Friday, November 24, 2017 4:00 p.m.
Savannah Civic Center, Savannah, Ga.

UNCW won the Colonial Athletic Association regular season crown for the past two years, but the Seahawks were tabbed for fifth in the Colonial this year. Coach Kevin Keatts, who guided UNCW to a 72-28 record over three years in Wilmington, was snatched up by the NC State Wolfpack in late March of this year. One of Keatts’ first acts at NC State was cancelling their scheduled game at Loyola. New UNCW head coach C.B McGrath played at Kansas from 1994-98 and has been a coaching protégé of North Carolina’s Roy Williams. McGrath followed Willams to UNC, and had been an assistant there since 2003.

The Seahawks return just one starter from last year’s 29-6 team, Devontae Cacok. The 6’7” junior forward led Division I in field goal percentage as a sophomore at 80% (Loyola’s Aundre Jackson was 4th in that category last year at 66.8%) and averaged 12.3 points and 9.8 rebounds per contest. Through three games so far this season, he’s averaging 19.7 and 16.7.

Filling out the rest of UNCW’s starting lineup are forward Marcus Bryan, and guards Jordon Talley, Jaylen Fornes, and Ty Taylor. Bryan is a 6’7” senior forward who averages 5.0 points and 8.0 rebounds; he is particularly good on the offensive glass. Talley is a 6’0” senior averaging 18.3 points and 10.3 assists per game in the early going—including double doubles in those categories in UNCW’s loss at Davidson and their home win against Campbell. Fornes, at 6’2’, and Taylor, at 6’3”, are sophomore guards who shoot primarily from outside and average about 13 points per game. Talley is the best free throw shooter, Fornes leads the team in steals, and Taylor is quick to defensive rebounds.

The top player off the bench is 6’5” freshman guard Jay Estimé, a high-scoring athlete out of suburban Atlanta who was ranked 87th in ESPN’s top 100 high school players last season. Three other guards, 6’4” senior Nick Powell, 5’10” junior Jacque Brown, and 6’4” freshman Jeffrey Gary see significant playing time and average 5.0 to 3.0 points per game. Junior guard JaQuel Richmond saw some significant time in the last game. Seven-footer Trey Kalina, a juco from Coffeyville, has only seen eight scoreless minutes on the year against D1 opposition.

Coach McGrath formally accepted the job at UNCW the day after North Carolina won the national championship, so he couldn’t play much of a role in selecting the personnel on his team. Expect to see four guards and a forward on the floor most of the time, probably not too dissimilar from the look the Ramblers sported in the 2015-16 season when Montel James was the tallest player seeing significant minutes. Offense has come easy, but defense has been a problem for the ‘hawks this year—Division I teams are averaging 96 points per game against UNCW, and even Division III North Carolina Wesleyan put up 81 points on the Seahawks. KenPom ranks UNCW 85th in offensive efficiency but 240th on defense.

Meanwhile, Loyola has been refining their balance between offense and defense, and adjusting personnel. Christian Negron has become available recently, seeing time in the games against Samford and Mississippi Valley State, but Ben Richardson will be out until at least late December with a broken hand. The shorthanded Ramblers will have to work hard on both sides of the court to get a win over UNCW. Expect players like Krutwig and Ingram to make a difference due to size and skill matchups; the Ramblers will have to be smart to contain UNCW’s speed, controlling tempo and preventing fast breaks. Loyola has been pretty good defending against threes, holding opponents to only 31.7%; they’ll have to keep it up against the Seahawks, who have shot 48.7% (19 for 39) from distance in their last two games.

Loyola game notes: http://www.loyolaramblers.com/documents ... df?id=3737

UNCW game notes: Pending

TV/Streaming video: None

Live stats: http://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=199087

Vegas odds: Loyola by 5.5

I believe that a hidden or overlooked factor in the decline in performance can be traced in part to the lack of team charters to some games.
When you play on the road on a Wednesday you have to leave Tuesday at the latest and then return late on Wednesday. Then you are home one day and have to depart on Friday for a Saturday game. That plain and simple can wear players down. Then, and here is the point, if you take a bus to some locations such as Evansville or Carbondale those are long rides. I know for a fact that the final regular conference game against Southern last year the team had to take a long bus ride. The budget was so tight and all the charters had been used up. There was simply no money.
One of the advantages of the Horizon League was the fact that games were typically Thursday-Saturday. So the team did not come back to campus but had a day to recoup their strength. I believe the furthest trip was Cleveland/Youngstown State. As a fan, you could also plan on seeing two games in three days which was nice. Just an added thought.
The team also flies to some locations that are fairly small cities and don't have a lot of flights or if they do they are very expensive.
I used to do some work in the Quad Cities and to fly there from Chicago was around $900. At times I could fly to Europe for less than that.
So

To combine this with the Non D-1 Games thread, this is a great reason to take the extra guarantee game instead of that non D-1 game.

The non D-1 game will cost us a little under $10k to bring in the opponent, nevermind the extra costs of hosting the game that won't be covered by the revenue that 500 or so attendees would bring in. Say it's a $20k moneypit for a non-competitive game and a win that's only worth is not negatively affecting our RPI. We replace it with a guarantee game with a really good P5 school that'll pay us at least $70k plus probably comped travel and lodging. Worst case scenario, said guarantee game will probably not be competitive either. Two things probably come out of it: 1.) a better road environment and competition to test our players and prepare them for the Valley and 2.) an L in the record rather than a W that doesn't even count in some record books. Best case scenario, we're NJIT upsetting Michigan.

Either way though, we get at least an extra $90k in the budget, which I can't imagine the program can't use and is in my opinion worth more to Loyola basketball than the meaningless W. I might even being conservative with the numbers. It could be well over $100k difference.

BTW Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Can't believe there's no streaming video for this tournament.

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Bush league stuff.

Cant believe there is NO coverage, streaming or otherwise!!!!
I agree this is not where I wish we were at this point in the program....
I assume the program knew there would be no coverage.
What do we benefit from this event? Somebody tell me please?
Sorry, just gotta vent
Go Ramblers...

There appears to be audio via the UNCW basketball website.
I’m not great at posting links but maybe someone can do that.

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Jackson is going off! 15 points halfway through the 1st half. Ramblers up 8.

Now up 35-18. On fire. Let's keep it up and not let them back into it. Killer instinct!