Friday, Nov. 13, 2015 7:00 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago

The Loyola Ramblers begin the 2015-16 season with high expectations after an unexpectedly excellent season last year. The Ramblers surprised many with a sixth-place finish in the MVC despite Milton Doyle missing more than half the conference season with a bum ankle. With Doyle in the lineup the Ramblers were 17-6, won the CBI and Las Vegas Invitational tournaments, and finished the season with five straight wins and eight wins in their last nine games. One of the earliest signs that last season would be somewhat better than expected came when Loyola broke a 20-game road losing streak on Nov. 25 with a 71-57 win at Texas-San Antonio. Those same two teams will kick off the 2015-16 season at Gentile Arena.

The Roadrunners finished last season a lackluster 14-16 (12-16 against D1 teams) record, and an 8-10 won-loss in Conference USA-- good for a 7th place tie. Unfortunately for Coach Brooks Thompson, UTSA lost three starters, three of their top four scorers, and their top two rebounders to graduation. UTSA was voted to finish 13th among the 14 teams in the Conference USA preseason poll.

One of the two returning starters, 6’1” guard Geno Littles, began last season as a freshman walk-on and has since earned a scholarship along with a starting role. Joining Littles in the UTSA backcourt will be 6’1 senior Ryan Bowie and 6’3” sophomore Austin Karrer. Bowie, the top returning scorer, averaged 13.0 ppg last season and scored 7 points against the Ramblers last year. Karrer averaged only 1 ppg, playing an average of 7.0 minutes in 21 games last season.

The Roadrunner frontcourt will be led by 6’10” junior center Lucas O’Brien, who hails from the same town (Chandler, Ariz.) as Loyola’s new big man Maurice Kirby. O’Brien saw little playing time last season as a backup center, and played only four minutes against Loyola. Nevertheless, he played 16 minutes, scored 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the field, and grabbed eight rebounds in UTSA’s exhibition win over SE Oklahoma State last week. Nick Allen, a 6’8” freshman forward, is also likely to start.

The top two players off the bench are 6’4” juco guard J.R. Harris and 6’2” sophomore guard Christian Wilson. Harris led all scorers with 21 points in UTSA’s exhibition win, and Wilson averaged 5.0 ppg last year as a freshman. Six-foot ten Aussie sophomore center James Ringholt and 6’8” freshman forward A.J. Cockerell will also get some playing time off the bench.

The Roadrunners have a lot of height and weight available in their frontcourt; their roster features eight players at 6’6” or taller (six of whom played in their exhibition game), and four players tipping the scales at 230 or more. Yet their guards do most of the scoring and a large share of the rebounding. Bowie led the team in three pointers attempted last season with 170 (5.6 attempts per game), but only hit on 36.5% of his threes. Newcomer J.R. Harris led the team with eight long-range attempts in their exhibition game, but only connected twice. The other returning players are not very aggressive about getting to the free throw line, and only Bowie shoots better than 60% at the stripe.

UTSA has an impressive team just looking at numbers on the roster, but probably not enough weapons or experience to get a road win against the more confident Ramblers. If Loyola plays as they did for the first 30 minutes of the exhibition game against Lewis, or as well as they played last year at San Antonio, they should be able to get a comfortable double-digit home win to start the season.

Loyola game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... 112aaa.pdf

UTSA game notes: http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/loy ... a_txsa.pdf

TV/Streaming video: http://espn.go.com/watchespn/index/_/id ... -vs-Loyola

Vegas line: Loyola by 12

Great to have these game threads/previews back! Your work is greatly appreciated.

I'm seeing some initial lines out of Vegas showing Loyola as a 12 pt favorite. Looks like some early respect from the bookies.

Yep. Twelve point favorites on the early line. UTSA was a very good road team last year, going 7-8 away from home, but they lost a LOT of scoring and experience.

Great to be reading your previews again, JCT!

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Another great preview JCT, really enjoy reading them. I read that Christian Wilson will not be playing tomorrow night. He has been suspended.

The game tonight might just be the start of the BIG guy era at LUC--KIRBY just might be the power guy to get it going for Milt and the boys !! He will have some bigs contesting him-BUT that IS good.

I like us to win say 77-60 !!!

Giddy-up ! RAMBLERS !!

Tyson Smith sitting on bench. Not out during warm ups. Uh oh.
But he did just name 3 Disney movies in the video board contest.

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Living in the 60660.

Oh boy. This is fun. Firing on all cylinders.

Crowd is, of course, sparse. Wish I could be there...

That 17-5 run by UTSA at the end of the first did not help. Yikes some sloppy play to start the second. But we were definitely playing excellent in the middle of the first.

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Living in the 60660.

What is going on? 19 point lad just evaporated. Need to start hitting high percentage shots and tightening up the D.