In an already historic season, the University of St. Thomas Men’s basketball team has lost ten straight conference games in ten games. St. Thomas is currently one of four teams in the country on a 10 or more game losing streak. In the prior three seasons, this team lost 8 games. In the TauERA (2011-Present), the longest losing streak has been 3 games. That woeful period in late 2017, UST lost successively to to UW-RF, Bethel, and Hamline. Man, does that feel like a long time ago. What also feels like a long time ago was the rousing New Year’s day success of UST over WIU.
Early Season shooting Success has diminished.
In the first 12 D1 games of the season, this team shot above the D1 average for effective field goal shooting in 10 of their games. In the last ten, they have only had 3 above average shooting games-at home versus SDSU, USD, and at KC. Their worst shooting performances have come in the recent games versus the Bison of NDSU. This is where the height disparity has reared its ugly head the most. Epitomized last night by the Burt Hedstrom perimeter 3 that was blocked by 6-11 forward Grant Nelson to start the game.
Wire-to-Wire is the only way to win.
In Conference play, the omen that UST will lose the game is if the other team at any point has a lead. In their Wins at Omaha and in St Paul versus WIU, the other team did not have the lead at any point. If a team against UST wins the tip, and scores a layup, the game is over! The Vegas odds are also helpful to look at here because they show us a market based expectation of how good this team is. UST in the last 10 games, is 0-10 against the spread.
Defensive Improvements
The pairing of Brooks Allen and Parker Bjorklund has resulted in opposing teams focusing on working the perimeter to get their shots up. Inside they are a presence, the JT help defense works on opposing post players regardless of their size. For a team built like this, it is impressive that they are able to hold much bigger taller squads to below the D1 average for points in the paint. Now this could be because the UST perimeter defense has struggled against everybody, and was the sole reason for the loss versus the woeful, youthful, fighting hawks of North Dakota. The improvement inside is what is allowing UST to be competitive in these games for as long as they do. With that said, over the last ten games, UST’s defense is in the bottom 5 defenses in the country. Strangely, they are the only team in the bottom 10 defenses with 0 wins.
Top Ten Worst Losses (Ranked Least to Most Painful for me)
10 vs SDSU Jan 20th–Such a good team, it was fun to be leading them for awhile and make them sweat but I went into the game with 0 expectations.
9 @ ORU Feb. 5–The losing streak ending in Tulsa at the Mabee Center is not happening.
8 @ NDSU Jan 25–The SHAC is a fortress against Summit Teams, unless you play for SDSU
7 @ UMKC Feb 3–This was much more painful for the players in this game than it was for me watching, everything is relative.
6 vs UMKC Feb 8–Different story if this game was played at the original date.
5 vs ORU Jan 6–I had hopes this would be a shootout, but I knew that if it was a shootout, it is hard to pick against Abmas. I wanted to see some 3 pointer records set so I was let down.
4 @ WIU Jan 29–From the first game that we would have their number again. This was earlier in the slump so I thought this would have been the breakout game where everything started turning brighter. WIU got revenge that day.
3. vs USD Jan 22–Losing to ORU and SDSU back to back was sort of expected. USD was not as hot as they are now. I had this once circled as a statement win at home.
2. vs NDSU Feb 12–I was feeling the Tommie Magic at halftime, or it could have been the Golden Lights. The way this one was trending I thought for sure this group of guys would pull it together in front of a raucous crowd. Schoenecker was ripe for an upset that never came.
1 vs North Dakota–Recent bias on the last two? Maybe. A blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in awhile. Fundamentally I thought there was no way that game could be lost by UST. UND has a young immature team while UST has the discipline that comes from having an all-upper classman starting 5. I have since been impressed with UND’s current level of play and Paul Bruns continued improvement. We are going to see a lot of him in the next couple of years.
PLUS THREE
1.) Any publicity is good publicity. UST needs to lean into the controversy from their official accounts.
2.) It has been suggested by Tim Hill that the UST student section switch sides to always be on the side the other team shoots free throws on. This is an amazing idea that I am all for. Marquette has a rowdy student section on both sides of there arena, it seems to work for them.
3.) There will be more to come on this, but there are only two home games left for this team. I think we are going to start hearing more about who is staying and who is leaving as the future of tommie basketball starts to get clearer. I think the Op to play in a Conf Tournament would be powerful motivation to have a kid stay that may otherwise go start their lives somewhere in an office.