Loyola Chicago – Old Era Ending and New Era Beginning

New Roster, New League, Fresh Start

(Indianapolis, IN) – As Drew Valentine sent substitutes into the game for Lucas Williamson, Tate Hall and Aher Uguak at the end of Loyola’s NCAA Tournament loss to Ohio State, it was an old era ending and a new era beginning.

When Porter Moser and Cameron Krutwig left after last season there was plenty of supportive and melancholy feelings. While ‘King Krut’ graduated and Moser was stepping up there were good feelings about the team. With Valentine being promoted and the rest of the roster in tact, there were few worries in Rogers Park.

This season’s ending is different. There was no grand NCAA Tournament accomplishments and the iconic player of the past five seasons (Williamson) is graduating. While understated in their value, Hall and Uguak and Keith Clemons were staples in the program. They were carriers of the Rambler ‘culture torch’ and will gone next season.

The eligibility status of Ivy League transfers Chris Knight and Ryan Schwieger is still a question that must be answered. As the program moves the Atlantic Ten Conference, this is the end of and the beginning of an era.

In some ways, this will be the most challenging professional season of Drew Valentine’s life. Replacing Moser and rebuilding a staff had to be challenging. Doing it with a ready-made roster, in a league where he had great familiarity, with a thriving ‘culture’ made this less challenging then other situations may have presented.

Valentine’s Roster Challenges

If Knight and Schwieger are allowed to return for a (covid) season, then the roster needs less of a rebuild.  Losing three starters is never easy. When one of them has been the heart and soul of the team, it is uniquely difficult.

While we’re making assumptions that the rest of the roster will return, that is never a given. Braden Norris and Marquise Kennedy provide a solid backcourt and there is significant potential in the post. The  combination of Tom Welch and Jacob Hutson could be solid and wing Saint Thomas showed flashes of his talent.

Observers have been high on Indiana transfer Damezi Anderson, but we’ve never seen him play. TY Anderson’s floor time has been so small that we have no feel for his game. During his post-game press conference Valentine referenced his confidence in red-shirt freshman Ben Schwieger.

Valentine has two main offseason priorities. He wants to hit the transfer portal and continue to help his current players improve.

“I think the first thing we gotta do, me and my staff gotta do a great job in the transfer portal this spring,” said Valentine. “So we gotta crush that. We gotta get guys that are great fits for our program. We’ve got some good stuff to sell, so we gotta crush that. And then we gotta continue to get better, like the guys that have been here have gotten better. So, we gotta get the right guys. We have to obviously continue with the culture piece.”

Three in-coming freshmen guards, Treyvon Lewis, Jalen Quinn and Jayden Dawson all have good size and had interest from some other Valley and midwestern schools.

Traversing the Atlantic Ten

While I’m not of the opinion that the Atlantic Ten is distinctly better than the Missouri Valley Conference, it does provide some unique and different challenges. Valentine and his staff have to learn all new conference foes. The coaching styles, the players’ tendencies and talent levels will all be new to the Rambler staff.

Those aren’t insurmountable tasks, but they add to the workload. New traveling destinations and longer commutes make everything new and less familiar for the coaching and support staff and the players. Traveling to Fordham for a mid-week game with the Rams is not the same as skipping to Terre Haute for a showdown with Indiana State.

The A-Ten ranks slightly higher than the Valley on a metric level and six teams are involved in postseason basketball, compared to the Valley’s four. Davidson and Richmond are NCAA Tournament teams. Saint Bonaventure, VCU, Dayton and Saint Louis landed in the National Invitation Tournament.

Drake is the top seed in the College Basketball Insider Tournament and Northern Iowa and Missouri State went to the NIT. KenPom rates the A-10 as the tenth best college conference and the Valley eleventh.

Forming new rivlaries, travel patterns, scouting reports and perhaps a deeper league, will be a new challenge. That said, they won’t be the team circled on everyone’s schedule, the way it has been in the MVC.

New Era Beginning

Fans and media members get too wrapped up in ‘he won with Porter’s players’, but the departure Williamson and those other fifth year players is potentially a seismic shift in personality and leadership for next year’s Ramblers.

This will truly be Valentine’s team in a way that outsiders may not have seen this season’s squad. Valentine has repeatedly spoke of Williamson being ‘the standard’ of the program. He has definitely been ‘the face’ of the team this year.

Who earns or shares that role next season is pivotal and how the second-year coach accomplishes that ordination will be critically important. Valentine has been so invested in his current group of team leaders, that the emergence of new leaders could be a difficult task.

“I don’t want this game to define a lot of these guys’ career that have been part of our program that are now going to be obviously not playing college basketball anymore,” said Valentine. “Because where this program has been, where this program has come. Obviously, it started with Coach Moser and his coaches, all the former players. But these guys have been the latest edition of the players that have helped elevate this program. The program’s in a lot better spot than it was when a lot of these guys got here five years ago.”

Moser is gone, Krutwig is gone and now Williamson is gone. What’s next? There is a new era beginning.

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