Loyola basketball has three scholarships. Probably don't give three full scholarships away. They probably split the three up among several players.1ndabag wrote:
So if NAIA Loyola with, I believe, no scholarships didn't out athlete us, which they shouldn't have, they must have out coached us. Gotta be one or the other.
You have a good point but if you look at statistics the key may be neither coaching or athleticism: Tulane was something like 15 for 29 on free throws. If Tulane was just a pedestrian 69% from the line, it is a seven point win. Tulane was just five of 18 for three pointers. If they were just 39% from outside to go with decent FT shooting, suddenly it is a 13 point win. Now that wouldn't be spectacular but a game like this that doesn't count where the only team with anything to "win" from it is your opponent it's kind of hard to get up for it. If Tulane wins by 30, it would still be meaningless. Where if Loyola just keeps it close, as an NAIA school, they get a huge emotional lift from it.
This result could well be a matter of not being focused for a meaningless game against an opponent that you could well be excused for taking lightly.
Now. I will remind everyone of what I said before on a few occasions: Loyola is my alma mater, so I was a bit split on this. On one hand I was hoping Tulane would put in a stellar performance that would foreshadow an excellent season to come, and on the other hand I was tickled that our itty bitty NAIA school kept this game so close.
The Alabama A&M game will be much more relevant to measuring the quality of this team.
A few of the players that started/played significant amount of time were new and/or freshman. 
