Saturday, November 18, 2023 3:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.


The Ramblers face the University of New Orleans on Saturday afternoon needing a win to secure a winning opening homestand. The Privateers are 2-0 on the season and were picked to finish third in the 2023-24 Southland Conference pre-season poll. The Ramblers are 1-1 all-time against New Orleans, having won on the road in 1984-85 and lost in 1985-86.

Loyola is coming off a dreadful 72-67 loss to UIC-- the first time in more than 10 years losing to their cross-town rival. With Loyola leading 37-36 at halftime, Philip Alston was unable to play at all in the second half after a calf injury took him out mid-1st half. Miles Rubin played less than five minutes in the 2nd half before spending the rest of the game with a knee brace on the bench. Dame Adelekun also didn't play down the stretch. It was all up to Braden Norris, Jalen Quinn, Greg Dolan, Des Watson, Patrick Mwamba, and Tom Welch-- a solid group that should have been able to close out a win-- but between them couldn't score a basket for nearly four minutes. The Ramblers were 0-for-11 behind the arc in the second half, and appeared flat and lethargic as UIC nailed down bragging rights and their biggest win since joining the MVC.

New Orleans, under longtime Head Coach Mark Slessinger, had a terrible first 2/3 of the season last year, but won six of their last eight games and came within a handful of points from reaching the Southland Conference tournament final. Their momentum at the end of the season helped retain many of their best players in an otherwise wild transfer portal season, and the Privateers have some of the most returning minutes in the conference. The Almanac picked UNO to finish second in the league because of their maturity and late-season improvement last year.

UNO hasn't played a game against Division I competition yet, but in their two non-D1 games they started three seniors and two juniors. The guards are 6'1" senior Jordan Johnson, 6'2" senior Khaleb Wilson-Rouse (from Chicago's Prosser High School), and 6'4" junior Jamond Vincent. Johnson was Division I's top three-point percentage shooter last year at 48.2% from behind the arc. This year he is again the team's leading scorer, averaging 19.5 ppg against two non-D1 teams, while dishing out six assists per game. Vincent is averaging 9 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Wilson-Rouse is winding up his career after stops at two jucos and University of the Pacific before arriving at New Orleans last season.

The frontcourt is manned by 6'7" junior forward James Glisson III (a transfer from Mercer), and 6'9" forward D'Ante Bell. Glisson is averaging 9.0 points and 3.5 boards, and Bell adds 8.0 points and 5.0 rebounds per game.

The top bench players are 6'7" sophomore forward Omarion Henry (11 ppg, 4.0 rpg), 6'3" freshman guard Jah Short (13 ppg, 8 rpg), 6'6" junior forward Carlos Hart (a juco All-American from South Georgia State College), 6'4" freshman Mason James out of Chicago's Bogan High School, and 6'8" junior Darius Washington. Again, the UNO stats for this season only reflect two home games against non-D1 opponents.

For Loyola, the big question going into this game is the availability of Philip Alston, Miles Rubin, and Dame Adelekun. The nine minutes on the court for Alston on Tuesday night was the only time so far at the D-1 level that he hasn’t seen double-digit minutes. For Adelekun, he missed one game in December 2022, but you’d have to go back to December 2021 to find a game where he failed to play double-digit minutes. Rubin’s knee issues may have flared up in the game and shut him down early in the 2nd half of the UIC game. Jayden Dawson will be out for several weeks with a knee injury per a report from Rambler Sports Network; Dawson missed the last 14 games last season with a broken bone in his hand, and sustained this new injury after playing just nine minutes in the first game of the season.

New Orleans is where former Chicago Bulls Coach Tim Floyd rose to prominence as a college coach, piloting UNO to two NCAA Tournaments, two seasons in the AP Top 25 rankings, and accumulating a 126-59 record over six seasons. UNO produced NBA players Ledell Eckles, Ervin Johnson Jr., Wayne Holland, Wilbur Cooper, and Ron Grandison.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _-_UNO.pdf

New Orleans game notes: https://unoprivateers.com/news/2023/11/ ... -test.aspx

TV/Streaming video: NBC Sports Chicago + / ESPN + https://www.espn.com/watch/catalog/ab49 ... e587dbfd77

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=153&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=482147

Vegas odds: Loyola by 14.5

No Phil.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Rotations remain insane. Basically every player on the team who is available and on scholarship has seen playing time in the first ten minutes of the game.

Absolutely nonsensical substitutions.

Idiotic. Impossible for any guys to get in a rhythm with the nonstop subs.

Dame looks awesome though.

Also Ben played about two minutes and they were some of our best team offense minutes, creating great looks of cuts and seeing passing lanes...how he can't play significant minutes is insane

I'm at the game going crazy about the sub!!! I came here to see was it just me.
My husband is tired of me complaining about the subs. On a positive note; the offense sets looks way better than before. The ball seems to have to much air or something lol.

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#PROUDMOM

I think Drew is trying to find somebody that will bring an automatic spark off the bench and contribute. The point guard play is tough, too slow, can’t create, decision making mediocre A10 back up at best.

Going with Quinn, Norris, Dolan in a critical stretch as the lead gets smaller is atrocious. Drew is out of his depth and something needs to be done about it.

Pretty uninspired basketball. Full of mistakes. No real identity. Hopefully we can figure some things out or we are looking at another dead last A10 finish.

Too much individual talent for the team to be this bad. And that's on the coaching.