Saturday, March 9, 2024 3:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.


The Loyola Ramblers wrap up the A-10 regular season on Saturday afternoon against the La Salle Explorers, and bid farewell on Senior Day to Braden Norris, Tom Welch, Philip Alston, Dame Adelekun, Greg Dolan, and Patrick Mwamba. Sheldon Edwards is also a senior, but may have an available extra year. And WOW—what a season it’s been! Loyola fans will also have a day to celebrate a surprising team that showed grit and determination throughout a 22-8 season with a chance to tie for the conference title on the final day.

Braden Norris enters his last home game at Loyola ranking #1 in games started, #2 in made three-pointers, #4 in assists, #17 in steals, and #29 in points scored. Loyola is 83-42 with two NCAA appearances, including a Sweet 16 with Norris as the starting floor general. Tom Welch has been one of the best teammates and one of the most reliable bench players over his four seasons in Rogers Park. And Phil Alston has been vital in making the difficult transition to the A-10, while having palpable pride in wearing the Loyola uniform. Sheldon is a fan favorite and a great teammate who's had some memorable moments in big games. Adelekun, Dolan and Mwamba-- here for less time, granted-- still made an imprint on a memorable season and added new pages to the Loyola culture story.

As for Loyola’s opponent on Saturday, the La Salle Explorers were down at the bottom of the league standings for most of the season, but in the past three weeks Coach Fran Dunphy’s guys have turned things around. The Explorers have won four of their last five games (including head-turners against UMass and St. Bonaventure) to move from a 15th place tie to tied for 10th. Key to the turnaround has been much better shot selection and ball sharing leading to better shooting, particularly from behind the arc. In the past five games La Salle has averaged 17 assists per game and 38.9% shooting from distance. In the 5 games prior (all losses) they averaged 12.4 assists and 31.8% three-point shooting.

The likely starters for the Explorers are: 6’1” junior guard Khalil Brantley, 5’11” senior guard Jhamir Bricus, 6’5” junior guard Daeshon Shepherd, 6’8” freshman guard Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi, and 6’10” sophomore center Rokas Jocius. The three experienced guards trade on quickness and excellent ball handling. Brantley averages 15.3 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and 1.6 steals per game. Bricus averages 13.6 points, 4.6 assists, and 3.9 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game—while shooting nearly 86% from the free throw line. Shepherd averages 10.7 points and 5.6 rebounds. In the frontcourt, Jocius is a husky Lithuanian who averages 8.4 points and 5.5 boards. Vahlberg Fasasi, a freshman from Sweden, has been gaining in confidence and consistency through the year; he averages 6.3 points and 3.8 rebounds, and is doing a better job of staying out of foul trouble than earlier in the season.

Coming off the bench are 6’4” senior guard Anwar Gill, 6’5” sophomore guard Andres Marrero, and 6’7” sophomore forward Ryan Zan. Gill is a really savvy and experienced guard who averages 9.5 ppg. Marrero is the top three-point shooter, second on the squad in attempts and makes from behind the arc, and averaging 7.9 ppg. Zan adds 3.3 ppg in limited minutes relieving the starting frontcourt.

La Salle ranks 12th in the conference in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Their best attribute is taking care of the ball—they’re among the best in the country at avoiding steals, and in the top 20 for lowest average turnovers per game.

There’s going to be a lot going on Saturday—maybe some scoreboard watching, players’ families in town for Senior Day, emotions possibly going a little sideways, a visiting team low in the standings (but much better lately), and a big sell-out crowd. The Ramblers are locked into the #2 seed in Brooklyn, but a share of the regular season conference title might still be a possibility. There is also an opportunity to strengthen the argument for an NIT bid if needed. The best advice is to tune out all the distractions, concentrate on the game plan, and take care of business.


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

La Salle game notes: https://goexplorers.com/documents/2024/ ... hicago.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN + https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/eve ... =401596948

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=182&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=482161

Vegas odds: Loyola by 12

Just saw that this is Phil's last home game, I was not expecting that.

The official Loyola men's basketball account is doing video tributes for each senior, complete with highlights and coaching staff interviews. Really well-done and yeah, kind of emotional.

So far, they've posted Dolan, Mwamba, Smythe, Dame & Phil. Braden and Tom left.

What a group of leaders. Great young men, on and off the court. Embodiment of what it means to be a Rambler. I'll miss them all and can't wait to celebrate them tomorrow.

Will Smythe is listed as a redshirt sophomore (I guess that's eligibility-wise), so I missed that he is part of the Senior Day farewells. *** Sorry!! ***

Where have you been!?

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I have an extra ticket for anyone who needs it. PM me and it's yours.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Congrats to the team. Going from dead last to co-champs is quite the impressive turnaround!

