Loyola of Chicago Game Thread

[SeattleJay]

CU is now #2 in offense in Kenpom. 29 on defense.

Bart Torvik has CU as #1 on offense

[go_jays]

I know the Jays are up 14 — but going to need to play a LOT better tomorrow to get by Colorado State. Might be the best team we see in the nonconference.

'Bama?????

FWIW — I’m not the only random person with this thought:

https://x.com/mjdemarinis/status/172601 ... CO0EbW4gxw

So I guess that means Matt needs to read my post too.

BTW... Matt says he's really high on CSU. I'd say he's just high.

[vivid_dude]

Kalk fell just short of 30 points. He must have mono.

I seriously have no idea what you guys are watching making these claims about Kalk.

And ref complaining? In that game? Jesus….

What Kalk claims are you prattling about? I just went back and read the thread. I just figured people must be unloading on Kalkbrenner left and right. There's one post--one--wondering whether he might be sick. And it wasn't even a "claim about Kalk". Everyone else who mentioned him seemed complimentary. So, where are all these "guys" "making these claims about Kalk"? Were you maybe looking a little too hard for some posts to complain about but, since they're not there, you just went ahead and complained anyway??

There were multiple posters calling him disinterested and playing like he had mono in another thread. There was a whole discussion about it. It carried over to here. You are now caught up.

[JacobPadilla]

Mike Sautter and I made the trip down for Hurrdat.

Here are my takeaways. Linked to Mike's interview with Jasen in there as well.

https://hurrdatsports.com/creighton-men ... nsas-city/

[section202jay]

Goodness that's a bad take from Demerinis.

[Django]

Mike Sautter and I made the trip down for Hurrdat.

Here are my takeaways. Linked to Mike's interview with Jasen in there as well.

https://hurrdatsports.com/creighton-men ... nsas-city/

Nice write up!

[ictjay]

Not enough said about the Bluejay crowd. Like Zst Louis, Vegas, etc, 99.9% of yesterdays crowd was blue. Crowd was estimated at 8,000.

[Chicagojayfan]

Nice article Jacob!

Team is still a bit of a work in progress, but through it all the offense is scoring at a great pace against just about anything our opponents have thrown at us. We simply have a lot of weapons, we share the ball, and have a lot of guys who can make plays.

I think yesterday was a good experience in the way they played Alexander. In some games that will lead to defenders picking up a lot of fouls, but there will be games in the BE and the Tourney where teams try to do that against us, and against Armstrong in particular, and we will have to be ready because the refs won't always call that

- Kudos to Baylor for what he did in the offseason - he did what he needed to do physically and the kind of year he's having could propel him higher in the NBA's estimate. He's showing us a more polished and wider range of offensive abilities this year, and is much more physical and confident with the ball in the paint

- We also saw what Kalk's been working on this year. Him taking 8 3PT shots isn't high on the list of game plans for Mac, I'm sure, but the fact that he can make them give us a lot of options and will force teams to think hard about who to leave open

- I think Mac made the smart move with Traudt and going to small ball yesterday. We know that Traudt simply isn't made to be chasing around small wing players and while I'm sure he'd have some advantages, Mac went with the safer choice of playing Bello.. and hard to argue given how well Bello's played this year - .471 from 3 this year, and he will continue to get a lot of open shots with this team!

- Miller was missed yesterday, IMO. I think he plays more minutes than Traudt as he can Defend those wing players more effectively, and I think he's more active in scrapping for loose balls and keeping rebounds alive with his mobility and length right now


I think some of the thinking about what people were saying around the team's energy yesterday and believe a few things feed into that. I personally think the team is playing hard, but still learning to play without thinking too much on both ends of the court:

1. The Defense has been generally pretty good, but not to the level we want it to be this season (Kenpom has us as 29th adjusted D vs. 14th last year). First half yesterday was a relatively poor defensive performance, IMO (1.057 PPP), and overall we didn't really hold them under their yearly offensive performance, but the second half was definitely better (.903). I think missing Miller hurt us defensively a bit, but the new faces will take time to gel with the Team defensively - it's telling that the halftime adjustments the coaches made were so effectively implemented to start the second half. I really think this D can be top 25 and a bit better this year as they get locked in more

2. We are a work in progress on offense. We are still adjusting to having 3 new guys on the floor a lot and while everyone moves the ball and is a good passer, we still haven't really hit our stride (something that should be scary to other teams!).

3. But, despite that, our offense is so good that it is still exploding for pretty long stretches and taking/extending leads because teams really do have to pick their poison, but we do it almost so easily that we don't look super fired up sometimes as we systematically pick apart the opposing defenses. Kenpom has us as the 2nd ranked Adjusted offense, and while competition will get more difficult, that isn't a mirage, as the competition goes up, this offense can adapt

As an example - yesterday we blew apart Loyola's D in a way that not even Florida Atlantic did this year (105.6 offensive rating versus 127.5 for us (1.354 PPP per Statbroadcast) while the other 3 games they played they held teams under 1 PPP. That's pretty similar versus the other teams we've played this year - even Iowa's D had been pretty good against every one else (worth watching to see how well Oklahoma does against their D today, though)

[go_jays]

Mike Sautter and I made the trip down for Hurrdat.

Here are my takeaways. Linked to Mike's interview with Jasen in there as well.

https://hurrdatsports.com/creighton-men ... nsas-city/

Great stuff Jacob. "Spurtability"... If you look back at the success we've had in the past 10+ years, you'll see that ever since Mac adopted the "Let It Fly" theme, we've been a team of runs. When we get into a rhythm, especially at home, those are the difference makers, and most opponents just never quite recover form them. They can mount a comeback. But more often than not, it's never (or rarely at least) enough.

If I'm an opposing coach, part of my gameplan will be to manage my timeouts for exactly those times. It's an intagilble you HAVE TO take into account when you play us.

[go_jays]

Good stuff, Chicago... And I think Loyola's defense is possibly the best D we've seen so far. They were physical... and the officiating favored that, for sure. But we fought through it. So that makes me feel a little better.

I think Farabello has taken a HUGE step this year. He's hitting his 3's but he's also doing a decent job of defending as well. He's gonna be important down the road.... as well as King and Traudt. Looking like that's gonna be our 8 man rotation and it's looking pretty good right now.