it may have been the difference in two points.

2. Just like against Kentucky in the SECT Championship, when Admiral goes out for long periods, we are offensively challenged. He is the closest thing we have to a guy that can go get his own points. The foul trouble early on when we had them on the ropes down 9 hurt us. Up by 3, wheb he picked up his 2nd, we went dead silent offensively with him out of the game.

3. Uncharacteristic of us this season, but we stood around with little to no movement offensively in this game. On the other hand, Loyola put on a clinic in offensive movement against us. They got plenty of easy baskets, and we had to work for everything and settled for a lot of jumpers because we didn't move on offense.

4. Schofield played well, but his 3-pt shot at 1:04 to play was questionable shot selection. 14 seconds on the shot clock and he peels off a shoots a contested 3 slightly fading away. I can appreciate him owning that moment and not being scared, but I just feel a better shot was possible with the time on the clock.

5. When Turner and Bowden are your leading rebounder, your bigs didn't do their job.

6. Loyola-Chicago shot 50%. You don't win many NCAAT games allowing your opponent to hit half their shots.

7. Some of this was just purely bad luck. How many lose/batted/ricocheted balls went their way? How many shots did they hit that bounced around on the rim several times?

8. Free throw discrepancy is suspicious. 16-6 looks a little off to me. Our settling for jumpers helped to cement that number, but there were some very questionable calls that led to points for L-C, and others that took points away from us. That said, we didn't hit but 3 of 6 we took, and that's on our guys. At least one miss came on a 1 and 1, and that may as well be two misses.

9. Jordan Bowden has to become more aggressive over the off season. He had to develop a short memory and use his size to get to the basket instead of being a wallflower offensively. Grant needs to work on just playing ball, and develop a Wayne Chism-like jumper from the top of the key. Fulk, Alexander, and Kent just need to get stronger, meaner, and develop their post games. If A couple of those things happen, I like what we have coming back.

10. This season was, hands down, the most fun I've had watching Vol basketball since the early Pearl era. There is something satisfying about being picked near the end and blowing up the establishment. No loss can take away the enjoyment of the past 5 months. If you consider THIS SEASON a disappointment because of the final 3 games, then you are short-sighted and perpetually miserable. You don't deserve a team like this to cheer for.
 
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#2
#2
I'll piggy back on #9 and say that Bone needs to be more aggressive driving the ball as well.
 
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#3
#3
It was quite a swing of emotions, to go from being angry we were going to lose, to the strong comeback and going up by 1, thinking we're going to pull it off, to immediately having all hope crushed.

This one will hurt a long time.
 
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#4
#4
It was quite a swing of emotions, to go from being angry we were going to lose, to the strong comeback and going up by 1, thinking we're going to pull it off, to immediately having all hope crushed.

This one will hurt a long time.

Yes it will.
 
#5
#5
I'll piggy back on #9 and say that Bone needs to be more aggressive driving the ball as well.

I considered that, but I'm conflicted because I'm not sure how much Barnes wants him doing it. Whichever is the case, I hope we see more of him going to the hole next year. I feel he could possibly be our best player if he either, A. Took control of games consistently, or B. Was unleashed by Barnes to make plays and allowed a couple mistakes along the way.
 
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#6
#6
It was quite a swing of emotions, to go from being angry we were going to lose, to the strong comeback and going up by 1, thinking we're going to pull it off, to immediately having all hope crushed.

This one will hurt a long time.

It will be washed away when they make the Sweet 16 next year.
 
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#7
#7
Since BTO didn't do one, I'll step out of retirement for one last go at it now that I have emotionally let it sink in that we blew our best, and easiest path to the Final Four we may ever have.

1. Alexander not playing was a backbreaker. He would have provided so much better interior defensive presence, and if only 4 rebounds, it may have been the difference in two points.

2. Just like against Kentucky in the SECT Championship, when Admiral goes out for long periods, we are offensively challenged. He is the closest thing we have to a guy that can go get his own points. The foul trouble early on when we had them on the ropes down 9 hurt us. Up by 3, wheb he picked up his 2nd, we went dead silent offensively with him out of the game.

3. Uncharacteristic of us this season, but we stood around with little to no movement offensively in this game. On the other hand, Loyola put on a clinic in offensive movement against us. They got plenty of easy baskets, and we had to work for everything and settled for a lot of jumpers because we didn't move on offense.

4. Schofield played well, but his 3-pt shot at 1:04 to play was questionable shot selection. 14 seconds on the shot clock and he peels off a shoots a contested 3 slightly fading away. I can appreciate him owning that moment and not being scared, but I just feel a better shot was possible with the time on the clock.

5. When Turner and Bowden are your leading rebounder, your bigs didn't do their job.

6. Loyola-Chicago shot 50%. You don't win many NCAAT games allowing your opponent to hit half their shots.

7. Some of this was just purely bad luck. How many lose/batted/ricocheted balls went their way? How many shots did they hit that bounced around on the rim several times?

8. Free throw discrepancy is suspicious. 16-6 looks a little off to me. Our settling for jumpers helped to cement that number, but there were some very questionable calls that led to points for L-C, and others that took points away from us. That said, we didn't hit but 3 of 6 we took, and that's on our guys. At least one miss came on a 1 and 1, and that may as well be two misses.

