Friday, March 5, 2021 11:00 am
The Enterprise Center, St. Louis, Mo.


The #20 Loyola Ramblers will face Southern Illinois for the third time in less than a week when the Ramblers hit the court on Friday for their first game in Arch Madness 2021. Despite an early injury to point guard and leading scorer Lance Jones, 9th-seeded SIU held on to beat 8th seed Bradley 73-63. Bradley finished the season 12-16 overall, 6-12 in conference.

Jones sustained an injury to his left ankle less than six minutes into the game and spent most of the contest watching teammates Ben Harvey (season-high 24 points) and Kyler Filewich (12 points, 7 rebounds) secure the win from a knee scooter on the sidelines. Jones has averaged 13.4 points per game this season, including 22 points per game in the two games against Loyola last weekend.

Without Jones, the SIU rotation is effectively down to seven players: Harvey, Filewich, Anthony D'Avanzo (who was also banged up and played only 19 minutes), Trent Brown, Dalton Banks, Sekou Dembele, and Steven Verplancken, Jr. Three players-- Banks, Verplancken and Brown-- each played between 34-40 minutes, and Filewich logged 29 minutes in their Thursday night game.

The Salukis will have only 16 hours from the end of their game to recuperate before Friday's 11:00 a.m. tipoff. The expected starters are Jones, Brown, Verplancken, Filewich, and D'Avanzo, but Banks would likely start if Jones can't go, and Harvey would start if D'Avanzo can't play.

The number of prominent season-ending injuries to Northern Iowa (AJ Green, Antwan Kimmons), Southern Illinois (Marcus Domask), Drake (ShanQuan Hemphill, Roman Penn), and Bradley (Ari Boya and Ja'Shon Henry last weekend) has had a profound effect on the MVC this season. Add the random Covid-19 related shutdowns, layoff rust, lingering Covid side effects, uneven fan attendance policies, sudden scheduling changes, travel upheavals and general uncertainty, and this season has been exceptionally trying to athletes, staff, and fans. Thankfully, the MVC somehow got in all their conference games. They need to keep up their guard this weekend.

Since facing SIU last weekend, the Ramblers have piled up the awards. Cameron Krutwig won the Larry Bird Trophy as the league's Most Valuable Player, and Lucas Williamson won the conference Defensive Player of the Year award along with a place on the 2nd team. Aher Uguak was recognized with a place on the all-conference 3rd team, the All-Defense team, and the Most-Improved team. Marquise Kennedy was named to the All Bench team, Braden Norris to the All Newcomer team, and Tate Hall and Keith Clemons made All-Academic teams. Coach Porter Moser finished 2nd to Drake Head Coach Darian DeVries in the Coach of the Year voting.

Hopefully the Ramblers have tuned out the distractions and hyper-focused on the mission at hand. Last year's experience should be somewhat fresh in their minds-- the last time the Ramblers were in St. Louis, they lost their first game to a play-in team after leading by 18 points in the second half. The Ramblers are 5-2 in their first games at Arch Madness since joining the conference, and 2-0 in their first games as the #1 seed (no #1 seed had lost their first game until last season).

With or without Lance Jones, the Salukis are a dangerous team. Their defense is nearly as good as Loyola's team defense (especially when Loyola expands their rotation past eight players), and their three-point shooting has been hot of late (42.9% in their last five games, including 55.9% against Loyola).


Loyola Game Notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... 3_5_21.pdf

SIU Game Notes: https://siusalukis.com/documents/2021/3 ... f?id=10073

TV/Streaming Video: NBC Sports Chicago https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/stream

Radio/Steaming Audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=74&type=Live

Live Stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcas ... confid=mvc

Vegas Odds: Loyola by 14.5

Am I the only one worried about today’s game?

Reasons to worry:
1.We have not shot well the last 3 and 1/2 games.

2. Mullins knows our team well- as he showed last weekend.

3.SIU played really well last night,even without their star player.

4.Awfully tough to beat a team 3 times in a row during a season- Valpo last year over us.

5.SIU has a game under their belt playing on this court.

6.Defensively,we haven’t defended well against the 3 ball over the last several games.

I am sitting on my roof top,ready to jump.Please convince me,otherwise.

On point Ramblin Ray, This was the team I didn't want to have to face again and have big concerns, especially with your point on our offensive capability lately (3 pointers have not been a force multiplier over the past few games) and or ability to defend the 3 pointer which this SIU team seems to shoot pretty well lately (though with Jones injured, it may be less effective)

No.

But, we have seniors. And Krut, and we really only need one other guy to have a strong offensive game.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I think this is a good omen. I got my first Covid shot in the middle of our first game against Drake which we dominated.

My second shot is scheduled at 10:55 this morning, 5 minutes before tip off.

GO VACCINE!

GO RAMBLERS!

AM I concerned ?? A tad BUT WE are the best TEAM with the BEST players --WE WILL prove it say 65 to 51

GOD SPEED RAMBLERS

If it makes you feel any better:

1. Jones will either be sitting out or not 100%. He could barely walk to the locker room. Even if he’s ready to go, he’s not going to be as quick. They needed him to play like a stud just to take us to overtime and they still lost. We shot poorly and still won. They need to play their best game and they need us to play one of our worst games in order to win.

2. They don’t have anyone to match Krutwig. I think the first half will be all about getting him going early, and we will probably take less threes.

3. They have a game on the court on us for experience, but they still are on short rest.

4. They are the younger, less experienced team.

5. Clemons shot 5 of 6 from three last year in Saint Louis and had 28 points. He can handle a big arena.

6. Our bench is far deeper.

7. We are better than them statistically all year in points per game, points against, field goal percentage, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals.

If we are dialed in, this should be a blowout.

Interesting tidbit: Before this year, the last time a Valley team played another Valley teams played 3 straight times was during the 1919-1920 season (Oklahoma-Oklahoma State). This year, it's happened twice. UNI-Illinois State and us vs. SIU. Surprisingly, one team has won all those games. Oklahoma won that series 4-0, and UNI swept Illinois State this year.

Something that worries me is I've missed 2 Arch Madness tournaments: 2017 and 2020. Both times, we didn't win a game. I went to all the rest, and we've won at least 1 game those years. Can't make it there this year, so hopefully we can win, and I won't feel bad about not going.

In 2 games vs SIU last weekend,we were 8 for 45 in making “3’s”.That is 18%.
If we shoot like that today,kiss the game good bye.

Calm it down. As noted, it really isn't difficult to beat a team three times in a row. However, this isn't three times in a row for SIU.

SIU is playing the second of a back to back game short handed. Ramblers had a 9 point halftime lead that they extended to 16 in a similar situation. They let SIU back in but it was to be expected as Loyola was playing in a back to back. They will be fresh today. SIU will not. I expect it will be single digit lead at half and the Ramblers will run them out of the stadium in the second half. 20+ point win today.