Wednesday, November 24, 2021 11:00 a.m.
Imperial Arena at Atlantis Resort, Nassau, Bahamas

For almost two decades, Loyola fans have dreamed of being in an MTE like the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis this week. First, it's in a fantastic location... The Bahamas, home of former Rambler great Javan Goodman and Paradise Island was the gorgeous shooting location of The Beatles' beach scenes in the movie Help! But at the basketball level, all the participants of this tourney are Top 100 KenPom teams with great hoops resumes, representing some of the best teams from the Power 5, Big East, A10 and MVC.

Loyola has played in plenty of multi-team events in the past, and even won some pretty good ones. In 2014-15, the Ramblers won the Continental Tires Las Vegas Classic, which included Houston, Boise State, and Texas Tech. In 2010-11 Loyola even had its own MTE in 2010-11, when the Ramblers defeated Eastern Kentucky, Indiana State (the team that represented the MVC in the NCAA Tournament that year), and Texas Pan American to win the Nick Kladis Classic.

Michigan State is 3-1 with a loss to Kansas to start the season. They've knocked off Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan at home, and drove down to Indy to spank Butler by 21 points at Hinkle. Tom Izzo is in his 27th year as Head Coach at MSU with a .717 winning percentage and eight Final Fours as Head Coach.

The Spartans will likely start 6'0" junior point guard Tyson Walker, 6'6" freshman guard Max Christie, 6'8" senior forward Gabe Brown, 6'9" senior forward Joey Hauser, and 7'0" senior center Marcus Bingham Jr. The bench goes four deep, with 6'8" junior forward Malik Hall, 6'9" junior forward Julius Marble II, freshman guard Jaden Akins, and 6'4" sophomore guard A.J. Hoggard getting most of the minutes.

Starting point guard Tyson Walker is a transfer from Northeastern, averaging 5.0 points and 4.8 assists. Walker is splitting the point guard minutes with A.J. Hoggard off the bench; Hoggard is a more aggressive scorer, averaging 7.5 points and 5.0 assists. Max Christie was the a consensus 5-star prospect, a McDonalds All-American and the Illinois High School Player of the Year from suburban Rolling Meadows. He's leading the team in minutes per game with 31, and averaging 11.5 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.5 assists.

MSU's frontcourt is experienced, tall, and long. Gabe Brown leads the team in scoring (14.0 per game), steals, and made threes, while pulling in 4.0 rebounds per game. Brown plays the most minutes of the frontcourt players and gets to the line a lot, where he hits 83% of his free throws. Bingham, Jr. is not only 7'0", he's got a great wingspan made for shot blocking-- no surprise he leads the team with 3.5 blocks per game while scoring 12.8 points per game and leading the team in boards with 8 per game. Hauser is off to a slow start this season after averaging 9.7 points as a junior last season. Hauser had to sit out Saturday's game against Eastern Michigan with calf soreness; but in the early going he's shooting 33.3% from the field and averaging 7.3 points per game.

Another Chicago area product, Malik Hall out of Aurora by way of Sunrise Christian, is the top scorer off the bench and started for Hauser last time out. He's putting up 8.5 points per game and hauling in 4.8 rebounds on average. Julius Marble II averages 7.5 points and 5.0 rebounds. Freshman guard Jaden Akins is another Sunrise Christian product-- he's making the most of his 15 minutes per game off the bench, scoring 5.0 points to go with 2.8 rebounds.

Loyola is coming off a Saturday win over UIC which started slowly as the Flames came out focused on stopping Loyola's three-point attack. But Loyola made adjustments at halftime that resulted in a big second half. Ryan Schwieger has emerged as a really versatile weapon off the bench, and Tate Hall had a really good game. The Ramblers won 80-63, extending their home winning streak to 26.

As the Ramblers venture away from home for the first time this season, they'll also be seeing a huge leap in the athleticism of their opponents. Michigan State is big, their bench goes deep, and they've got a lot of experience. The Ramblers will face 6'6" guards and 6'9" forwards closing out on their threes, and a bouncy 7-footer lurking under the basket. But the Spartans have some weaknesses, too. They commit a lot of turnovers for an elite-level team (14.8 per game), they have been awful shooting behind the arc thus far this season (28.8% as a team), and their team speed is a little better than average. Loyola has a reasonable shot at an upset, but it's going to take a good game plan and better execution than the first half of their last game to pull it off.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _24_21.pdf

Michigan State game notes: https://msuspartans.com/sports/2021/10/ ... enter.aspx

TV/Streaming video: ESPN https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/06a6 ... bucketId=2

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=85&type=Live

Live stats: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... /401370178

Vegas odds: Michigan State by 2

Thanks for the preview JCT! It will be interesting to see which lineups Drew uses for defensive match ups. Hopefully Hutson can play some impact minutes out there, we'll need him for his size.

That’s a big team. Will be an interesting matchup for Marquise, always going to be speed vs size.

I think forcing turnovers will be big. If we can generate some extra possessions and shoot well enough from 3 like we have been thus far, we’ll be fine. The worry is if this turns into a good old-fashioned slug fest…they have the size advantage. Hoping that we can jump on them early and get ahead with our experience/shooting

Reading MSU boards and articles, they believe their weak point is their PG play. That opens up a chance for us to pressure the ball and force turnovers.

MSU 2.5 point favorites

Listen for me on TV screaming L-U-C

Who says Loyola doesn't travel well?

Don't know where you got that... I have the opening line at MSU -8

ESPN uses Cesar’s which says MSU -2.5, as do Draft Kings, PointsBet, and Fan Duel as of this moment.