9. Jordan Bowden has to become more aggressive over the off season. He had to develop a short memory and use his size to get to the basket instead of being a wallflower offensively. Grant needs to work on just playing ball, and develop a Wayne Chism-like jumper from the top of the key. Fulk, Alexander, and Kent just need to get stronger, meaner, and develop their post games. If A couple of those things happen, I like what we have coming back.

10. This season was, hands down, the most fun I've had watching Vol basketball since the early Pearl era. There is something satisfying about being picked near the end and blowing up the establishment. No loss can take away the enjoyment of the past 5 months. If you consider THIS SEASON a disappointment because of the final 3 games, then you are short-sighted and perpetually miserable. You don't deserve a team like this to cheer for.

Only one game this season did we have a worse assist rate margin and that was Alabama...

It was clear their defensive game plan was to clog the paint and force us to shoot 3s. It looked like it would be their downfall as Schofield started the game taking advantage of it, but once he went out, so did our offense.

We also got out-rebounded by a smaller team.. Alexander was sorely missed.
 
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#8
#8
I considered that, but I'm conflicted because I'm not sure how much Barnes wants him doing it. Whichever is the case, I hope we see more of him going to the hole next year. I feel he could possibly be our best player if he either, A. Took control of games consistently, or B. Was unleashed by Barnes to make plays and allowed a couple mistakes along the way.

Agree. That was clearly never a focus, which is a miss, because he has that ability.
 
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#9
#9
I'll piggy back on #9 and say that Bone needs to be more aggressive driving the ball as well.

He didn't know it, but there was 1+ seconds left when he pulled up for the final shot. He had time to attack the rack and win it or be fouled.
 
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#11
#11
Hot take maybe but I believe it.


Grant Williams shoots < 35% from 3 next year with more than 50 attempts
 
#12
#12
I considered that, but I'm conflicted because I'm not sure how much Barnes wants him doing it. Whichever is the case, I hope we see more of him going to the hole next year. I feel he could possibly be our best player if he either, A. Took control of games consistently, or B. Was unleashed by Barnes to make plays and allowed a couple mistakes along the way.

Barnes is adamantly against over penetrating so we won't see that change unless Barnes relaxes that
 
#13
#13
We lost.Turney ball is so vastly different than regular season play, one bad day and you're out. Great season though.
 
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#14
#14
I had a simple take pregame and do postgame...said we should out rebound them by double digits and we would win, instead not only did we not do that but we were actually out rebounded. We lost the game by 2, control the boards like we should have even without KA and we win that game fairly easily.

Yes thereÂ’s a lot of others things you can point to, but imo thatÂ’s the biggest...thatÂ’s not something they gameplanned against us like they did clogging the paint or how they ran their offense, they simply went after it and got a lot more of those 50/50 balls than we did.
 
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#15
#15
While some people want to make excuses about the officiating (rightfully so), there was a 30 minute stretch in the game where we were getting run off the court (If you exclude the 1st 5 mins of the game and the last 4, we were outscored by 20). I admire the team for making that late run but we put ourselves in the situation to lose to a lucky bounce.
 
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#17
#17
While some people want to make excuses about the officiating, there was a 30 minute stretch in the game where we were getting run off the court (If you exclude the 1st 5 mins of the game and the last 4, we were outscored by 20). I admire the team for making that late run but we put ourselves in the situation to lose to a lucky bounce.

No doubt. It shouldn't have come to a scenario where we could blame officiating. That's on us.
 
#20
#20
I don't know why Admiral had to carry the load when we have the SEC POY. He was a go to guy even double teamed the first 75% of the season. Why the fade, some kind of injury?
 
#22
#22
While I still think that we let a HUGE opportunity slip away, I gained some perspective after a weekend of being a little ticked off. The guys played hard all year. They didn't let the pre-season prediction get in their heads . . . they were WAAAAAY better than 13th in the SEC.

Coach Barnes is a stabilizing force. I think we are going to be solid for a while. Establishing the beginnings of a tradition of excellence and competitiveness in men's basketball is a good thing, of course. I think we are on the way.
 
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#23
#23
I don't know why Admiral had to carry the load when we have the SEC POY. He was a go to guy even double teamed the first 75% of the season. Why the fade, some kind of injury?

They were all over him. When he caught it, they doubled or hedged. This is why Alexander was a big loss, because he was the beneficiary inside from some double teams.

I thought they were on top of Grant so much that they were fouling, but that's just my opinion.
 
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#25
#25
They were all over him. When he caught it, they doubled or hedged. This is why Alexander was a big loss, because he was the beneficiary inside from some double teams.

I thought they were on top of Grant so much that they were fouling, but that's just my opinion.

I hear ya but they did that all season, maybe not to the same degree, but if they increased the intensity on Williams someone must be open? Just watching the games where they struggled, they had to run the offense a long time to get a shot. How did they defend them so easily while doubling down on Williams. I mean Schofield jacking 3's should not be the only answer. Have coaches figured them out?
 
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