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Editorial 2/23/04

Loyola's Next Head Coach

2/23/04
by John C. Thomas
Even for a program that has had only one winning season in the past 17, Loyola’s collapse this year has been shockingly disappointing. Following a 90-83 road victory over Cleveland State on January 5, 2004, the Ramblers were 6-5 overall and 2-0 in conference.

Since then, Loyola has lost 14 of 15 games, and the only win was on a controversial call at home with .3 seconds left on the clock that sent the game to overtime. With at least two games left this year, the Ramblers stand at 7-19, 3-12 in the conference. If the controversial call at the end of regulation in the Detroit game had gone any other way, the Ramblers would have broken the school’s all time record for consecutive losses.

Even more frustrating is the fact that the Horizon League is the weakest it’s been in five years. Traditional powers Butler and Detroit are both in the middle of pack for the first time since the early 1990s. Wright State is battling for a two seed with a first year head coach and three freshman starters. UWGB is 10-4 in conference after going 4-12 last year. Current conference leader UWM lost at seventh-place Youngstown State.

If there was ever an opening for Loyola to vault to the top of the league and win their first regular season conference title since 1985, this was the year. The Ramblers were coming off two consecutive seasons with 9-7 conference records. They had the top two returning rebounders, one of the best recruiting classes in the league, a sophomore point guard that averaged nearly nine points per game as a freshman, and experienced backup players. Some Loyola fans were actually excited that the David Bailey era was over and there would be no more ball hogging and bad shot selection.

WHAT WE GOT

Instead, what we got was Terrance Whiters ill-prepared to play point guard, Paul McMillan becoming the ball hog, ill-defined roles for the freshman newcomers, players appearing and disappearing from the rotation mysteriously, bad free throw shooting, the same defensive mistakes made over and over again, complete lack of recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the players on the team (and their opposition), and one third of the roster missing at least one game due to academics. Not a single returning player on the team has shown any significant improvement over last year’s performance that can’t be explained by additional playing time, and some have actually regressed. Meanwhile, David Bailey is averaging 12.0 points per game, 6.7 assists per game, and shooting 53% from the field for the first place team in the CBA.

Even through all of this, some folks refuse to acknowledge that the problem is coaching. It’s all the players’ fault for not improving, for making repeated mistakes, for poor shot selection, for academic issues, for poor execution of the coach’s plan. Losing the same way over and over again, opposing teams having season-high point totals against Loyola, opposing players having new career highs in points almost every game that Loyola plays, and not one Loyola player improving dramatically over a four-year career is just an unfortunate coincidence.

These same people stick their fingers in their ears and hum when dramatic evidence is presented, such as the fact that Larry Farmer has a record of 85-144 (.371) over his past eight seasons as a head coach at two different schools in three different decades. Without the two seasons in which Scott Spinelli was his assistant coach, his record is 53-115 (.315). Without David Bailey on his teams, Farmer has a coaching record of 32-80 (.286) over his past eight seasons as head coach, including a 16-37 (.302) record at Loyola.

“So what?,” others ask. It’s just college basketball. Athletics doesn’t matter. Competition itself is more important than the outcome. What really matters is academics, the financial health of the university, and attracting students to the university.

IT IS IMPORTANT

It’s that kind of thinking that has led to many of the problems at Loyola. The athletics department is part of the university, believe it or not. If the history department made mostly negative headlines twice a week for three and a half months a year, the problem would be addressed immediately, wouldn’t you think? If you think that athletics has no impact on the financial health of the university, why don’t you talk to people at Xavier, Marquette, St. Joseph’s, or DePaul, and ask them if there’s any correlation between donations and the success of their men’s basketball team. Ask the same schools if there’s a dramatic spike in applications when they appear on national television during the NCAA Tournament. Take a look at surveys at those schools, and see if there’s any correlation between athletic success and student or alumni satisfaction.

Conversely, take a look at the situation at schools with poorly performing athletic departments. Loyola enrollment declined in the early and mid 1990s. After becoming the nation’s highest enrollment Catholic university in the wake of the 1985 trip to the Sweet 16, DePaul stole away that designation in the 1990s. In a survey taken during Loyola’s 7-21 season in 2000-01, Loyola students were ranked as the fourth unhappiest students in the nation while DePaul (coming off a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2000) was ranked first nationally. Fordham University in New York may be the school most similar to Loyola in athletics, academics, and logistics. They have also been battling declining enrollments, and they have had trouble attracting enough students that meet desired admission requirements.

As Loyola’s athletic reputation has declined, so has its visibility in the Chicago area. Loyola is no longer on television at all unless its opponents pay for it. UIC is on WMVP Radio while Loyola is lucky to have their games on a suburban Christian talk station. DePaul, Northwestern, and UIC each average more than double Loyola’s attendance. So far this year, Chicago State is the only Division I basketball team within 170 miles of Loyola to have lower average attendance than Loyola-- that includes DePaul, Northwestern, Bradley, Northern Illinois, Valparaiso, Notre Dame, UW-Milwaukee, Wisconsin, UIC, Illinois State, Western Michigan, Illinois, and Purdue.

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