Loyola Ramblers Preview – https://loyolaramblers.com/news/2025/11 ... rnoon.aspx

Colorado State Stats and Intel - https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... state/men/

Record: 3-0 (MWC MBB)
Coach: Ali Farokhmanesh
PS/G: 96.0 (26th of 365)
PA/G: 72.3 (190th of 365)
SRS: 22.68 (22nd of 363)
SOS: -0.99 (201st of 363)
ORtg: 139.8 (3rd of 365)
DRtg: 105.3 (242nd of 365)
Preseason Odds: Championship +75000


Colorado State Rams (3-0) at Loyola Chicago Ramblers (1-3) – 4:00pm Gentile Arena, Chicago, IL

The Ramblers return home for the week after going winless on the road and on neutral floor last week and look to correct their November misfortunes.

Wednesday night on the road at Wichita State, the Ramblers unforgettably got bombed from deep by Wichita State, by a score of 95-74. Throughout the contest the defense looked disorganized, incoherent, and disengaged at nearly all times with the Ramblers giving up an unacceptable 50-points in the first half. Opening the second, Loyola showed life, getting to within 7 thanks to a 10-0 run, but proceeded to give up 10 thereafter on a Shockers run. At that point the game felt like it had been decided. Deywilk Tavarez led the team with 16 going 5-9 from three.

"We clearly didn't execute our game plan tonight. Tonight wasn't great," said head coach Drew Valentine. "Our team needs to have more urgency. Hopefully, this is a wakeup call, and we remember who we play for and what Loyola represents."

Sunday afternoon marks the 4th time Loyola and Colorado State meet up. The Rams basketball program had been rebuilt the last 7 seasons under Niko Medved, and under his leadership reached the NCAA Tournament 3 times (each in last 5 seasons). The Rams have been Mountain West Conference contenders the past 5 of 6 seasons, and have consistently recruited NBA prospects and top talent throughout their resurgence (David Roddy, Isaiah Stevens, John Tonje, Nique Clifford). I won't lie admitting that this has been a super fun basketball team to watch on the weekend Mountain West late-nite games the last handful of years. Last year's 2024-25 squad got hot at the right time, winning the Mountain West Tournament Championship and carried that momentum into the second round of March Madness before losing to Maryland on a last second heartbreak 72-71, preventing them from advancing to the Sweet-16. After the season, Medved took the Minnesota job, returning home, while associate head coach and Northern Iowa March Madness cult hero Ali Farokhmanesh was promoted to HC. A total of 16.9% of minutes played and 15.3% of scoring return from 2024-25 roster - another essentially brand new team whom the Ramblers are facing in game-5.

Colorado State has three games in the bag so far this season, having kicked things off against Incarnate Word (98-64), Omaha (97-74) and Cal Poly (93-79). That is a cupcake schedule thus far but they are destroying the teams they are supposed to and have displayed an offensive firepower, averaging 96 per game on this young season.

The Rams have 5 guys averaging 10ppg or more. They are led by 6-3 guard, Josh Pascarelli, who transferred from Marist @ 18ppg. He could be a handful for the Rambler defense, as he is shooting nearly 60% from the field and 52% from three. The other night Pascarelli hit 6 threes vs. Cal Poly. 6-9 F Kyle Jorgensen, one of the lone returnees from prior season, is second on the team in scoring at 15ppg and is a rebounding leader with 7. Rounding out the scoring options are 6-1 G and Virginia transfer Brandon Rechsteiner @ 13ppg, 6-10 F/C Illinois transfer Carey Booth 13ppg and 9.0rpg, and off the bench is 6-8 F from Lithuania Augustinas Kiudulas at 10ppg.

On paper, the Rams will have a clear height advantage over the Ramblers, running a lineup with at least 2, possibly 3, guys on the floor who are each between 6-8 to 6-10. Two of whom are above-average rebounders – Jorgensen and Booth. I expect continued rebounding issues to linger against Colorado State.

