Saturday, February 10, 2024 11:00 a.m.
Charles E. Smith Center, Washington, DC

Just three days after an emotional, come-from-behind road win at George Mason, Loyola plays George Washington University for the first time as an A-10 rival in DC. The 11 am Central tip-off is also the first time Loyola has played GW since they’ve been known as the Revolutionaries.

Banged-up and overcoming severe foul trouble, the Ramblers handed George Mason only their second home loss of the season on Wednesday night, 85-79. Sheldon Edwards exploded for a career-high 27 points as Loyola overcame a 12-point first half lead. It was gutsy and impressive. The Ramblers are now 8-2 in the A-10, 16-7 overall.

GW’s second-year Head Coach Chris Caputo is from the Jim Larrañaga coaching tree-- Caputo was Associate Head Coach at Miami when Loyola beat the Hurricanes in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament. GW started the season 14-3, but they’ve lost their last five in a row. He’s 30-24 thus far in his head coaching career after Tues. night’s 88-65 home loss to Rhode Island. The Revolutionaries are 14-8 on the season, 3-6 in the A10, and 2-3 at home in conference play.

The Revs start 6’2” senior guard James Bishop, 6’5” sophomore guard Maximus Edwards, 6’8” freshman guard Garret Johnson, 6’7” freshman forward Darren Buchannan Jr., and 6’10” senior center Babatunde Akingbola. Bishop is the floor general and one of the top scorers in the A10; he led the league last year wit 21.6 ppg and is averaging 17.1 this season, to go along with 4.4 assists and 3.1 rebounds. Bishop transferred to GW four years ago after a little-used freshman year at LSU, and now sits at just 106 points away from 2000 career points at GW. Akingbola is an Auburn grad transfer who is the best rim protector in the A10, averaging 3.1 blocks per game to go with 5.6 rebounds and 3.9 points on average. Edwards is averaging 12.4 ppg and was last year’s A10 Freshman of the Year; he leads the team in rebounding at 7.0 per game. Buchannan and Johnson were two top DC area high schoolers who committed to GW and have made an instant impact as freshman starters. Buchannan averages 15.7 ppg, 6.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists. Johnson averages 13.8 points and 5.7 rebounds; he leads the team in free throw shooting at 41.5%, but did not play (undisclosed) in Tuesday’s game against Rhode Island.

Six-three freshman guard Jacoi Hutchinson, 6’4” freshman guard Trey Autry, 6’7” sophomore guard Benny Schroder, and 6’7” senior forward Antoine Smith are the major players off the bench.

After starting the A10 campaign at 3-1 (including a road win at VCU), the Revs have lost five straight. In their first 17 games of the season they were averaging 39% from behind the arc. But since their Jan. 20 loss at UMass to begin their five-game funk, they’re shooting 23.7% on threes (and even lower--17.1%, in the last three games).

The Revs like to play very fast, getting up and down the court. They have extremely quick and active hands, make a lot of cuts to the basket. Playing fast can lead to more turnovers, and the Revs have actually committed more turnovers (301) than the Ramblers (290) in the same number of games. However, GW is great at limiting their fouls, resulting in a huge advantage (161 more than their opponents) in free throw attempts. As a team, they shoot 74.7% from the line, which is 78th best in Division I—led by Edwards at 89.5%, Johnson at 87.3% and Bishop at 83.2%.

In their 14 wins they average 81.9 ppg, and in their losses (tossing out the triple overtime game) they average 69. Their last two games are their two lowest point totals of the season, 61 against Dayton and 65 against Rhody.


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

George Washington game notes: https://gwsports.com/documents/2024/1/3 ... p_Card.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN + https://www.espn.com/watch/player?id=ef ... de747ba908

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=174&type=Live

Live stats: https://gwsports.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary

Vegas odds: Loyola by 3.5

Another painful game to watch. We foul way too much. James Bishop is going to finish with more FTs than our entire team at this rate.

2nd game of a road trip with 1 less day of rest and we look fatigued. Short on a lot of shots and a step slow on D. Have to dig deep to win this one.

We definitely dug deep to pull this one out. Spread out the scoring. Some HUGE and-1s by Dame down the stretch after he struggled early on.

Fouls were again a big problem for us. We need to clean that up.

What a fantastic 2-0 road trip. With Sheldon really stepping up as a big scoring threat, this team can beat you in so many ways.

Tied for 2nd with Dayton now at 9-2 in A10 play. Let's go win this damn conference.

We were down 7 with 5:10 to play. Outscored them 22-7 to end the game. Clutch!

We did look a little tired in the middle of the 2nd. We played sloppy with the lead.
Credit Coach Valentine and his staff with identifying the mismatch that Dame had and getting him the ball. We pulled it out.

Sheldon’s scoring total before this road trip: 49 points
Sheldon’s scoring total on this 2 game road trip: 45 points

Crazy.

Legs looked tired. Phil and Dame really forcing it for a stretch killed the offense. Both teams made their runs when 3s went down, but we closed it out with tough 2s.

Think Miles could be involved even more on offense.

Defense needs to get dialed in again. Otherwise, just win baby.

We just won our last two games on the road with low TOs, 6 then 8.
FT today @ 85.7%
Low TOs, higher FT% is a much better Rambler team.

We now just need to keep our fouls in check.

I would not say a great win (fouls) as much that I would say that it was great that we won!

This one was a last 5 minutes -of -the -game dogfight. We are one gritty team.

Dame Time appeared just when we needed him today.

Sheldon got our 3 ball going late in the 2nd half followed by one by Braden. We really needed those points.

I think the fight under the basket by Alston today defines our team in many ways. Phil played well and helped us to our win.

JQ good game all around

JD still not 100%

Drew has the boys playing as a team and they believe that they will win each game and they do keep at it.

Did Watson have grease on the bottom side of his shoes today? One of his 2 slips allowed Bishop to hit that late 3 ball. That one had me worried.

Both Loyola and Dayton at 9-2, how sweet that sounds! Richmond playing right now at home and they will probably beat LaSalle to remain at the top spot.

Back to the Joe on Valentine’s night to laugh at that nutty St Joe’s hawk that never stops flapping its wings, but more so to watch us go to 10-2 in the conference!

9-2

Life is good.

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