Saturday, February 24, 2024 3:30 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.

Fresh off their first home win over a ranked team in program history, the George Mason Patriots make their way to Gentile Arena Saturday afternoon to play Loyola for the second time this season. The Patriots, under first-year head coach Tony Skinn, are 18-8 overall, 7-6 in the A-10, and ranked 93 in KenPom.

Mason’s 71-67 win over #16 Dayton Wednesday night prompted a court-storming in Fairfax. The come-from-behind win was sparked by freshman Baraka Okojie, who scored all 19 of his points in the second half. Okojie reminded me a bit of Joseph Yesafu a few years ago at Drake—he was everywhere and didn’t seem to miss. The Patriots shot 59.3% from two-point range and hit 24 of their 29 free throw attempts.

Back on February 7, Loyola had their own come-from-behind win at Eagle Bank Arena. The Ramblers trailed by 12 points late in the first half, and were behind by three with around six minutes left. Sheldon Edwards’ career-high 27 points and double-digit contributions from Phil Alston, Miles Rubin and Des Watson turned it around for the Ramblers. The final was 85-79.

Coach Skinn will start: 6’7” sophomore guard/forward Keyshawn Hall, 6’3” freshman guard Baraka Okojie, 6’9” senior forward Amari Kelly, 6’2” senior point guard Ronald Polite III, and 6’5” guard Jared Billups. Hall, a UNLV transfer, is one of the best players in the conference, averaging 17.8 ppg, and a conference-best 8.7 rebounds per game. Kelly is the third double-digit scorer at 12.0 ppg, and is a dangerous three-point threat. Okojie is a great defensive player leading the team in steals and a pretty good offensive player for a freshman averaging 7.3 points, 2.6 rebounds, and 2.0 assists. Polite adds an average of 7.9 points to go with a team-leading 3.0 assists per game. Billups is another defensive star, averaging 4.8 points, and 4.3 rebounds.

The Mason bench is led by Darius Maddox, averaging 13.8 ppg, and the top three-point shooter (51 made threes) on the team, hitting them at 41.1%. The other top bench guys are 6’8” senior forward Woody Newton, and 6’8” senior forward Malik Henry.

The Patriots are one of the best free throw shooting teams in the league, with Hall, Maddox, and Polite each averaging over 82% and the team averaging 75.1%. Their ever-shifting defenses—man, multiple zones, full-court and half-court presses, and others—really keep opposing teams on their heels. Expect Coach Skinn to have some new wrinkle in their rematch with the Ramblers.

Loyola needs a win over GMU on Saturday to keep pace with Richmond, who has one of the easier remaining schedules—home against Davidson, VCU, and Saint Joseph’s; roadies at Saint Louis and Mason. The Ramblers have Saturday vs. George Mason, at Bona, hosting Dayton, at Davidson, and senior day against LaSalle. To win the conference regular season, Loyola needs to keep focused forward on the next opponent—and a stumble from Richmond would help a bit, as the Spiders hold the tiebreaker.

Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... Mason2.pdf

George Mason game notes: https://gomason.com/documents/2024/2/23 ... Loyola.pdf

TV/Streaming video: USA Network https://www.usanetwork.com/

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=177&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=482159

Vegas odds: Loyola by 3

Should be a tough game for us.

Hey, we finally cracked the top 100 in Kenpom!
Last night at 100, exactly.
Just like Kenpom we're now at 101.
What will game time bring?
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Kelly(twice), Billups(once), fouling out the last 4 games for Mason.
Hopefully our physical play can get one of them out early.
Or anyone out for that matter.
But I'd rather see it be Kelly.
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From the GM message board about our Ramblers.
One person's thoughts
LOL, but there is some truth to it as far as our deep bench

Loyola’s only advantage is fouling every play until the refs stop calling fouls. They can do it as they go 10-11+ deep. I wouldn’t call what they do playing defense, I would call it keep hacking until it doesn’t work anymore.


The Joe is sold out today
Go Blers!!

I predict this will be the “Jayden Dawson is back” game

I was going to write about how much we need him to return to form in the preview, but I didn't want to put pressure on anyone. Miles is also overdue for a good game.

2-1 Assist/turnovers today…24 assists is just fantastic.

Great game, great atmosphere today. Got to leave early with 5min left on the clock with the comfortable lead

Got home, watched the last five minutes, great close-out...but the shrieking from the student section was "fingernails on a chalkboard" bad. Not sure how you resolve that but man that was a downer hearing that and not good for the brand lol. (Loyola...you really have to move the crowd microphones or move the announcers to the other side of the court)

The Dayton game will be epic. Keep it up 'Blers.

Hell of an atmosphere in Gentile today. And the team put on a show. Probably our most complete game of the past two years. Just exceled in every facet.

I LOVE other team's fanbases commenting on how physical we are. Some complain about it (saying we foul every possession, that we play rugby instead of basketball), while some compliment it. That toughness and physical defense really wears teams down, frustrates them. It's become a staple of our program, starting with Porter's emphasis on defense. Now we have extremely talented and athletic players who are carrying on that tradition of physicality but also able to get up and down the court and play some pretty solid offense.

Cannot wait for the week ahead. Two tough games. Time to go out and take it.

Yes, great crowd today. The Joe was packed and real loud.
Great to see our Ramblers pull out another win.
7 in a row and we couldn’t have picked a better time in the season to do it.

Mason stingy D and some quick with steals in the early going but we grabbed a lead again and then kept it.

Drew spread out the playing time very well.
Aside from the clearing of the bench the last 2 minutes, 11 players and only one over 30 minutes, Norris, who played 34.
10 players put in at least 2 buckets.
High scorers were 10 points a piece, Norris and Phil.

Team 3 point @48%, pretty darn good to say the least.
Dolan and Phil with 2 threes.

Our bench point total (39) nearly doubled their bench point total (20). I love our bench production and use as of late.

Our big glue guy, Welch, was physical and came in a bit early as Dame had 2 fouls early.

JD with 7 points is on the upswing IMHO.

Problem: Our FT% was @50%. Are the boys attending the Breakfast Club? If we make it to the dance, this 50% won’t work against the real good teams.

Kenpom at 95 as of now.

With Richmond over Davidson this evening, we will go into Monday morning tied for 1st. How does that sound?

We need to work on a few things but I really like where we are and hopefully where we’re going.

Get through that trap game first at the Bonnie’s!

Impressive Rambler performance today. Four games left. Hopefully this good run of form continues. I love that the Ramblers did not rely on a big game from any one person. One thing that was interesting was that GMU clearly decided they weren't going to let Sheldon torch them again. He was getting no room. That opened up a lot of other options. The Rambler defense was efficient and aggressive today-- only downside was a lot of fouls. They forced a lot of turnovers and tough shots out of GMU. Good work. I hope we go into the St. Bonaventure game with the right focus and determination. That's a team with some talent, but they've been erratic if not fragile at times this season. I'm looking forward to seeing how we match up with their weapons and how they try to match up with ours.