Loyola Ramblers Preview - TBD

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

Record: 8-3 (CAA MBB)
Coach: Chris Mack
PS/G: 78.5 (113th of 364)
PA/G: 76.2 (293rd of 364)
SRS: 2.11 (128th of 364)
SOS: 1.81 (106th of 364)
ORtg: 106.1 (225th of 364)
DRtg: 102.9 (202nd of 364)

Good morning. It's day-2 of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.

The Loyola Ramblers enter today's match-up with College of Charleston trying to quickly recover from a painful, agonizing loss on Sunday evening where they lost to Oakland on a last second put-back before the final horn. Meanwhile, Charleston ran into a currently-hot Oregon State team and lost as well.

Last night, Loyola fell to 9-2 after losing to Oakland by a score of 72-71. The Ramblers shot 49.1% from the field, 31.8% on three-pointers, and 66.7% on free throws. Miles Rubin led Loyola with 21pts and 9 rebounds in the loss. Sheldon Edwards Jr. also contributed 20pts, going 6-13 from deep.

Under new head coach, Chris Mack, the Charleston Cougars are 8-3 this year after they lost to Oregon State by a score of 74-65 yesterday afternoon. Charleston trailed 35-26 at halftime, which was the game's difference. The Cougars shot 36.2% from the field, 25% on three-pointers, and 68% on free throws in the game. Lazar Djokovic (unrelated to the tennis great, Novak) led Charleston with 13 points and eight rebounds in the game.

Prior to Oregon State, the Cougars won four games in a row against Wofford, St. Joe’s, a non-D-1 team, and Northern Kentucky. Charleston averages 79.9 points per game and collectively shoots 46.9% from the field, 78.5% on free throws, and 36.1% on three-pointers.

Charleston has 6 guys who average or nearly average double-figures in scoring. Ante Brzovic (pronunciation: Berzovich), their horse and offensive centerpiece at 6ft 10", is averaging 19.5 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 3.6 assists per game. This will be a very challenging matchup for Loyola, no matter how Drew devises the defensive scheme and assignments.

The Cougars have very similar offensive stats to us, but their defense is struggling this year, allowing over 76 ppg. Each of their other two losses have been by very large margins -----> 38 (to Rhode Island), and 19 (to Liberty).

This year's Charleston squad is not the same team as we've watched and witnessed in the prior two wildly successful seasons under Pat Kelsey. They still score points, but give up lots more points. And no longer play the same scrappy style that led them to dominate the CAA and flirt with first round upset winners in their prior two NCAA Tournament appearances. Its roster also experienced a significant turnover.

Charleston has yet to lose to a team that isn't in the KenPom top-100 (we are now faltering to #107), and Loyola has played a very soft schedule to this point.

For a match-up like today, in which both teams are struggling, it seems like doing all the little things could result in a winning outcome: This is work - not a vacation; Diving and chasing 50/50 balls; Boxing out; Getting the long rebounds; Hanging on to rebounds; Making free throws; Returning to defensive priority and holding the opponent to 60 or less; Establishing and pounding the paint again.

Second round match in the loser bracket will be televised on ESPN2 (4:30 CST) and can be listened to Rambler Sports Network with our friends Sudikoff and CT.

Odds: Loyola -2 (as of 11:30am)


Merry Christmas everyone !!!

Started better this go round and the team looks a little more focused but what happened those last 3 mins? Was a 14-3 run. We also need to connect more on these layups, we seem to miss a huge amount.

Watson has just been dreadful

Yes he has, def no step forward this year.

This tourney is turning into nightmare scenario.

Mental lapses and sloppy play tonight. Less encouraging as the game neared the end.
The 5 second violation near the end pretty much said things for the game.
Trouble keeping the ball, 19 TOs.
Des and JQ 5 TOs each.

Nwaokorie 14 RBs
JQ 17 pts

Need to forget this one.

Brutal.

Far too many TOs and mental lapses.

We lack the ability to slow the game down when another team goes on a little run. We instead try to match them and it almost always results in us chucking up terrible rushed shots or turning it over.

We were terrible at defending the perimeter. Gave up FAR too many wide open 3's. We also shot a terrible 6-24 from deep (3-12 from Sheldon...).

Watson was bad again. Shot 2-12 and turned it over 5 times. He showed what he is capable of numerous times last year. I don't know what's going on this year.

Seif did not look ready today to step into that backup PG role.

We just aren't a good team right now. Our best hope is to get out of there with a win in the stink fest game and then hopefully have JD and Houinsou back for the A10 opener on Jan 4.

It's not just that we had 19 turnovers - it's that we had 19 ugly , silly and stupid mostly unforced turnovers. Led to 25 (25!) points by Charleston. Most of them uncontested layups. Did you catch the one where Drew yelled to Sheldon to "hold the ball" - so he stopped his dribble .....and a split second later it was stolen for a layup. Just crazy. Crazy bad.

The loss is bad but the way we lost was so ugly, no composure at all.

I said this on Twitter but Des has the longest leash I’ve seen in a long time. Is he really that much better than playing the freshman more when he can’t hit a layup, 3, or free throw? Not to mention the turnovers

Can’t get a rebound either

To be fair, with 5 seconds to go against Oakland he did get a rebound. He just couldn’t hold onto it and fumbled it out of bounds.