Friday, November 26, 2021 6:00 p.m. CST
Imperial Arena at Atlantis Resort, Nassau, Bahamas


Loyola came up short literally and figuratively on Thanksgiving Day as Bruce Pearl's Auburn Tigers out-scored, out-rebounded, and out-hustled the Ramblers in a dispiriting 62-53 loss at the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in Nassau. Auburn took advantage of 18 Rambler turnovers and a 36-26 rebounding margin to sink Loyola. Seven-foot-one center Walker Kessler had probably the best game of his college career with 13 points, 10 rebounds (including 5 offensive), and four blocks. Loyola will try to salvage one win out of the trip to the Bahamas with a 6 p.m. Central Friday tip-off against Arizona State.

The Sun Devils lost to #6 Baylor 75-63 in the first game, and fought hard but came up short against Syracuse in the Thanksgiving matchup. ASU has some familiar faces besides Head Coach Bobby Hurley; former Loyola assistant coach Jermaine Kimbrough landed on the ASU staff after Porter Moser's departure, and Illinois State transfer DJ Horne is a starter and the second-leading scorer for the Sun Devils.

Arizona State was picked to finish 7th in the Pac-12 preseason poll. The transfer of heralded point guard Remy Martin to Kansas helped to diminish expectations for this season, and Hurley has been on a hot seat since last season's disappointing 11-14 finish. Nevertheless, ASU ranks 74 in KenPom even after Thursday's loss-- ASU's third straight-- that dropped the Sun Devils to 2-4 on the season.

Coach Hurley is likely to start 6'1" senior guard Marreon Jackson, 6'3" junior guard Luther Muhammad, 6'1" sophomore DJ Horne, 6'6" senior forward Kimani Lawrence, and 6'9" junior forward/center Alonzo Gaffney. The Ramblers have had some trouble with tall and long teams on this trip, so this lineup seem more friendly to Loyola's chances.

The top players off the bench are 6'3" sophomore Jay Heath, 6'9" junior Jalen Graham, 6'6" freshman Jamiya Neal, and 6'10 freshman Enoch Boakye. High-scoring and rebounding Top 100 prospect Marcus Bagley, a 6'8" sophomore forward, did not make the trip to the Bahamas because of a knee injury aggravated a week ago.

Loyola needs a win in this game like nobody's business. The Ramblers have complained and belly-ached and lobbied and shamed anyone who would listen about getting a chance to play Top 100 teams in the regular season. And now here they are-- 0-2 in two fantastic chances against very good teams on a neutral court. Loyola's last three-game losing streak was the tail end of a four-game losing streak in January-February 2017. That's right, the Ramblers have gone 144 games over more than four full (or almost full) seasons without losing three games in a row.

The Ramblers need to play with a chip on their shoulders. At times, Loyola looked intimidated by the big men and startled by the quickness of the guards on the P5 teams they faced over the past two days. Loyola players-- especially the seniors and juniors-- ought to be embarrassed and angry by the long deer-in-the-headlights segments of play over the past two days. This is the next level, and either Loyola is ready for it or not.

Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _26_21.pdf

Arizona State game notes: Pending

TV/Streaming video: ESPNews https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/ ... %3Aresults

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=87&type=Live

Live stats: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-baske ... /401382756

Vegas odds: Loyola by 5

Man, that is a lot of anger in the final paragraph directed at the team. Let's not forget that we lost our Anchor in Krutwig and our Head Coach. It takes time to adjust to these realities and the new reality gets highlighted in tight games.

To state that the veterans on this team need to play with a chip and should be embarrassed by their collective performances the last 2 games is naive.

I can agree that this two game stretch was hard but to think that we did play with and stayed with two tournament caliber teams in back to back games. We do need to remember that we did make the sweet sixteen last year and lost one of the best payers in Loyola history in Krutwig and he was the heart and soul of the offense and there will be some growing pains throughout the year which we saw in the last two days.

I disagree that we looked intimidated. If anything, we didn't know ourselves well enough to not try futile drives. And they jumped on us 7-0 by fouling like crazy.

Clean up a few things and make a couple more shots and we are right there. Let's get this one!

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Every possession counts, protect the basketball. The most disappointing aspect of the tournament has been our turnovers. Limit turnovers and the Ramblers can grab the W.

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Loyola '86
St. Bona '83

We started two consecutive games in the hole 9-0 and 7-0. The first game we didn't score for the first 6:35 and got three blocked shots in that stretch. It was a great recovery after that, and my sense is it was a matter of pride and a bit of anger that we were getting run out of the gym that way that got the team back on track.

The second game we made 18 turnovers and got blocked 7 more times, got outrebounded by 10 and faded down the stretch. Yeah, how the game was called wasn't in our favor but we're going to have to show we can play against these bigger opponents somehow. Both games we shot well below our average shooting percentage and didn't seem to take the usual variety of shots we take in a game (Aher drives vs. Auburn, midrange jumpers, etc.). Meanwhile, their big guys got just about whatever they wanted. I take that as either intimidation, lack of prep for the situation, or just being happy to be there. You can use whatever words you like, but we've got to have some resolve to come back from this trip with a win.

Some of the posts on these game threads indicate some wildly unrealistic expectations. MSU and Auburn had huge size and athleticism advantages at basically every position. You have to be a Top 100 recruit to play for either of those teams, while the highest rated recruit on our active roster barely registered on recruiting sites. Auburn also has next year's #3 pick, who scored whenever they needed a bucket.

It is very impressive that we played both teams close and had a good chance to beat MSU. These early season tournaments are always going to favor the more talented teams. Our NCAA Tournament runs were powered by incredible team chemistry (built over the course of a season) and an all-time great mid-major center, who we ran our offense through. Even in those great seasons, we struggled against bigger conference teams early in the season.

I think it's important to bring our expectations closer to reality. Our tournament runs were incredible overachievements, and we should treat them as such. If you expect us to beat every major conference team we play, you don't understand the landscape of college basketball and are not going to enjoy your experience as a Loyola basketball fan.

These two games will make the rest of our schedule feel like D-III teams by comparison. Moving forward, I think Hutson's development will be key...he has tons of potential and already looked much better against Auburn than he did against MSU. We still have 3 games left against very beatable power conference teams, and I don't think we'll lose more than a couple Valley games. We definitely lost our margin of error for an at-large bid, but that's we we're moving to the A-10 next year!

Some of our 3 point shots have been wildly off, even open shots, and I’ve been wondering if we’re not comfortable shooting in that arena. At least from the TV, it looks like an odd setup. Almost like playing in a big hotel ballroom. Obviously not an excuse for losing, because both teams have to play there. But some of Norris’ shots in particular looked like they weren’t even close.

I think my expectations are realistic.... we're about the 35th to 40th best team in D-I this season. Not a top 25, but in the lower range of at large teams. That means to me that we should be able to beat 1 or 2 borderline ranked teams, and that we will probably lose 2 or 3 games against mid-level MVC teams. MSU wasn't ranked headed into this tournament, but they will probably be ranked #23 to #25 on Monday even with the loss to Baylor. Auburn was #19 with an OT loss to #22 UConn and a convincing win over us. The KenPom numbers aren't far off the AP rankings, but put us close enough to these teams that we should be able to pull a minor upset.

We knew this tournament was coming up for 2 years. As a team that needed at least one win to secure a likely at large, we knew the importance of these games. But we had long stretches where we looked (insert your term for not good and/or lost).

We have to play really well and get a win today over ASU.

I see where you're coming from. The turnovers and free throws are frustrating no matter who we play. I take it more as those guys are giant and they also made threes (Auburn) and a bunch of tough jumpers (Michigan State).

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