Loyola Ramblers Preview – https://loyolaramblers.com/news/2025/3/ ... umass.aspx

UMass Stats and Intel - https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... /2025.html

Record: 12-18 (7-10, 10th in A-10 MBB)
Coach: Frank Martin
PS/G: 73.7 (193rd of 364)
PA/G: 74.9 (270th of 364)
SRS: -1.38 (169th of 364)
SOS: 1.04 (123rd of 364)
ORtg: 101.8 (301st of 364)
DRtg: 103.5 (152nd of 364)


Loyola Chicago Ramblers (20-10, 11-6) at UMass Minutemen (12-18, 7-10) – 11:30am CST Mullins Center, Amherst MA

The A10 regular season comes to an end today as the Ramblers visit UMass. Today is UMass’s final ever game as founding members of the A10.

With a victory, Loyola Chicago secures 4th place and earns a double bye for the A10 tournament next week. A loss (as brutal as it sounds) gives them sixth place.

The Ramblers, winners of 4 of their previous 5, and 8 of their last 10, look to stay hot as tournament play begins in DC next week. The Ramblers are coming off an 82-72 home win against Davidson on Wednesday night where they were excellent offensively shooting 50% from the field and 44% from three. The game featured Sheldon Edwards Jr. setting the school’s all time single season three pointers record and finishing with 22 (7-12 from 3), Kymany Houinsou dominating in the paint and scoring a career-high 19, and Jayden Dawson adding 17 which included 5 threes. Currently the Ramblers lead the A10 in three-point percentage (36%).

The Minutemen sit 10th in the A-10 standings with a 12-18 overall record and 7-10 record in conference play. This is not the same competitive team they fielded last season when they went a surprising 20-11, 11-7. Last offseason they lost top scorers to the portal - Matt Cross (15.3ppg) transferred to SMU, and Josh Cohen (15.9ppg) transferred to USC.

UMass has lost five of their last six games and lost by 1 to St. Bonaventure earlier this week. They’re one of the top rebounding teams in the country, ranking 17th with 39.72 rebounds per game. The team is averaging 14.13 offensive boards per game, which is 8th in the country.

Defensively, they are not good, allowing 74.9 points per game (# 269) with opponents shooting 43.1% from the field and 33.0% from beyond the arc. This will greatly benefit the Ramblers who are putting up 77 ppg the last 7 games.

Rahsool Diggins leads the Minutemen in scoring with 17.2 PPG along with 2.8 RPG and 2.7 APG while Jaylen Curry has 13.3 PPG with 3.8 RPG and a team-high 4 APG to lead the Minutemen in the assist department so far this season. Daniel Rivera has 11.5 PPG with a team-high 7.3 RPG to lead UMass on the glass and to cap off the trio of double-digit scorers for UMass so far this season. Daniel Hankins-Sanford also has 9.5 PPG with 7.2 RPG as well on the year for the Minutemen. As a team, UMass is averaging 73.7 PPG on 41.6% shooting from the field, 28.7% from three, and 66.3% from the foul line this season.

These two have met only twice prior since joining the A10. Last time Loyola and UMass played (1/17/24), the Ramblers won 79-78 in the final seconds on a Phil Alston putback and 3-point play before the final buzzer.

Despite a junk game here and there and a 4-9 away record from home, the Ramblers remain hot, winning 6 of their last 7 games. However, they stink also in midday / matinee games, having lost 7 of their last 8. This is something to be mindful of today. Meanwhile, Umass has lost 5 of its last 6 games, has gotten steamrolled in a handful of recent games, but could be extra motivated to play in their final ever game as members of the Atlantic 10.

Bottom Line - WIN and get 4th place.

UMass Probable Starters – 6-10 F Malek Abdelgowad, 6-0 G Jaylen Curry, 6-2 G Rahsool Diggins, 6-8 F Daniel Hankins-Sanford, 6-4 G Jayden Ndjigue.

Loyola Probable Starters – Watson, Dawson, Edwards Jr., Houinsou, Rubin


LAST 10 GAMES FOR BOTH SQUADS

Minutemen: 3-7, averaging 68.6 points, 35.2 rebounds, 12.5 assists, 7.5 steals and 2.9 blocks per game while shooting 40.2% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 73.4 points per game.

Ramblers: 8-2, averaging 73.5 points, 30.9 rebounds, 16.6 assists, 6.6 steals and 5.1 blocks per game while shooting 46.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 69.4 points.


Watch / Listen – Saturday morning’s game is nationally televised on USA Network with Steve Schlanger and Tim McCormick on the call, and can be listened to Rambler Sports Network with our friends Sudikoff and CT.

Postgame Show - Tune in to Sudikoff on RSN, followed by TalkinBlers Spaces on the X: https://x.com/blerstalking?s=21


Odds: Loyola -3

Good half, started slow but shooting and rebounding picked up. Hope we keep the foot on the gas and don’t let the minutemen get back into it, can’t imagine they keep shooting as poorly as they have and we need to keep up the intensity.

Joes is really playing for nothing now. I wonder if they play flat today which gives us the three seed

Fourth seed is a tough row to hoe

We ended the season well
Another 20 game win season for Drew and the boys.

UMASS allowed us enough open threes (13 made threes and JD with 5).

Nothing like a blowout road win in our conference and cementing the double bye.
We really sent them packing on to their next journey outside of the A10

Rubin had his 3 blocks
Houinsou with a double double and 2 blocks. ( 10 Rb, 10 Assists)!

Ramblers to UMASS
FG% 47 to 27
3FG% 34 to 5 (yeah, UMASS 1 of 21 on threes!)
TOs 12 to 9 (lucky UMASS not an effective Defense)
Pts off TOs 16 to 10
Bench 18 to 5
Pts in paint 28 to 26
Assts 21 to 5 (we distributed well today, 5 Ramblers with 8 or more points)

Now we wait and see..
I Love March.
Go Ramblers!!

I thought we are locked into the 4 seed after Dayton’s win yesterday?

Fantastic win. Awesome defensive effort. Slow start with UMass grabbing what seemed like endless offensive boards on their first few possessions. Drew called a timeout, laid into them and everything changed after that.

Such a fun team when they are on. Can't wait to see what they can do next week.

With Joe's losing, looks like SLU and VCU will be the teams on our side of the bracket. I'm not sure who I'd rather see as the 5 seed potential quarterfinals opponent between Joe's and SLU. We were blown out by each one time and escaped with narrow victories vs each one time.

SLU was unconscious from 3 last week, and our early foul trouble killed us early. Still consider that game as a whole an outlier. Keep in mind as well that whichever team we play will be playing their second game in two days (or third in 3 days). SLU plays their starters a lot, so if it is them, that is definitely to our advantage.

But you can’t get too concerned about any of that. No matter what, you gotta win 3 games in 3 days, which means beating whatever team gets in your way.

It is hard to evaluate when the other team shoots so poorly especially from 3. Still like the way we have turned the offense around...seems like if we share the ball we can score from all 3 levels...Thought DeLoach played well today..Seems like Jalen Quinn just does not get a break on the defensive side of the ball. We got a chance to play against some zone today as well as full court pressure and we looked pretty calm. Even though I love the defensive pressure we put on the ball it seems like we could be a great zone team with our overall length. Do not think we could be in any better shape heading into the tournament...