Wednesday, April 1, 2015 7:00 p.m.
Fant-Ewing Coliseum, Monroe, La.


Loyola won game one of the CBI final series on Monday night 65-58 behind tough defense against a much taller and longer team. Four Rambler starters scored in double figures on better than 50% shooting, led by Earl Peterson’s 16 points on 5 for 10 shooting from the field and 2 for 2 behind the arc. And Loyola held its own on the glass-- especially in the second half—producing a 34-18 scoring advantage in the paint.

The series shifts to Fant-Ewing Coliseum in Monroe for Wednesday, where ULM has 10-3 record, highlighted by wins over Louisiana-Lafayette and Eastern Michigan in the first round of the CBI. The Warhawks have averaged only 1923 per game in the 7,000-seat facility, but have drawn over 3,000 for both their previous CBI contests. The school is planning a “white-out” t-shirt promotion for Wednesday’s game.

The Ramblers had a great game plan against ULM in their first meeting, but there’s room for improvement. Milton Doyle had a sub-par game, and the Ramblers couldn’t find their shooting touch from distance. But the Warhawks will have 48 hours to make adjustments on Loyola’s defensive strategy and team rebounding. ULM was 7-3 at home and 7-3 on the road against conference foes, getting swept by Georgia State (conference winner and NCAA team), and dropping close contests to Texas-Arlington and Georgia Southern (whom they beat on the road). Significantly, all but one of the CBI finals before have gone to the full three games, with the home team winning on their home court in the final match all but one of the seven previous finals.

Senior Christian Thomas is 16 points shy of tying Ben Averkamp for 17th place and one rebound away from matching Houston Lloyd for 15th place on Loyola’s career lists. Junior Devon Turk is just one made three away from tying Blake Schilb for Loyola’s all time three point leader. And the Ramblers are one more hard-fought win from ending the improbable 2014-15 season on a winning note.

Loyola game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 401aaa.pdf

ULM game notes: https://www.nmnathletics.com//pdf9/3374107.pdf

CBI bracket: http://www.gazellegroup.com/events/cbi/ ... racket.pdf

TV: CBS Sports Network (http://www.cbssportsnetwork.com/channel-finder )

Vegas odds: ULM by 2

One factor in the Ramblers' favor might be fatigue. The Warhawks' Coppola and Ongae both played the entire 40 minutes, while Deng logged 38 minutes and Roberson 35.

Only Thomas and Peterson played over 30 minutes for the Ramblers.

IF we don't win tomorrow... You would think that fatigue would definitely be an issue on Friday! But again several of thier guys have played those kind of minutes all year long.... so who knows.

Is it fair to say that the amount of minutes played by the starters means that their bench is weak? Sure would be nice to get their bigs in foul trouble early!!!

Just noticed that our RPI is sub 100!!!! I would imagine it's been a number of years since a season has ended with it there.

This is a very interesting tournament, because at this stage of it, more than any other college basketball tournament, coaching plays a big role. Each team has gotten a look at each other, and it very well could come down to adjustments. Prior to now, I think a lot of teams have looked at our roster, and thought they could beat us on height alone. It will be interesting to see what Louisiana Monroe does to try and slow us down now that they've seen what they do.

Porter about to be on the Kap and Haugh show to talk about the game.

That was a bit of a fluff interview. There were no questions about the game specifically. Porter just talked about the seniors, and having them watch the NCAA selection Sunday show for The team to get a feel for where they want to go in the future. He also talked about how he wants to be able to put 5000 people in gentile consistently, and how loud it was there on Monday when it was only 3/4 full.

Hey, it's sports talk radio, not Ramblermania! #NoFluffZone

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I love seeing when Pernell Adgei & Maurice Kibry talk about Loyola on twitter. Theyre really excited for the game tonight & proud to be Ramblers. If you guys arnt following them you should. With the way Porters got us going getting to Gentile full is actually a reasonable goal to have, especially since the student turn out has been way better this season.

440--As someone once said "Winning isn't everything--It's the only thing" !!!!

One more win. Guys--Hang in . our BIGS and even more are on the way .

This year , we improved attendance-wise - I wager , with even a little Media support, it would have even been better.