Saturday, December 30, 2023 1:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.

Loyola welcomes the Central Michigan Chippewas to Gentile Arena on Saturday afternoon to close out 2023 and the non-con season. The Chips are 5-6 on the season, rank at 306 in KenPom, and have been idle since their Dec. 21 win over Detroit Mercy. The Ramblers are hitting the court for the first time since their win over Charleston Southern on Dec. 19.

Loyola is 2-3 all time against Central Michigan, with a loss at a neutral site in 1976 and two home-and-home series in the early 2000s with all games won by the home team. One of the most memorable of them might have been the 2000-01 game at Gentile, with 7-foot freshman and future NBA first-round pick Chris Kaman and CMU’s top scorer, David Webber (youngest brother of NBA star Chris). That CMU team went 20-8 with wins over Purdue, UIC, and Drake. But the Ramblers knocked them off 75-70 at the Joe, in Loyola’s third best win and CMU’s worst loss that year.

In another game against Central Michigan on December 23, 2003, Loyola beat CMU at Gentile Arena 90-83, with 12 points and 6 rebounds coming from Loyola’s Paul McMillan. The 6’6” Loyola forward had just welcomed a new child into the world just 5 or 6 weeks before that game--- Paul McMillan IV, who is now a 6’2” sophomore guard at Central Michigan, and a top bench player for the Chips.

Head Coach Tony Barbee, now in his third season with CMU, will likely start 6’2” junior guard Antony Pritchard, 6’6” senior guard Brian Taylor, 6’2” junior guard Derrick Butler, 6’6” freshman Cayden Vasko, and 7’0” freshman Hunter Harding. Prichard is the point guard and leading scorer, putting up averages of 13.5 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 4.9 assists. Taylor scores 12.6 points on average and leads the team in rebounds (6.6 per game), blocks (10), and free throw shooting (87.1%); he’s also tied for the lead in made threes (12). Butler averages 9.7 ppg, and shoots a high percentage on threes. Vasko averages 6.6 per game. Harding was promoted into the starting lineup after his older brother Markus, a sophomore, was sidelined by injury.

McMillian averages 5.9 ppg coming off the bench. Six-nine junior forward Jemal Davis averages 5.6 points, and 6’6” sophomore guard Aiden Rubio is the three-point specialist averaging 6.3 points. NBA legend Dan Majerle’s son Max Majerle and Coach Barbee’s son Drew Barbee are on the roster but not playing this season.

CMU is a slightly better offensive team than on defense, according to KenPom. The Chips rank 294th in offense and 314th on defense. But their best wins—a 68-63 win at South Florida and home wins over Valparaiso and Detroit Mercy—seem to have been powered from the defensive side, by holding those opponents under 67 points, and to shooting percentages between 31 and 39 percent. Against South Florida, CMU held the Bulls to 1-of-17 shooting on threes (the Bulls beat Loyola 77-64 on the same court and shot 42% on threes).

In this last tune-up before conference play begins in Saint Louis on Wednesday, the Ramblers need to shake off the rust from an 11-day layoff and run through their offensive and defensive sets with precision and confidence. In Central Michigan’s six losses, they’ve scored between 59 and 67 points. They’ve scored from 68 to 75 points in their four wins against D-I competition. So the benchmark is pretty clear—hold the Chips under 68, and you’re probably going to win. As for the offensive side, the Ramblers need to keep the pressure on throughout the game. Metrics play a part now, not just in how the team is ranked in KenPom, T-Rank, Haslametrics, etc., but in the actual NET (the official NCAA ranking that helps determine seeding). Frankly, the Ramblers have left a lot of points on the table from letting up or giving more time to deep bench players or just overly good sportsmanship. Time to run the race hard through the tape from now on.


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

Central Michigan game notes: https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/side ... 122623.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN + https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/ ... f070999f9f

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=163&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=482152

Vegas odds: Loyola by 14

We have used Mwamba recently to guard, guards out on the perimeter. Will be interested to see if they put him on Prichard. You also have to think that tomorrow's game will be a rehearsal for A10 opener and we will see the rotation Coach Drew has settled on.

