Friday, December 18, 2020 5:00 pm
Indiana Convention Center, Indianapolis, IN
Loyola looks to get a quality win on Friday night in Indianapolis-- in a matchup against a team that promises to be either inside or near the edge of the tournament bubble come Spring. The Richmond Spiders are currently ranked #52 in KenPom, and the Ramblers sit just behind at #56.
The Spiders have been heralded as a rising team for several years now, and looked primed to make a strong run in the tournament last season. Richmond finished their 2019-20 season at 24-7, 14-4 in the A-10, with a KenPom ranking of 46. They were projected by several bracket-watchers as an 11 seed at large even before the A-10 tournament and college basketball shut down due to Covid-19. Richmond's top five scorers from last season were all juniors set to return this year, and they emerged in the off-season as non-P6 entry on everyone's Top 25.
The Spiders started off the season 4-0 with wins over Kentucky at Rupp Arena and Northern Iowa at home, earning them a #19 ranking in the AP Poll before getting absolutely throttled by West Virginia last Sunday. Richmond dropped just out of the Top 25 in the AP Poll and hold on to a #25 ranking in the USA Today Coaches Poll. On Wednesday night, they bounced back to beat Vanderbilt in Nashville 78-67 to stand at 5-1 on the season.
Meanwhile, the Ramblers dropped their first game of the year at #12 Wisconsin on Tuesday night with a below expectations showing against the Badgers. Cameron Krutwig was great yet again, but turnovers, perimeter defense and two 17-3 Badger runs resulted in 77-63 smack-around.
Richmond Coach Chris Mooney was a four-year starter at Princeton in the early 1990s, and has hewn closely to legendary Coach Pete Carril's Princeton offensive system in his coaching career. As a 6'6" forward he scored over 1000 points in his career, and helped lead the Tigers to two Ivy League Championships, two NCAA Tournament appearances, and national rankings as high as #18. After one year as a Head Coach at Air Force, he was hired at Richmond to replace DePaul-bound Jerry Wainright in 2005. Loyola faced Richmond on a neutral court just two years ago in the Ft. Myers Tip Off tournament. Then-sophomore Lucas Williamson scored 23 points leading the Ramblers to an 82-66 win.
The Spiders start 5'9" senior point guard Jacob Gilyard, 6'0" senior guard Blake Francis, 6'7" senior forward Nathan Cayo, 6'7" sophomore forward Tyler Burton, and 6'10 senior forward Grant Golden. Senior guard Nick Sherod, the third leading scorer on last year's squad with nearly 1200 career points tore his ACL in October and will miss the season.
Although they share scoring abilities more or less equally (all five starters average between 10.7 and 14.7 points per game), the key players are Gilyard and Golden. The lightning-quick Gilyard leads the NCAA ranks in steals with 27 and dishes 6.5 assists per game; as the shortest person on the court every game he still pulls in 3.2 rebounds per contest, and he's played 92.9% of his team's minutes thus far on the season. Golden is a very mobile and long forward who shoots well from everywhere on the court (57% shooting on twos AND threes), passes very well (19 assists in 6 games), and ranks 2nd on the team in rebounds (7.0 per game). Burton leads the team in rebounding at 8.3 per game; Blake Francis leads the team in scoring and field goal attempts.
Coming off the bench are juniors Andre Gustavson (a 6'4" shooting guard), Matt Grace (a 6'9" forward), and Souleymane Koureissi (a 6'9" forward); 6'6" sophomore guard Connor Crabtree also plays significant minutes. KenPom ranks the Spiders as 12th in all of college basketball in experience, and they quite probably would have been first if not for the Sherod ACL injury.
Richmond showed a lot of vulnerability in their recent game against West Virginia. After starting the game quite competitively, the Mountaineers let loose a devastating full court press about a third of the way into the first half. WVU closed out the half with an 18-1 run that gave the Mountaineers a 52-30 lead at the break. Golden made six turnovers in 30 minutes, and the duo of Gilyard and Golden only managed 16 points combined. West Virginia's 6'2" sophomore Miles McBride was the star of the game, scoring 20 points in only 28 minutes along with five assists and three steals. The very tight full court press rattled the Spiders a bit and had the effect of keeping Richmond from getting into their offense quickly.
The Ramblers aren't an especially quick team, but players like Marquise Kennedy, Lucas Williamson, and Keith Clemons are going to be key defensively. The Ramblers are really good at help defense, but helping on defense can be especially dangerous with the Princeton offense and five really good scorers. Aher Uguak and Cam Krutwig will need to deny, disrupt and anticipate passing inside to Golden and Nathan Cayo (who rarely misses when he gets the ball inside, and leads the team in field goal percentage at 73%). Forcing the highly experienced Spiders out of their comfort zone isn't easy, but it can be done.
Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... 18_20_.pdfRichmond game notes: https://richmondspiders.com/documents/2 ... hicago.pdfTV/Streaming video: NBC Sports Chicago
Internet audio feed: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=61&type=LiveLive stats: https://iupuijags.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summaryVegas odds: Loyola by 3