Sunday, December 18, 2022 1:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.


The Albany Great Danes visit Gentile Arena Sunday afternoon for only their second game ever against the Ramblers. Loyola beat Albany 68-56 back in December 2009, in the middle of a seven-game winning streak.

Back in the early 2000s, the Danes had a good stretch from 2006 to 2015, when they made the NCAA tournament five times in the 10-year stretch. Albany is a member of the America East Conference, where they were picked to finish sixth in the preseason poll this season in a league where Vermont is usually one of the top teams.

These days, Albany is coached by Dwayne Killings, a kid who grew up playing high school ball in Amherst Massachusetts and became a walk-on under Steve Lappas at UMass. Earlier this year, UMass beat the Great Danes 87-73 on Dec. 5. Killings went on to become an assistant at Boston University and associate head coach at Marquette under Steve Wojciechowski before getting the gig at Albany.

Coach Killings is in his second year as head coach. He's likely to start three guards and two forwards: 6'5" senior guard Gerald Drumgoole, 6'5" senior Tray Hutcheson, 6'2" freshman Marcus Jackson, 6'7" sophomore forward Aaron Reddish, and 6'9" freshman Jonathan Beagle. Drumgoole leads the team with 14.3 points per game and 2.2 assists per contest-- he's their on-court leader who plays more minutes than anyone else. Beagle, despite being a freshman, has shown some maturity while averaging 11.0 points and 7.5 rebounds in his first season. Last time out, in a 76-59 win over LIU, Beagle led the team with 17 points and five assists. Reddish is the third leading scorer with 9.9 points per game. Hutcheson doesn't do much scoring, and Jackson was making just his second start last time out.

The bench players include 6'3" senior guard Sarju Patel (6.7 ppg), 6'1" senior guard DaKquawn Davis (7.6 ppg), 5'10" junior point guard Malik Edmead, and 6'7" sophomore Tairi Ketner, a 260-pound forward. The coach likes to mix up his starters sometimes to reward good attitudes.

Albany comes into this game 4-8 on the season, with wins over LIU, Presbyterian, and two non-Division I schools. They lost to a pretty good Towson team by only five points on the road to open the season, and their schedule has been pretty tough (UMass, Providence, St. Joseph’s, and a KenPom top 50 opponent in Florida Atlantic), and they have Loyola on Sunday, NIU on Tuesday and a game at Virginia coming up.

The Ramblers need to continue the improvement they’ve shown in taking care of the ball, building an offensive rhythm, and clamping down on defense. Loyola also needs to tune up after eight days off to get ready for Stanford on Thursday, the last chance for a quality win out of conference.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... Notes1.pdf

Albany game notes: https://ualbanysports.com/news/2022/12/ ... -city.aspx

TV/Streaming video: ESPN+ https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/eve ... /401487661

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=129&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=426262

Vegas odds: Loyola by 16.5

All in all, not bad. Better on the turnover front. Alston had a double-double and could have easily had 20+ points. He's gotta get better around the rim. Kudos to him on making his free throws and not getting three-happy after the Clemson game.

Based on the other thread, it seemed like their coach's plan was to out-tough Norris, which, well, I've seen people try that before.

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I agree with your assessment. I looked at the box score and was surprised at how much we relied on minutes from 5 guys.

Solid win. Still nervous about how many minutes go to the starters, but a win is a win

Think a lot of us thought this would be a deep team. But the rotation seems to really be tightening. Think it's gonna be heavy minutes on 5 or 6 guys, especially when conference play gets going.

Some thoughts...

1. It's a win and we'll take it. However, we never put Albany away. We let them hang around and it was tougher than the score would lead you to believe. We are playing better, but need to work on that killer instinct.

2. Rotation is tighter and minutes seem weighted towards the starters, but I don't think it's Drew. He's giving players opportunities, they aren't producing. Golden keeps getting opportunities and he's not contributing. Really, the only thing you can look at is Edwards being ghosted and not getting minutes. Dawson, with some Quinn sprinkled in have taken his minutes.

3. We need to do better at FT line. We are giving points away.

4. This was a trap game heading to out to play Stanford and coming off of finals. We stacked another win. We are 6-5 and have a chance to get after Stanford. Got to keep working and getting better. Small steps.

What has happened to Sheldon Edwards? Is he injured or just buried on the bench?

Amazing to me that Golden is not really contributing at all.

1.Albany was a decent team and played hard. Some credit it to them. Another pair of small quick guards and quick guards seem to give us trouble.

2. Agree with everyone some guys are getting opportunities and are not delivering. It seems that Golden makes a mistake with in a minute of getting in. My look on this is that he is more of a traditional post up kind of guy and we run a quicker , switching D and quick ball movement O and he struggles with both. Saint Thomas ( 4/24 from 3) who I think we all thought was going to be a big part of the team is struggling on O but seems to be able to play D and Rebound. I heard yesterday that Edwards (6/33 from 3) has never been able to catch up after his injury and that the hand is still bothering him.

3. Sign of how far the program has come was the crowd yesterday. Students were gone, competing with World Cup and the Bears and Christmas and yet there was a good , loud crowd.

4. Also heard through the grapevine that our fast paced play early in the year was by design..and that a decision was made to throttle things down..but still an indication that long term Drew wants to really speed things up.

5.Thought Marquis played a really veteran game yesterday. Seems to be taking a real leadership position during the games.

6. Jayden Dawson besides being able to hit the 3 seems to be a pretty heady player for a freshman.

7. Nice Win,,Nice way to spend a cold winter Sunday in Chitown.

I wanted to mention the crowd as well. It was a nice crowd for a winter break game.

And while we didn't play nearly as well as I'd hoped, I agree that Marquise had a really strong game. There was a hilarious moment where the ball went OB on the baseline and Marquise pleaded with the ref "I didn't touch it! I didn't touch it!" and then the ref who apparently likes a dramatic pause, gave us the ball and Marquise gave a huge fist pump.

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Doesn’t Edwards potentially have 3 years of eligibility left? That could be one reason he isn’t seeing much time, in what was always used as a developmental year for transfers until a few years ago.