Foster Loyer, Davidson’s ‘grandpa’ and coach on the floor, readies for one last run

Ask anyone who knows Davidson basketball well about Foster Loyer, and you’ll land on some predictable praise — that he’s “a coach on the floor” who “knows the game well” and who “can really shoot it.”

Ask Loyer, himself, what he hears most, though, and he’ll start to chuckle: “We have a couple guys on the team who call me ‘Grandpa.’”

He might consider the name a compliment.

He should, at least.

The 23-year-old point guard, old by college basketball’s standards, is the only senior on a promising and young Davidson men’s basketball team in 2022-23. The Clarkson, Michigan, native was a force on Davidson’s NCAA tournament team a year ago, and in some ways, he’s gotten better.

He’s now averaging 5.6 assists and 21 points per game — good enough for 16th best in the nation — and is shooting 41.9% from 3-point range and 88.1% from the free-throw line.

His numbers, however prolific they are, don’t capture his importance to this team. More important are moments when Loyer passes on his knowledge to his younger teammates — moments like when he calls out a play the other team is running before they run it, or when he puts his arm around a fellow guard after a turnover and gently asks what his teammate saw.

“I do think it’s funny looking at it now, being in my fifth year as a 23-year-old, you know — we have freshmen on the team who just turned 18,” Loyer said in a phone conversation with the Observer last week. “So when I go to get on them sometimes, I want to hold them accountable to certain things, but sometimes I have to take myself back and realize that I have five years of just being around the game that they don’t have.

“So, it’s really important to me to be a positive influence on those guys and really help them and build them along, because their success is going to be our team’s success.”

Loyer joined Davidson last season, after a three-year stint as a backup at Michigan State. The 6-foot guard came to the Charlotte-area school with a reputation that preceded him: He grew up the son of John Loyer, a longtime scout and assistant coach in the NBA, and earned the honor of Michigan’s Mr. Basketball in 2018.

He fit in like a snug glove on last year’s Davidson team, which was one of the best legendary coach Bob McKillop ever had. The 2022 NCAA tournament team boasted Hyungjung Lee — who at one point as a Wildcat had better shooting percentages than Davidson’s most famous alum (Steph Curry) — and Lee wasn’t even Davidson’s best player in the conference’s eyes. That title belonged to Luka Brajkovic, the Atlantic 10’s 2021-22 Player of the Year.

There has been a lot of transition in Davidson basketball since last season. McKillop retired, making way for his son, Matt, to take the reins. Brajkovic graduated. Lee began his pro career.

And that’s left Loyer as the team’s unquestioned leader.

“I think last year’s team was unique in that we had a lot of pieces that had been in the Davidson system and in the program for multiple years, with me being the anomaly as it being my first year,” Loyer said. He added, “And this year, we’ve kind of had to figure that out as we go. And I think we’ve actually done a pretty good job of that.”

And they have.

Davidson had grown into one of the most formidable mid-major men’s basketball programs in the country and is living up to that label again this year. The Wildcats are exactly one month into their 2022-23 season and already have wins that’ll make the NCAA tournament committee turn its proverbial head, including one over South Carolina at a neutral site and one over mid-major peer San Francisco at home.

The Wildcats lost to Charlotte in an overtime game thriller in their most recent home contest, and fell to Delaware by two this past weekend. They play Western Carolina on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in John M. Belk Arena.

Loyer’s still deciding on his future, he said, but coaching is certainly in it. Tom Izzo, Loyer’s former coach at Michigan State, said during last March Madness that he’d love it if Loyer came back and was a graduate assistant for him. Loyer interned with the Los Angeles Clippers this offseason in a player development role and really enjoyed that, he said.

But there’s something compelling about his immediate future, too.

“I’m pretty excited about matching up with my little brother here in a couple weeks,” Loyer said.

His brother, Fletcher, is a freshman guard at No. 4 Purdue, averaging 12.4 points a game through the team’s first eight games. The two brothers have never played together or against one another in a formal team setting, Loyer said, because they were always one-year-too-many apart in school.

Thus is the latest gift of many gifts in Loyer’s final year: The “grandpa” of this year’s Davidson basketball team, who’s practically seen it all, is still getting chances to do what he’s never done before.