New Orleans Preview and Game Thread -- 11-18-2023

[sudikoff]

7. I can't remember watching a Loyola game in the last 4 years where the announcers didn't spend 5 minutes praising Tom Welch's energy and enthusiasm. It's guaranteed every game and hilarious.

It's funny you say that, because when he came in on Saturday I think I described him as an instant energy guy off the bench. Then later on...I said...clearly he's more than JUST energy off the bench (9 points, 8 rebounds in 22 minutes).

[440Rambler]

Alston should be the only 35 minute player on this team (when he's healthy and fouls permitting). My starting lineup would be:

Dolan
Des
Alston
Dame
Miles

It might lack spacing conventionally, but Norris hasn't actually provided any spacing since he wont shoot. Quinn doesn't shoot and if he does he misses them. Dolan did a nice job running point at the end of the NO game, lets lean into that and lean into our front court being our strength.

[Ohio Rambler]

As others have stated, I agree that LUC has to tighten its rotation, playing 9-10 guys is just not feasible, I hope that Drew will start to reduce his primary rotation to 7-8 players soon. I do think that Adelekun has to play more and Miles has been a pleasant surprise so playing them together seems a worthwhile experiment. Norris needs to play off the ball where I think he will be more effective, his shooting statistics are poor, but believe he can contribute if put in the correct role. I know it is a small sample of 4 games but I would make Dolan the primary point guard and play Braden off the ball with spot minutes from whoever earns them. Dolan’s Assist/Turnover ratio is 4.3, Branden is 2.3 and everyone else on the team is below 1 except Lewis who has only played 6 minutes a game. There are a lot of moving parts on this team right now and some patience is required.

[01grad]

The Oklahoma State/New Orleans halftime score caught my eye last night, so I followed it for the rest of the game. OSU ended up pulling away in the last 5 or 6 minutes, but it was close for most of the game. We still should’ve beaten UNO by double digits, but that gives me some faint glimmer of hope that the close score in our game might not end up being as horrible as first feared.

[sudikoff]

Since our traditional postgame interview with Drew on RSN has been lost forever... here's the audio from his press conference along with Dame Adelekun:
https://on.soundcloud.com/FCHYM