The Rams have cruised through three games without too much difficulty so far and their offense is cooking over the first 3 games. The Ramblers meanwhile continue to struggle at both ends of the floor – neglecting the glass, getting outscored in the paint, not making the winning hustle plays, not running anything coherently offensively, and have displayed significant defensive shortcomings in 3 of 4 games thus far. Due to the Rams offense and Ramblers defensive metrics, CSU could be in control most of the way. But there is good news – this is a very winnable game!

Colorado State Probable Starters – 6-10 C Carey Booth, 6-9 F Kyle Jorgensen, 6-6 G Jevin Muniz, 6-3 G Josh Pascarelli, 6-1 G Brandon Rechsteiner

Loyola Probable Starters – Rubin, TBD, Love III, Moore, Tavarez


LAST 10 GAMES FOR BOTH SQUADS
N/A


Watch / Listen – Sunday evening’s game is regionally broadcast on Marquee Sports Network and ESPN+ with Jordan Bernfield and Nick DiNardi on the call, and can be listened to Rambler Sports Network with our friends Sudikoff and CT.

Postgame Show - Tune in to Sudikoff on RSN, followed by TalkinBlers Spaces on the X: https://x.com/blerstalking?s=21


Odds: Loyola +5.5 (as of 8pm 11/15)

My thinking was that this could be a 100 to 50 loss. Looks like halfway there.

I think there are a few things at play, but the primary issue is the keys of a pretty tuned car were handed to Drew and he has struggled since the last of the PM era players have exited. I openly disagreed with the decision to hire Drew and felt that LU had ascended to a level (final 4, sweet 16) whereby a coach with experience could come into the fold. I am the first to admit that Drew shocked me last season with such production and a good post season run. But now we are back. Mercurial Drew, next step will be some player bashing etc. Maybe runoff another St.Thomas. All the while, Watson put us in a conference that still makes zero sense (to me), but what the hell, the USA network at 10am is always good to watch A10 basketball.

With this start to the season comes student apathy, NIL apathy and nothing but a distant memory of one of the great final 4 runs in the history of the sport. It is just too bad we couldn't capitalize on it.

I don't know what to say. It's like Drew and the staff forgot how to coach. It looked like the past 2 seasons he's grown up as a coach, and now we look almost worse than his second season? How could this happen?

Truly is baffling. I can only speculate that Dwyer was shouldering a lot of the load on the Xs and Os? Seemed like Drew made sure to shout him out in the postgames last year. No idea why he’s gone now or if he even is the reason for the huge drop off but… well what the hell is going on otherwise? Seems like Drew thinks the goal of coaching is to see how many substitutions he can squeeze into a 40 minute game.

2900+ is a pretty good turnout of the fans today, all things considering.
Most of the students showed, another good thing.

But..
Seems like our opponents can put up threes at will. And more..

Still need better player positioning and ball movement in setting up.

We don't display offensive or defensive cohesion. (Our letter D this year is Disorganized).

We have been sloppy on too many fast breaks, destroying ourselves with missed layoffs and tripping over ourselves and losing the ball.

I am usually OK with Moore charging the rim as needed. My concern is when it's the dire last move and then it would help if he had the spring and speed of a Marquis Kennedy. Oh well...

Leadership on the court has still not shown this year. (When/Where is our Des this year?).

Drew really got on the guys at one point in the game. Not sure if it helped any, it didn't appear to be the case.

Score ... Although not a blow out in the score, it was close enough to one. We lost by 13 pts in our arena. Actually, we were dominated as we never led the entire game and were down by over 20 pts for various stretches.

CSU to Loyola -- the GOOD
Steals 3 – 6
Block 1 – 4
Paint Pts 16 - 20
Bench 20 - 25

CSU to Loyola -- the BAD
FT 84% - 68%
TOs 9 - 13
Pts off of TOs 17 – 3 (seriously!)
Reb 32 -26
Off Reb 12-8
Def Reb 20 - 18
Fst brk Pts 15-0 (Ouch!)
Assts 19 -10
2nd chance pts 15 – 7 (not again!)

Yep, plenty of work to do here boys

This team might be a good case study of the evil side of the transfer portal.

