Wednesday, March 20, 2024 6:00 p.m.
Carver Arena, Peoria, Ill.

Loyola travels south to Peoria to face Bradley in the opening round of the 2024 NIT. Bradley has been in 22 previous NITs, with four championships and a combined record of 25-19. Loyola will be playing in their sixth NIT, with a record of 6-5. These two teams met once before in the NIT, with Loyola defeating Bradley 55-50 in the 1949 NIT semifinals.

Bradley’s KenPom of 64 was good for a 22-11 overall record, 13-7 record in conference play, and third place in the MVC. It’s their best KenPom ranking since Coach Brian Wardle took over the team in 2015-16, and the program’s best KenPom since 2007-08. Their marquee win this season was an overtime win over Utah State in their second game of the season. However, the Braves were winless in their six other games against KenPom top 100 teams.

Coach Wardle will likely start 5’8” senior point guard Duke Deen, 6’3” junior guard Connor Hickman, 6’8” freshman forward Almar Atlason, 6’9” senior forward Darius Hannah, and 6’9” senior forward Malevy Leons. The Ramblers have seen Hickman, Leons, and Hannah before, back in Loyola’s last two years in the MVC. Deen is a high-scoring diminutive point guard in the mold of former Brave Darrell Brown. Deen averages 14.1 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 3.9 assists per game, and leads the team with 85 made three pointers. Deen shoots 39% on threes, and backcourt-mate Connor Hickman shoots 41.5%. Hickman averages 14.5 points per game to lead the team, and has buried 71 threes this season.

The Braves play three big, mobile forwards in their starting lineup, which causes opponents some matchup problems. Malevy Leons is a great defensive player in addition to averaging 13.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks per game. Hannah chips in 11.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game. Freshman Almar Atlason, a native of Iceland, joined the starting lineup midway through the conference season; he shoots 41% from behind the arc and averages 4.9 points and 1.8 rebounds.

The bench players are 6’7” junior Christian Davis (7.9 points, 5.0 rebounds), 6’4” freshman guard Demarion Burch (4.9 points, 1.2 assists), and 7’1” sophomore center Ahmet Jonovic. They usually don’t go more than eight players deep in competitive games.

Bradley was the third best offense and the second-best defense in the MVC this year according to KenPom. Their trio of 6’8”-6’9” forwards are a handful-- Leons and Atlason can hit from outside (33.9% and 41% respectively). Leons can dribble-drive to the hoop from the arc, and Hannah shoots 64.2% on his two-point shots. Leons’ length and quick hands (1.6 steals per game) are really disruptive, and both Leons and Hannah are seniors with a lot of experience. Leons has fouled out four times this year (Bradley is 1-3 in those games) and Hannah has tallied four fouls seven times (BU was 4-3 in those games).

As always, Bradley has a serious home court advantage. This year the Braves were 13-3 at home. KenPom ranks Bradley in Carver Arena as the 10th best home court advantage in college basketball, worth approximately 4.1 points. On the other side of the coin, the Ramblers were pretty good on the road this season, going 7-4 in true road games.

The will to win factors in heavily in the NIT. My experience watching NIT games (sporadically) over the past couple decades convinces me that a lot of teams don’t really want to be there. Sometimes teams that were extremely disappointed by an NCAA snub play lethargically, sometimes teams are driven by the circumstances that landed them in the NIT. I watched Xavier play their first game of the NIT against Cleveland State in 2022, and they were sleepwalking through it until the end, when they pulled out a 72-68 win. That near loss woke them up, and X went on to win the NIT in 2022 with wins over Florida, Vanderbilt, a fierce game against St. Bonaventure at MSG, and the championship against Texas A&M.

In 2017, Illinois State beat UC Irvine in their first NIT game but didn’t seem much interested after their terrible snub by the NCAA Tournament. They lost to UCF in their second game with a careless late foul—their only home loss of that year.

And finally, the NIT often plays with experimental rules. This year, teams will play with a wider free throw lane (matching NBA and foreign rules) and a different format for media time outs.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/news/2024/3/ ... tion1.aspx

Bradley game notes: https://bradleybraves.com/news/2024/3/1 ... oyola.aspx

TV/Streaming video: ESPN + https://www.espn.com/espnplus/catalog/a ... etId=29466

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=186&type=Live

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

Vegas odds: Bradley by 4.5

Anyone else having trouble transferring tickets to Google Wallet?

I believe this will be Dawson's 24th game missed in two years. Brutal.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

sounds like the team is not lacking in motivation for tonight. I like it

Ramblers come out looking sloppy and Bradley is trying to get revenge for the last few beatings we gave them before we left the MVC.

Shouldve just ended the season after the blown tournament game, this is unbecoming.

Our offense looking like a continuation of the St. Bonaventure game where we went nearly 7 minutes without scoring and couldn't buy a shot.

Our shooters are struggling...bad!

Des is already 1/9 on FG, continuing his poor shooting performance streak.
Quinn is 0/4 and Braden has taken and missed 1 shot.

Really could use Dawson out there tonight.

If they don't want to be there, they should have declined the invite. Bradley looks better in every facet. They are getting easy looks, creating easy turnovers, playing faster and harder. Just an embarrassing half for Drew and the team.