What's up Rambler fans, this is Matt Craig! Hopefully you've been following my coverage of the team this season.

For the last several weeks I've been working on an in-depth profile of Marques Townes, leading up to this rematch against Nevada (the team he hit the game-winning shot against, which you all know, obviously). I talked to parents, teammates, friends, and coaches from every step of his life, and the thing I kept coming back to is how every team he's on seems to win. It's honestly crazy. So I set out to figure out why. Below is the link to the story if you all want to check it out!

In addition, I have almost 17 pages of unused notes and quotes from all of these interviews that didn't make it into the story. So if you have any questions about Townes, I feel like I probably know the answer! I'll be checking in on this thread all day, or you can reach out to me on Twitter @MrMattCraig.

Here's one example: Townes actually told me he was recruited by Nevada when he decided to transfer from Farleigh Dickinson. This makes some sense because Nevada is known for aggressively recruiting the transfer market. But I couldn't get it into the story because I couldn't confirm it. When I reached out to Nevada, a top assistant who has been with the program the whole time since Muss took over told me he didn't think they ever recruited him. I was unable to reach Muss himself. So who knows! Could be an interesting wrinkle in tomorrow's game.

https://www.midmajormadness.com/2018/11 ... da-rematch

Fantastic story, great job. Thanks for continuing to push the Rambler stories. Would love to hear any other anecdotes that didn’t make it in

Loved the story, Matt! Thanks for always covering us and mid-majors everywhere!

This is a must-read. Fantastic article.

Thanks Matt. Its stuff like this that make the season even more fun. Appreciate your hard work and efforts.

Well his father, Bryant Townes, had some really awesome stories that I am bummed didn't make the final cut. The first was that little Marques was strong enough to shoot a basketball on a 10-foot rim by the time he was "3 or 4" years old. Which seems bananas to me. The way he described it, it seems like the elder Townes was showing this off to anyone and everyone like a party trick, and that it amazed his friends/family.


And secondly, I asked Bryant Townes what his reaction was when he saw Marques' shot against Nevada go through the net: “I mean everybody was so happy for him. But like I’ve said I’ve seen him do that many times growing up. Hitting game-winners, three-pointers and stuff like that.”

What he's referring to is a middle school basketball championship game, in which Bryant was the coach and Marques was the star player. As Bryant describes it, and again it seemed like the details may have been exaggerated, their team was down by 2 points in the championship game to a team that had won the league three years in a row. He drew up a play for Marques to get the final shot, and he hit a three-pointer for the win. So he said he wasn't surprised at all after the Nevada shot. I never got to follow up with Marques to see if it was true. If it didn't sound like such an ol' wise tale, would've been cool to include.

Matt, thanks for writing this good story. I enjoyed reading it.

Why does the person who runs the MidMadness twitter account seem so pleased to see Loyola lose, particularly to high majors? It is a bit alienating, and it is at odds with what makes the site interesting to read.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Well I don't know any of the people behind the MMM account/site personally, but from what I can pick up one of them felt pretty strongly that Loyola didn't deserve top 25 recognition, wasn't going to be good, and was just coasting off of last year's accomplishments. With these five losses early this season he feels validated. They have like 10 different people with access to that Twitter account, and my guess would be that the anti-Loyola tweets are only coming from one of them. If Valley play gets rolling and they start winning important games again, I doubt those tweets continue!

I like the new chapter - 9 assists in the last game.