by Rambler63 » January 18th, 2018, 3:04 pm
There were a lot of teams on Krutwig. But I think Loyola knows how to sell the opportunity a little better now.
Loyola went through a similar process with Sean O'Mara, who committed to Xavier. He was a suburban kid, about the same height and build, and almost as much recruiting hype as Krutwig. It got down to Loyola and Xavier, and O'Mara went with X. I guess being on a tournament team was important for him, at least more important than staying in the area. However, he didn't play very much because he was behind Matt Stainbrook for his first two years; he averaged only 7 mpg as a sophomore. Even in his junior year he only played 13 minutes per game because they brought in a graduate transfer. As a senior this year, he's coming off the bench behind two underclassmen.
In the meantime, Loyola has dramatically improved as a program. The deep gulf isn't quite as enormous as it was in 2014. The sales pitch comes down to: Do you want to sit on the bench at a big program and watch them bring in guys because they don't trust you to handle playing time, or do you want to start as a freshman for a team that was picked for the top half of the league in a top mid-major conference? Also, there's the example of Doyle and Custer who transferred from P5 programs.
I don't know for sure if that's what they did, but if I were talking with a recruit about the advantages of going with Loyola, I might point that out.