Thru the first 2 weeks they’ve looked like the worst team money could buy.

Lots of NIL and $$$ invested. High expectations and overhyped. Very poor performances. High priced recruits and key guys who just don’t look to be meshing well together, giving max effort, or fit the LUC culture profile. And Coaching struggles too.

In prior season’s portals the staff was focusing on such criteria as A10 league fits; 2 way guys; leaders; 3-and D; athletic length. Seems like they’ve deviated from those types of program fits to best talent available.

I hope I’m wrong but thru 5 games and two weeks this is a disaster. Our numbers are right there with the worst teams in the country right now. There is nothing to make positive about until they can muster up some wins.

I’m no longer buying it that it takes several months and games before teams can mesh together and learn coaches systems. This is the 4th team they’ve played with new coaches and nearly a 100% roster turnover and our opponents have all played wonderfully together destroying us. They’ve looked clean and played in synergy.

Additionally the quality of play stinks throughout much of D1 and it’s not just us. I’m definitely blaming the portal and money chasing. We’re seeing it screw with us.

Hey at least the bears are winning.

While Drew's tenure has been a very mixed bag so far, he's definitely a good recruiter, and I think from that perspective this is probably the most talented team Loyola's ever had -- again, in terms of recruiting pedigree, obviously not in actual winning basketball. Three four-star recruits, multiple high-major transfers, a European pro, etc.

Part of me wonders if Drew's recruiting brain takes over during the offseason, and he hypes all these guys up in his head instead of taking an honest assessment of how the team looks -- he wants to play with all the new toys, thinks he can play a 10+ man rotation with a fast-paced run and gun style, etc.

That was honestly understandable for a young coach, but this is his fifth year on the job. It is very concerning that he seemingly learned no lessons from the previous three seasons, all with horrible starts, and now this is the worst one we've seen, somehow happening with the most talented roster. The last two years the team was able to turn it around in conference play and bail him out, and I guess that's the hope for this year too, but it's not looking good at all.

Heading into this year, I was certainly excited and I am not yet there to give up on them. I think the loss of Kyamy and no Amos is killing this team. So, my ultimate decision will be withheld until a bit later when they are both hopefully back.

The score and the pure stat comparison in this game do not mean much. We were God awful shooting the ball pretty much all day. Last 4 or 5 minutes when we were down 20 plus we threw in some shots and our numbers looked a bit better if you did not see the game and just looked at the box score, but in truth we were very bad shooting the ball. CSU can shoot it and they did. Ridiculous what they did from the floor and they got off to a bad start to boot.

Of all the issues I thought we would need to watch, I never thought shooting the ball was going to be one of the major issues. This team right now is not making 3's or 2's. They simply can't make shots. Open, contested, it does not matter. They have ZERO offensive identity as a team and nothing we can say is our bread and butter or go to set.

Drew on the post game commented he was searching for guys who wanted to play defense and rebound. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. Number one, you don't bring guys in and then search for guys within your roster who want to play defense and rebound. Once they get here, it's too late. The search for those types of guys needs to happen during the portal and recruiting season before they get here. Number two, as I posted last week, the crazy lineup combinations are not helping our ability to settle in on offense or defense. The search for those players Drew mentioned kinda showed up in a big spot. Yesterday, we fell behind double digits and worked to get back to down 7. I believe it was with about 4 minutes, maybe a little less in first half. Drew went to the bench and put in a crazy lineup you knew was not going to be good offensively and questionable defensively. CSU pushed it right back out before the end of the first half. Again, subbing is good, but when you are offensively challenged and size challenged with Kymany and Amos out, you just can't wholesale sub without knowing who's on the floor, where you will get potential offense from and defense from. The game was effectively lost in that 3 or 4 minute stretch. We never recovered.

Two bright spot (1) Glazkov played a few better minutes and he drained two nice 3's; and (2) Love keeps battling and found his way back into double digits. Miles got into foul trouble and was a nonfactor most of the game.

Need a win and Friday against NIU becomes a must win for this team, not only because we need a W, but we have already lost two games in our own building. You just can't have teams come in and slap you in your house.