Monday, November 4, 2024 7:30 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.

The Loyola Ramblers kick off the 2024-25 men's basketball season at 7:00 p.m. Monday night with a visit from the Chicago State Cougars. This year's Cougars have a new conference (NEC), a new head coach (former Loyola assistant Scott Spinelli), and a lot of new players.

Last year's CSU squad, under head coach Gerald Gilson, played outside of a conference as an Independent team and racked up a 13-19 record with road wins over some quality programs like Northwestern, UC San Diego, Stetson, and Valparaiso. They had single-digit losses at Loyola, Kansas State, Duquesne, and UTEP. In other words, they were really competitive, boasting a 295 KenPom ranking that was their best mark since 2014. The impressive season earned Coach Gilson the head coaching job at Long Island University, and top scorers Wesley Cardet Jr. and Jasean Corbett transfers to Providence and Duquesne.

Scott Spinelli-- a top assistant for the past 20 years at high major schools like Maryland, Nebraska, Wichita State, Texas A&M, and Boston College-- joined Chicago State as an assistant last season and takes over the wheel as head coach for the first time in his career. Spinelli was a top assistant at Loyola during the two best years of the Larry Farmer era, when the Ramblers came within one point in OT of reaching the NCAA Tournament (2002) and notched back-to-back winning conference seasons for the first time since the mid-1980s. Spinelli was 1-3 as interim head coach at Boston College in 2021, but Monday's game marks his first game ever as an official head coach.

Chicago State did not play an exhibition game this season, so the starting lineup for the Cougars is anyone's guess. The top returning scorers from last year are 6'5" senior forward Noble Crawford, 6'7" junior guard Deshawn Jean-Charles, and 6'7" senior forward Cameron Jernigan.

Loyola struggled early in last year's 62-53 win over the Cougars. CSU led at halftime 28-22, and LUC's leading scorer Philip Alston was injured in the first half and played only seven minutes. The Ramblers finished very strong in the last 12 minutes, eventually stretching out to a double-digit margin before a late bucket cut the final margin to nine. Only three of CSU's nine players who saw minutes in that game are on this year's Chicago State roster-- Crawford had 8 points off the bench, Jean-Charles scored seven, and Jernigan had 2. What was noticeable was how hard Chicago State played in that game, and the higher level of discipline and focus Gilson (and Spinelli?) brought to the team.

Spinelli's two sons, Gabe and Joe, are newcomers on the roster, as well as 6'8" grad transfer Michael Brown (Florida State), 6’9” junior forward CJ Delancy (from Long Island University) big 6’5”junior guard Jalen Forest (11.3 ppg two years ago at Presbyterian), 6’8” junior forward Quincy Allen (James Madison), and 6’10 junior forward Gerald Jones III (South Florida) . Returning players who didn't play in last year’s game against the Ramblers include 6'7" sophomore guard Greg Spate, Alex Raiford, and 6'5" junior forward Tehshandre Cole.

The Ramblers' exhibition against a NAIA team with only one major contributor over 6'5" used a starting lineup of Justin Moore, Jayden Dawson, Sheldon Edwards, Des Watson, and Miles Rubin. There's been some speculation through the off-season about whether Loyola-- blessed with more frontcourt depth than any time in recent memory-- might play Miles Rubin and DeLoach at the same time, but the greater likelihood is Moore, Dawson, Watson, and Rubin, and either Kymany Housinou or Francis Nwaokorie as power forward. Loyola's crop of freshmen is really good, but they're probably only going to get cameo appearances until the Eureka game on Nov. 10.

And lastly, the opening game of this season also marks Loyola’s debut on the Marquee Network. The Cubs-owned streaming service will be home for Loyola home games not on national cable television outlets, due to the demise of NBC Sports Net Chicago. If you’re reading this preview and want to see the game on the tube and you live in the Chicago Cubs blackout area, time to download Marquee Sports Network and sign up for a $19.99 per month streaming fee. Fans wanting to watch Loyola home games outside the Chicago metro and environs can still watch on ESPN+.

Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _Notes.pdf

Chicago State game notes: Pending

TV/Streaming video: Marquee Sports Network/ESPN+ https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/id/ ... 6b3d330abd

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=187&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=547681

Vegas odds: Loyola by 19.5

$19.99 a month to watch Loyola plan? That’s crazy, looks like I’ll be using a VPN.

Streaming services have gotten out of control. What started as a decent alternative to cable has turned into a monstrosity.