Congrats to the coaching staff. They recruited well. They kept the team together despite a rocky start during non-con.

Congrats to the seniors. They are Loyola legends and have made their mark on this proud program and great university.

Now let's hit breakfast club hard tomorrow and Monday (13-24 won't cut it vs the top teams).

And go win three games in Brooklyn to return to the dance.

11 Ramblers played. Make it 12 if you count Will who took the court at the end of the game with less than a minute to play. The students were screaming for him to enter the game and Drew obliged.

LaSalle played 7 until they were exhausted. Three players had 4 fouls and another fouled out. What else would be expected?

We need to get back to the breakfast club as our FT% was 54%. This is not tournament FT shooting.

We need to not fail on our fast breaks.

11 TOs but LaSalle with 15 and we beat them in Pts off TOs, 16 to 7.
But yeah, we were a little sloppy with the ball today.

Our bench beat their bench 25 to 11.

Offensive Rebounds we had 18 to their 13. Like to see that as we have been a bit weak on ORs this year.

Minutes distributed pretty well.

All Ramblers except for JQ (1 FT point) and Mwamba (flopped on a dunk but played heady D) had at least a bucket. JQ guarded tough when he tried to go to the basket.

Dame double double pts (12) and Rebounds (10).

Miles played 15 minutes and had 6 blocks. Yep, 6 blocks! The crowd loved every one of them.

Good sized crowd at 4557 and a lot of fun today!

A big thanks to our young men in maroon and gold (and Drew) for a great season and hopefully we take care of business in Brooklyn!!

Well said @goodknight.

I'd also like to add, thanks to the spirit squads (Dance and Cheer) and the Band of Wolves. With the smaller student section (which was still awesome, I was expecting no student section). It felt like a normal home game and was definitely high energy. Glad they sold out the arena and other fans/Chicagoans got to experience a 'Blers home game. Best atmosphere in the A-10

A10 CHAMPS! A10 CHAMPS! It was so much fun, I had to say it twice!

Thoughts:

1. Ugly: FT shooting was horrid today. 54.2% on 13-18. This is only worrisome thing heading to Brooklyn. Get that Breakfast Club going! Love Miles, but that new hairdo was ugly! Just kidding, but not really…

2. Bad: See FT shooting above, We kinda took our foot off the peddle and so the starters did not get to have their exit ovations. We not as sharp today as we have been. Little too much dribbling. We did assist on 50% of our made baskets which is good, but we did have trouble running our sets a touch. We failed to box out on both of LaSalle’s missed FTs.

3. Good: Lots of good. We did what we had to and we won out after the SBU loss. We got rewarded when Richmond spit the bit and got pasted by 18 against Mason today. We started out 0-8 from the arc, but got it together and made 7-11 after that. Overall numbers we shot 37.9% (22-58) from the floor. We started out cold and got better. 36.5 (7-19) from the arc and a bad 54.2 (13-18) from the line. After a hot start by LaSalle, they ended up getting frustrated by our defense. Their final numbers were not good. They shot 39% (23-59) from the floor, 33% (6-18) from the Arc. They started out hot and we adjusted and got that down. LaSalle only shot 4 FT and they split them. However as mentioned earlier, we failed to box out on the two misses. We also forced 15 TOs, while committing 11 ourselves. Rubin only played played 15 minutes, but he was never in foul trouble. In his minutes, Miles had 10 points, 4 rebounds and 6 BLOCKS. He has now had 11 blocks in his last two games. I think I saw a graphic where Miles is now #1 in the Country in shot block percentage. Miles is now the single season blocks record holder in LU history! Miles had a sequence where he blocked 3 shots, including a dunk attempt. Braden also got his 500th assist today placing 4th all time in LU history.


Final Thoughts: Incredible turnaround this year from last year, and actually in season after we started out 8-5 pre-conference and that early loss to Richmond. My group was discussing which turnaround was bigger. The team’s or the Drew and the coaching staff? Just fantastic on all levels. This is fun. We have some great teams in the past, but they growing and on a steady trajectory. The final four run was great, but that a great team if you believe in metrics. The expectation level for this team early was not this high. This has made this one of the most exciting, fun, and crazy seasons in long time at LU. We have also now set up whole new group of students who getting the experience success, the atmosphere, the Culture. The students responded too this year.

Deja Vu?: This team is special. When I say Deja Vu the year we went to the final four, Richardson got hurt and it allowed Lucas’s to get on the floor and earn Porter’s trust. It paid huge dividends down the road. This year, Jayden got hurt and it allowed Sheldon to get into the rotation and earn some trust with Drew. We now have an additional weapon that we may not have “discovered”.

A10 CHAMPS! Drew should be Coach of the Year. Let’s go kick some Butt in Brooklyn and take it out of the hands of the NCAA Committee!