Nice first half. Keep it up 'Blers

Alston is an absolute Bull. Led the Ramblers in scoring (15) but again had 4 fouls. We are going to need him to stay in the game when facing the A-10 opponents.

Well balanced this afternoon.
3 other Ramblers, Norris, Watson, Miles, hit double digit points beside Alston. Doesn't that usually put us in the win column?

Norris hit 4 threes out of 5
Miles, 4 blocks, and he had a special spin move and basket. This young man has talent.

Starters today
Alston
Norris
Watson
Rubin
Dawson

JQ with high off the bench minutes. Good speed, athletic, only 3 pts but 6 rebounds. But he still needs to be careful with the ball as he had 3 turnovers.

Drew has started with these 5 the last 2 games. So is it safe to say it will be the same at tip off time this Wednesday at SLU.

Really happy with that game. We did everything we needed to do. Central Michigan is not a very good team this year, very young, banged up a bit, and the MAC is having a very down year. Their best big man is out with an injury and the 7-footer Oduor was just back in this game (I skipped over him in the preview because he hadn't played in the last 4 games or so) and he played well. But still, their win at South Florida was something we couldn't manage to pull off, and they put up 59 points at Oklahoma and scored 64 against Creighton-- so they're a D-I team.

But the defense was fantastic.... limited them to 8% on threes and 26% overall shooting pct. Lowest opposition points since beating Evansville 82-31 in our last home MVC game. Loved the energy.

Great game by Miles-- new career highs in points (13), minutes (25), rebounds (9, tied). He added 4 blocks and limited his fouls to only two, and tied with the highest +/- at 28 with Braden. Interesting to see that he got 25 minutes, Adelekun got 11 minutes, and Tom Welch got 3... that says a lot about the trust Drew is putting in him. He's poised to lead the league in blocks, and through 13 games he has 32 blocks (the school season record is 66 by Andre Moore).

The two waves of bench players were perfectly used, and limited CMU to only 2 points in the last five-plus minutes of the game.

Jayden Dawson only had 5 points on 2-of-8 shooting, but he was third in plus minus due to his defense-- one block, one steal, three rebounds, ZERO personal fouls in 22 minutes. Really like him guarding outside shooters and drives to the basket. CMU's top scorer, Prichard, had his second-worst shooting game of the year, 8 points from 17 field goal attempts and three trips to the line-- same guy who had 22 against South Florida, 22 against Creighton, and 16 against Florida State.

As a result of all this, Loyola moved up 8 spots in KenPom despite playing a 300+ KenPom team at home. We're also back in the top 100 in defensive efficiency.

A great game. reminded me of the Harvard game. Played well at both ends of the court. But it looks like we are going to hang our hat on defense and that is okay with me. Looks like Watson will be our #1 defender.Prichard was super quick and the combo of Watson and Mwamba did a really nice job on him. Miles Rubin has really surprised me...he seems to have learned quickly, is a serious rim protector keeps his cool and has natural instincts. Even though the zone gave them some issues they did a nice job of getting Norris some nice looks. Offensively they did a nice job of making the extra pass and never thought I would see this but Alston had 4 assists and we had 21 assists on 27 hoops....this was our old formula...I think Coach Valentine got some good work done over the Christmas break.....
What is interesting and we have seen it a lot recently is teams setting the high pick and roll....and if the center is not open than the guard just goes one on one and everyone else stands at the 3 point line...we defended this much better than we did at Tulsa or USF game....but with Alston almost always playing against taller players and his natural aggressiveness his foul situation may linger...I think we will need Welch b4 all is said and done.....but in the end a fun game to watch..bring on the A10

I agree with your assessment Nate. But in the last ten minutes or so, it seemed like they were making too many extra passes and running out of clock, or getting tied up.

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Let's go Braden!