Luke Loewe made an incredible leap from his sophomore season to his junior year. To help William and Mary soften the blow from losing Nathan Knight, he may have to make another.
Over the course of last season, Luke Loewe became one of my favorite players to watch, and I’m sure Brendan would say the same.
After attending nearly all our home games and watching numerous away games on FloSports — as woeful a platform it was compared to watching Arizona State on ESPN or other major networks — I’d rank Loewe second among my top three favorite William and Mary players from last season: No. 1, Nathan Knight; No. 2, Loewe; and No. 3, Quinn Blair, for whom I’ll also be writing a Season in Review soon.
Were I to rank who I thought were my top five best players last season, instead of my own personal favorites, I’d still put Loewe in second: No. 1, Knight (without question); No. 2, Loewe; No. 3, Andy Van Vliet; No. 4, Bryce Barnes; and No. 5, Blair.
Loewe — the junior guard from Fond du Lac, Wis., now a rising senior — impressed me greatly with his ability to not only shoot the three, but also to defend the basket. Loewe excelled as a two-guard this season, and much of that success owed itself to the addition of Barnes, who ran the point, took over passing and let Loewe play to his skillset: defending and shooting.
Loewe, to his credit, played very well and improved greatly on his own — he alone won the right to the Most Improved Player award and his two other accolades, which I’ll discuss soon — but I can’t overlook what a blessing and an asset Barnes was to the team.
As first-year head coach Dane Fischer surely foresaw when he acquired Barnes as a graduate transfer during the off-season, Barnes gave the Tribe its first true point guard in years. Before Barnes arrived from Milwaukee, as Brendan noted, the Tribe played point guard by committee, splitting the role among Loewe, L.J. Owens and Thornton Scott, none of whom excelled in the role quite like Barnes excelled in 2019-20.
Barnes ran the point with steadiness and grace this past season, maintaining a good assist-to- turnover ratio and averaging 3.4 assists per game. He filled what had been a yawning gap for the Tribe in its starting lineup, and Loewe in particular benefited from that addition greatly.
But as I said before, Loewe played some incredible ball in his own right — and his excellent contributions to the team shouldn’t be overlooked solely on account of Barnes.
Starting each game for the second-straight season, Loewe led the Colonial Athletic Association in three-point shooting at 43.9 percent (43-of-98). Plus, he ranked fourth in the conference for field goal percentage, finishing the season at 54.4 percent (124-of-228).
In terms of individual scoring, he ranked 24th in the conference, averaging 10.7 points per game. He scored in double-digits 17 times during the season.
While that ranking or those numbers may not sound the most impressive at first, they showed a remarkable improvement from the prior season, in which Loewe finished with an average of just 3.9 points per game.
In other words, by the end of the 2019-20 season, Loewe saw his average increase by 6.8 points per game from the 2018-19 season.
No wonder, then, he won Most Improved Player from William and Mary.
He became one of the most talented shooters in the conference, as well as a great two-way player and defender, and he amounted to one of the most improved players in the country.
Take a look at some more of his numbers: In 2018-19, he shot 44.4 percent (52-of-117) from the field, including 22.6 percent (7-of-31) from three, and he completed 34.6 percent (9-of-26) of his free throws. Then in 2019-20, this past season, he shot a much-improved 54.4 percent (124-of-228) from the field, including a conference-high 43.9 percent (43-of-98) from three, while completing 72.2 percent (52-of-72) of his free throws.
Between 2018-19 and this past season, Loewe saw his field goal shooting rise by 10 percent, his three-point shooting improve by a spectacular 21.3 percent and his free throw accuracy more than double, increasing from what it was (34.6 percent) by an incredible 37.6 percent.
Most Improved Player on the Tribe by far. No question.
In addition to his steep improvement on offense, Loewe made the CAA All-Defensive Team (alongside Knight and three other conference players) and won Defensive MVP for the Tribe.
Both of these awards he won for extremely good reason. Defensively as well as offensively, Loewe held his own in the arena, and he made his presence known whether his opponents liked it or not. Most often they didn’t.
Against some of the top scorers in the conference — Jordan Roland (Northeastern), Grant Riller (Charleston) and Desure Buie (Hofstra), all three of whom made the All-CAA First Team — Loewe made them all look embarrassingly weak. He held Roland to a season-low seven points in the 66-64 Tribe win against Northeastern (Jan. 4) while at the same time, he scored 10 points on 5-of-7 shooting and grabbed five rebounds.
Against Hofstra (Jan. 2), in the 88-61 Tribe victory two days earlier, he limited Buie to 10 points on 3-of-14 shooting, which included Buie knocking down only 1-of-7 from three. During the game, Loewe also scored 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting.
And then, against Charleston, Loewe held Riller to just 10 points in each game (Jan. 11 and Feb. 6). Together during these games, with Loewe as his defender, Riller combined to shoot just 6-of-21 (28.6 percent) from the field.
