Saturday, December 7, 2019
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.
Loyola suits up against D-II Quincy University for an all-too-rare Saturday home game. The Quincy athletic department is very familiar with Gentile Arena, as their men's volleyball team plays in the MIVA conference as a rival of Loyola's men's volleyball team. The Ramblers will face Quincy, the only Illinois team on this year's non-conference and exhibition schedule, for the first time ever in men's basketball. Quincy plays in the same conference as Lewis, Indianapolis, Rockhurst, and McKendree-- all teams Loyola has faced in competition over the past several years.
Cue this year's argument about whether it's worthwhile or productive to have a game against non-D1 teams during the regular season. I'm against it. A few years ago, the Ramblers had a highly-touted scholarship player go down for the season in a meaningless game against a D-III team with hardly anyone in the stands. That promising player never saw another minute playing at Loyola.
Yes, it's nice to try different lineups, new plays, and new tactics against a competitive team while getting a "W." But strong teams should be able to do the same thing against weaker D1 teams and late in blowout games. And now there's a new phenomenon, which we saw against Indianapolis in the pre-season: some players on non-D1 squads that get so psyched up to show they could have played D1 that they get over-aggressive and it results in an injury.
Quincy lost in their two previous games against D-1 schools this year. In an exhibitions against Northwestern, the Wildcats went off on the Hawks, 105-64. QU played a close game in exhibition at SIUE, losing 61-52. In regular-season play, Quincy is 3-3 thus far with a triple-overtime win at a neutral site, two home wins, and three road losses.
Hometown junior forward Tanner Stuckman is the star and offensive focal point of QU's team. The agile 6'9" Stuckman does a little bit of everything; he averages 20.6 ppg on 53.7% shooting from the field, pulls down an average of 7.0 rebounds, and steps behind the arc to shoot 39%. Along with Stuckman, QU is likely to start Ryan Briscoe, Aziz Fadika, Viktor Kovacevic and Austin Downing.
Loyola is coming off their best win of the season, on the road, against an experienced Ball State squad. Loyola built a 23-point cushion midway through the second half before cruising to a 70-58 win. Newcomer Keith Clemons scored 13 points in his first D1 game after returning from injury, and the Ramblers had by far their best performance shooting from distance (9-of-15 on threes for 60%).
It's nice that Loyola can play another Illinois team in the non-con season... But it's kind of weird that Illinois, UIC, DePaul, Northwestern, Chicago State, Northern Illinois, Western Illinois, Eastern Illinois, and SIUE aren't among them. And it's especially weird that so many other Illinois teams are playing games against one, two, three, or even four Division I Illinois teams on their non-con slate. SIUE plays three non-con D1 teams, NIU plays three, Northwestern plays three, DePaul plays two D1 teams plus U of C, etc.
Let's hope both teams learn something, people have some fun, and no one gets hurt.
Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... 2_7_19.pdfQuincy game notes: Pending
TV/Streaming Video: ESPN3
https://www.espn.com/watch?id=2da4a468- ... 75c512212a Live audio feed: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=11&type=LiveLive stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=280002Vegas odds: N/A