Was disappointed to see Gilson jump ship and go to LIU. He did a really good job with Chicago State last year. It will be interesting to see if Spinelli can carry on the momentum.

Pretty underwhelming opening night slate, but there are a few good ones. SLU opens up vs Santa Clara at 2pm on YouTube. Two squads with at-large aspirations. I'll be tuned into that one on my second screen at work. Only matchup between two ranked teams is #8 Baylor vs #6 Gonzaga. It tips at 10:30pm Central though...

How much per month is a VPN? Still, I think $19.99 is cheaper than the least expensive ticket in Gentile.

Truth be told, although I am/was a Cubs fan, I have not watched even ONE full Cubs game since the creation of Marquee. Not one. I find my interest in the Cubs waning because of their sloppy and greedy attempt to monetize access. I don't even listen to the games on radio anymore despite the fact that I like their radio product. I just don't care. I only check the standings every few weeks. I've watched about 20-25 Sox games since the creation of Marquee 3-5 years ago, and 0 Cubs games in that time. I've been to Wrigley for a concert, but not a game since 2016.

If Loyola can get more exposure or more revenue from this deal, I'm OK with that. I don't think it's better than NBC Sports Chicago, but it is better than just ESPN+.... I think. And we have more home games on Marquee than we used to have on NBC Sports Chicago, plus (I think) many more men's volleyball games.

JCT...thanks for the previews...always well done....I certainly will agree with one thing...CSU played with energy last year...I was at the Northwestern game...and they just out hustled NU....NU seemed like it was above the to play as hard as CSU...best thing was I was sitting next to what seemed to be the only CSU fan..who said he was going to storm the court if CSU won....made me chuckle....point being...we had better bring energy tonight and not expect a win but make sure we have the attitude we are going to earn a win. I miss Red Rush on the radio.

Just an FYI, the games on Marquee are also on ESPN+.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I use Private internet access for my VPN. At the time I purchased the deal was something like $99 for 3yrs of service. I was fine with paying $10 or less per month for ESPN plus. Really I’m just looking for something that could be added into my YouTube TV plan. There’s too many separate streaming services these days. I’m already paying way too much for redzone and YouTube TV so $20 strictly for me to watch Loyola is a bit ridiculous since I have zero interest in watching the cubs. If it helps the team though I can deal with it.

Just a side note from the postgame: Drew said that Turner and Young will both redshirt. Said he needs to do a better job getting Seif and Glazkov in the rotation, but that both will play and contribute this year. Considers the 9 that played tonight as “9 starters,” and Kymany started tonight due to his ball handling. He also envisions DeLoach and Miles playing together at times — just couldn’t do it tonight because of Miles’ foul trouble

There were obviously a lot of issues, CSU staff threw last year's gameplan at us and it still worked. Although the press resulted in less TOs than it seemed like, we really labored against it. Our guys seemed really gassed. When we did break the press we often completely screwed up the advantage or missed an easy layup. Eventually it looked like Drew decided to just pull the ball back on every break and catch our breath. There was one time it looked like we turned down a 4-1 break lol.

Miles probably played his worst game as a Rambler. Des was bad too, awful shooting and uncharacteristically got cooked a few times one-on-one. Given their track record, I'm not too worried about that, seemed like they don't have their legs yet, but we'll need them to shape up quick for the Princeton game.

What else? Got lost on screens many times in the first half and CSU made us pay from deep. That one we can probably chalk up to the newbies not fully grasping the system yet and/or the communication not being there yet, but again hopefully that comes together before Princeton, or before we drop some early cupcakes that knock us out of an at-large. As expected it doesn't seem like Drew has his optimized lineups fully figured out, but that's probably as much a factor of the new guys being at different stages of understanding the playbook.

On the plus side, Moore was again very solid. Looking at him so far, I have no idea how he earned his reputation as an erratic player, he seemed extremely steady, and that was a big reason we were able to hang on. And Dawson looks like healthy Dawson which is huge. Deloach was good in his minutes.

Bizarre game. There was one point in the first half where we got a free run at the basket three possessions in a row, played smothering defense on the other end, and stayed down by 2 the whole time. Their 3 pt % was higher than their fg % for a solid chunk of the game.

There was some really ugly shooting in this game. Sheldon has the only good looking shot on the team and he went 1 for 4. I think we are going to struggle offensively against teams that have a real rim protector. This does not look like a team that can win with the three ball.

Lots of athletes though. JD's dunk was maybe the craziest in-game dunk I've seen at gentile.