Meanwhile, Loewe scored 10 points in the first contest on 4-of-6 shooting, with 2-of-3 from three. And then in the second, he scored five points on just 2-of-5 shooting, with 1-of-3 from three, adding three rebounds and two assists. William and Mary won its first contest against Charleston handsomely, 67-56, but lost the second by slightly wider margins, 68-50.
For Loewe, the high point of his season came during that wild game against James Madison (Feb. 22), the penultimate game of the regular season and the final road match, which I had the pleasure of watching from home. In a narrow 78-74 Tribe victory, Loewe exploded for a career- high 27 points on 10-of-11 shooting, with 6-of-7 from three, and grabbed four rebounds.
He carried the team as the Tribe had a below-average game — Knight only scored 12 points compared to his usual average of 20.7 per game — and for a while, Loewe seemed unbeatable on offense. Which he was.
He scored 17 of those points in the second half without missing a shot; after halftime, he shot 6-of-6 from the floor, including 4-of-4 from three.
“You see that first one go in, and it kind of feels better as the game goes on,” Loewe said after the game. “I just kind of got in a rhythm and felt good the whole game.”
Against the Dukes, our conference rivals, Loewe certainly felt his rhythm that day. No one could doubt afterward that it was his game.
His layup with less than two minutes remaining broke a 74-all tie and gave William and Mary the lead and the win for good.
Besides that great win against James Madison, Loewe had plenty of other great moments this past season, none of which I had the luxury of covering for The Flat Hat, sadly. But I saw them all the same, one way or another.
Against Morehead State (Nov. 11, 2019), Loewe racked up 26 points on a near-perfect 8-of-9 from the field, including 3-of-4 from the three, and 7-of-9 from the foul line.
And in another win against James Madison (Jan. 23) — a much greater, 88-75 home victory earlier in the season — Loewe racked up 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting, including 3-of-4 from three-point range.
When Loewe got hot, he rained fire from three and reigned supreme on defense. But when he got cold, the team started to struggle — or perhaps, vice versa.
Toward the end of the season, Loewe started to cool on offense as opposing defenders began guarding him closely, and he started racking up a few too many personal fouls.
Whether it was the team struggling or him struggling as an individual player or some combination of the two — as it usually is — Loewe played only a minor role in the Gold Rush home game against Delaware (Feb. 15), the final regular-season game against Elon (Feb. 29) and the quarterfinals loss, again, against Elon (March 8).
I’m not sure how much I can fault Loewe for these substandard performances, though, since the team had such an up-and-down season.
The Tribe started out 6-0 in conference play — its first 6-0 conference start since 1982-83, as even The Washington Post noted, labeling us a potential March Madness party crasher (when the coronavirus, COVID-19, turned out to be the real party crasher, sadly). But then the Tribe lost its final winter-break game, 84-57, to Drexel (Jan. 18).
Afterward, the Tribe seesawed with a win, a loss and another win before losing three-straight games, then somehow winning its next five games — the final five games of the regular season — until losing to Elon, 68-63, in the quarterfinals.
Nonetheless, Loewe had a great season overall, complete with major improvements in his offensive and defensive abilities that made him the second most valuable player on the team (in my opinion).
My only complaint with Loewe was that I couldn’t chant his name (“Luuuke!”) in Kaplan Arena without it sounding like “boo!” With Knight, I had the cheer “Nathan Kni-ight!” or with Van Vliet, I had “A-V-V! A-V-V!” But with Loewe, I had nothing but “Luuuke!” which sounded more like “boo!” to me.
That complaint could be a bad reflection on my own lack of creativity — although, I did help come up with the chant “A-V-V! A-V-V!” and I referenced it in a Flat Hat article — but I thought it needed to be said.
I’m certainly not saying that Loewe should change his name, but I think he or a fan next season should come up with a nickname that’s easier to chant. Otherwise, he should make peace with the fact that his name sounds like “boo!” when it’s chanted in Kaplan.
His choice.
In all seriousness, I hope Loewe grows into more of a leader next season as a senior, flourishing in his final year. He’s already shown the ability to grow and improve as a player — take a look at this past season — and I hope he shows that same openness to growth once William and Mary returns to play basketball.
And I expect — no, I demand — that second-year head coach Fischer help him along in this process, or I’ll be sorely disappointed in his coaching prospects going forward.
With the graduation and departure of Knight especially, and also that of Barnes, Van Vliet and Tyler Hamilton, the Tribe will need a senior leader like Loewe to help drive the team forward.
The Tribe will face a major leadership gap with Knight gone — a Jupiter-sized hole in the roster — and a major morale crisis once the team returns to campus after the coronavirus pandemic. I hope and I pray Loewe can be the leader that the Tribe needs to carry it forward, but I know it won’t be an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.
Still, I know he can make another giant leap. He’s done it before.