Loyola Ramblers Preview – https://loyolaramblers.com/news/2025/12 ... urday.aspx

Princeton Stats and Intel - https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... /2026.html

Record: 3-7 (Ivy MBB)
Coach: Mitch Henderson
PS/G: 70.9 (306th of 365)
PA/G: 75.4 (221st of 365)
SRS: -7.06 (239th of 365)
SOS: 2.50 (109th of 365)
ORtg: 102.0 (297th of 365)
DRtg: 108.5 (272nd of 365)


Princeton Tigers (3-7) at Loyola Chicago Ramblers (2-7) – 1:30pm CST, Gentile Arena, Chicago IL

As part of a home/home series struck prior to the 2024-25 season, Loyola Chicago welcomes the Ivy League’s Princeton Tigers to Gentile Arena Saturday afternoon. This matchup might finally be the one that propels the Ramblers on a much-needed winning streak, as the Tigers come to town having lost 5-straight games.

Tuesday night the Ramblers were finally victorious, with a team effort lifting them past Central Michigan. Five Ramblers scored double-figures, including a game-high 21 points from Justin Moore. Moore went 10-14 at the FT line, making seven in the final minute to help Loyola Chicago seal it over Central Michigan Tuesday night, 83-72. This marked Moore's second 20-point effort this season. Miles Rubin had another strong game, tying his season-high 16 points on 7-9 from the field. He grabbed a team-best seven rebounds and tallied two steals and a block. Houinsou also brought his swiss army knife capabilities, even taking over at the point guard position at times and recording season-highs in rebounds (5), assists (6), and steals (2).

An energetic second half that featured team victories on the defensive end, offensive glass, from the free-throw line, beyond the arc, and inside the paint made up for what was a very lousy and worrisome first half that saw the Ramblers down 39-31 at the half.

"I am really proud of our guys. It has obviously been a hard month, and we've been trying to get the guys to compete harder," said head coach Drew Valentine. "It wasn't perfect, but I've been asking them to raise their floor. If we play hard for two possessions out of 10, can we raise that to six? And I think we raised our floor tonight with our effort. They locked arms with each other and got it done. It finally looked like they were having fun out there."

In this game, we also watched coach Valentine tighten his substitution patterns, reduce minutes or issue DNP’s on some guys, and improved play brought back glimpses of what had been known as Loyola Rambler basketball.

Princeton visits Loyola Chicago with a 3-8 overall record and on a five-game losing streak, losing at Monmouth 63-58 on Wednesday night. Four of their other 7 losses have been absolute blowouts to Akron, Kansas, Iona, and Bradley. The Tigers are winless on the road (0-4), so advantage to the Ramblers in the odds and prediction. Princeton has been a contending program in recent seasons, earning a very memorable NCAA tournament bid in 2022-23 (23-9 record) before losing in the Sweet-16 to Creighton. They’ve been a contending program other seasons, finishing 23-7 in the 2021-22 season, and 24-5 in the 2023-24 season. Both years they came up short in the Ivy League conference tournament losing in either the semifinal or championship game. Princeton was tabbed fourth in the Ivy League preseason poll after a 19-11, 8-6 finish last season.

The last time these two teams played was on November 15, 2024 at Princeton. The Ramblers won 73-68, led by Rubin in that one.

Princeton is having a down year and are trending near the bottom of the Ivy League. They struggle at scoring, around 70ppg which ranks #306 in D1. They also give up more points than they score, 75.4, and like the Ramblers have a poorly rated offense. This season, Princeton isn't shy from the three-point line, letting it fly 27.8 times per game (making 9.4), which is third most in the Ivy league and 73rd in the country in attempts. 6-0 junior guard, Dalen Davis, of Chicago’s Whitney Young high school, leads them in scoring, 16.5 ppg coming off the bench. Davis has scored at least 10 in every game, including two 20-point performances.

Mitch Henderson is in his 14th season at the helm with a 254-141 record. He’s led Princeton to two NCAA Tournaments since 2011-12.


Princeton Probable Starters – (lots of lineup shuffling going on with them so this one here is based on their most recent game) - 6-8 G Landon Clark, 6-9 F CJ Happy, 6-5 G Jackson Hicke, 6-2 G Jack Stanton, 6-6 G Sebastian Whitfield.

Loyola Probable Starters – Rubin, Houinsou, Love III, Moore, Tavarez


LAST 10 GAMES FOR BOTH SQUADS
N/A


Watch / Listen – Saturday afternoon’s game is nationally broadcast on USA Network with Steve Burkowski and Tim McCormick on the call, and can be listened to Rambler Sports Network with our friends Sudikoff and special guest filling in for CT – Tom Welch.

Postgame Show - Tune in to Sudikoff on RSN, followed by TalkinBlers Spaces on the X: https://x.com/blerstalking?s=21


Odds: Loyola -5.5 (as of 6pm 12/5)

Thought I would repost. Previously in the CM thread.

Some more great points. Check out the picture below regarding our best +/- and Net Rating lineups.

There are 6 guys that when they play together have positive +/- and Net Ratings. These lineups need to get more run.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QeS2Ev ... p=drivesdk

I would hope Drew and staff would be cognitive of this data. Now it doesn't mean depending on certain matchups other lineups may not perform well but it does confirm some of what people maybe thinking.

The two best lineups with these 6 guys Tavarez, Moore, Love, Houinsou, Ola-Jospeh, and Rubin, share couple of traits. First they have only two "small guards". They both have 3 taller, longer, stronger/athletic players. I would think Amos, when he gets back might fit in well with this group of 6 as well. I think Dotson might do well subbing in for Moore or Taveras, but he needs to get better at keeping his man from penetrating as he got beat off the dribble a couple of times in CM game. Getting beat off the dribble will lead to defensive issues and worse stats as far as +/- and Net Rating are concerned.

These 6 guys got extended run in second half of CM game and results were good. Drew plays with combinations and lineups a lot in pre-con and eventually pares down rotations when we get closer to the conference season. Hopefully, Drew and the staff are seeing these numbers as well.

These stats are from CBB Analytics.

Good win.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Wow! Two consecutive, back to back wins in a row.

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Let's go Braden!

Decent crowd considering.. @2700

Rubin stellar today with 12 pts, 10 Reb, 5 blocks

PU to Loyola

FG% 35 to 50
Threes 26% to 27% (But Love 2-3 and Dotson 3-7 did well)
FT% 94 to 65 (PU were killing us at the line today)
TOs 5 to 9
Pts off TOs 6 to 10
Reb 32 to 35
2nd chance 10 to 15
Paint 24 to 36 (good!)
Fst Brk 0 to 8 (good again!)
Blocks 0 to 5 (you know who)
Lead Time 20 to 16

I hope this is a start to something big. Let's take this win and enjoy it!

Lot of work yet to be done, but I am happy with what I saw today. Team seemed to give a lot of effort and show emotion. Decent crowd and student section that was very into the game. Princeton isn't a good team, but they are well-coached and play a unique style of ball.

Rotations seem to be tightening. I still am disappointed with the effort shown by a few guys, but it seems like the staff is figuring out what works best. Moore had what I thought was his best game today (21 points, 6 assists, ZERO turnovers). Looked to have a quick step back. Maybe it was just slow defenders... Rubin with five blocks was great to see (to go along with a quiet double-double on 12 pts, 10 boards). Houinsou was rough out there but can't deny his motor. Can tell he isn't 100% but the effort is there.

Eight days off until our next game. Really hope we see Xavier Amos ready to go next week. Would be a good shot in the arm for the squad.

Let's gain some momentum going into A10 team and really piss off A10 fans by handing teams a Q4 loss

Yesterday was a nice return to a slow paced, halfcourt styled game. This team can play pretty clean and error-free (when they want) it looked.

Moore’s best game as a Rambler. The lane and paint was all his to pick apart thru whether it was layups, floaters, or little turnaround jumpers. It was pretty. I don’t think he will find this much space on many other opponents….. as it also looked like Princeton either allowed it or were too slow to react defensively.

Dotson can be great off-ball. That’s when he knocks down his threes. First half was good.

Basketball can be pretty simple and fundamental. Return to that format and more wins will come hopefully?…..

Still not perfect, so make it 3 in a row next weekend and hope Chicago State isn’t going to do another buzzkill on us.

Looking better for sure. Thoughts:

1. Energy and enthusiasm continued to get better.

2. Defensively we are getting better with our rotations and we limited the backdoor easy baskets a little more. We did give up some open looks from the arc and PU had a tough shooting day from the arc so result can be misleading on that. Had PU made 30-31% from the arc, which is not asking much in today's college basketball, we may have lost the game. We gave up a few too many offensive rebounds still at times. Probably a product of poor PU 3pt shooting leading to some longer rebounds. Overall, felt like the defense wore PU down a bit as we played hard and did not give them a lot of quick buckets and easy hoops.

3. This is an odd team offensively. We have looked good at start of game on first few possessions and then we just stop. The first 10 or so minutes of games has at times been painful to watch. We seem to get in gear as the game goes on and our second half offense has functioned better than first half the last couple of games. We have had more motion the last two games which is good. I would like to see a little more ball reversal side to side to make teams really have to work, along with with more weak side screens. I also would like to see a little less reliance on screen roll as we get bogged down at times waiting for the one on one move. We have guys capable of making 3's, but we have no one who is really shooting it great right now. Hopefully if we can stack a few more wins, everyone settles in, more will start to drop. With the tighter rotations, the guys playing more minutes should start getting into a better groove and they don't have to worry about getting yanked as much if they miss or make a mistake. Confidence is a fragile thing and winning and playing time tends to boost it. Our FT shooting needs to be better. PU game Rubin struggled a bit and dragged the numbers down a bit, but overall we need to be in 70's at a minimum. Finally, let's see if Amos is back for CSU game Sunday and how Drew incorporates him.

4. My hope is with finals week and time to continue working on the new style that we see significant improvement these last 3 non-con games above what we have seen the last two games.

5. Crowd was good, although not exactly what you would think for a Saturday game. The Pre-game brunch was nice and it was good to see alumni out for it.

Got to keep grinding and honing our identity.

Go 'blers!