Friday, March 19, 2021 3:00 p.m.
Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Ind.


No. 17 Loyola faces off against ninth-seeded Georgia Tech on Friday afternoon in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. After winning the MVC Tournament, the regular season MVC title, earning a #17 AP ranking, a top 10 NET, a top 10 KenPom ranking, and winning 17 of their last 18 games, the Ramblers were rewarded with an 8 seed in the Dance. A pathway to a second week in the Tournament is blocked by ACC Tournament Champs and the Big Ten Tournament Champion, #2 Illinois. Yikes!

The Ramblers faced the Ramblin' Wreck once before-- 53 years ago-- when the Yellow Jackets made a trip through Illinois. The Illini beat Tech 65-54, and then two days later on Dec. 30, 1967 Loyola knocked off Tech 96-71 at Chicago Stadium. Loyola's last game against an ACC foe was in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, the 64-62 win over Miami. The eventual National Champion Ramblers also beat Duke in the 1963 Final Four. Loyola is 11-43 against the current ACC lineup.

Georgia Tech Coach Josh Pastner is in his fifth year with the Yellow Jackets after seven years at Memphis, and he's posted an 82-75 record since arriving in Atlanta. After starting the season with home losses to Georgia State and Mercer, the Yellow Jackets got two good wins before they lost their ACC opener at Florida State by 13. So on Dec. 15, the Yellow Jackets found themselves at 2-3 overall, 0-1 in the ACC, with a KenPom ranking in the 70s, staring ahead at an imposing ACC schedule. But since their shaky start, they've discovered their identity-- a stingy defense with active hands and tricky zones, led by scrappy seniors. This year's Tech team posted their best conference won-loss record since 1996 and won the ACC Tournament for the first time since 1993, but like the Ramblers, ended up with a disappointing tournament seed in a buzz saw regional.

Tech is likely to start 6'0" senior guard Jose Alvarado, 6'5" junior guard Michael Devoe, 6'7" senior guard/forward Jordan Usher, 6'9" senior forward Moses Wright, and 6'7" junior forward Kahlid Moore. Wright-- who averages 17.4 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks-- leads the team in those categories and was recognized with the ACC Player of the Year award. Alvarado puts up 15.3 points per game, averages 4.1 assists, and leads the team with 3.0 steals per game; he was named ACC Defensive Player of the Year. Devoe leads the squad in made threes and puts up 15.1 points per game. Usher, a USC transfer, averages 11.5 ppg and finishes really well at the basket. This is the core four of GT's team, with Wright, Alvarado, and Devoe each averaging 35 minutes or more and Usher logging about 30. All four are long, agile, versatile, rangy and athletic. Only Wright at 233 and Usher at 213 weigh in over 200; for comparison, the Ramblers have Krutwig (255), Hutson (240), Uguak (225), Hall (220), Welch (220) and Williamson (205). All of the four key GT starters average 2.7 assists or better, have good assist/turnover ratios, and each player averages at least 1.2 steals per game.

Since inserting forward Kahlid Moore into the lineup as the fifth starter on Feb. 14, the Yellow Jackets have won eight in a row. Moore averages 4.7 ppg on the year, but he's averaging 5.6 since joining the starting lineup. Moore does most of his damage driving to the hoop or finishing on cuts; he shoots only 19% from distance. The move to a 3 forward, 2 guard lineup put 5'10 senior guard Bubba Parham to the bench, where he plays fewer minutes. Parham averages 6.7 ppg and shoots mostly from the outside. The only other player who's appeared in more than 20 games is 6'2" sophomore guard (and another USC transfer) Kyle Sturdivant, who averages 3.5 points per game in 12 minutes on the court.

And that's it. Georgia Tech basically has a seven-man rotation, with not many different look options from the bench. Six-ten backup center Rodney Howard has appeared in 18 games playing a smattering of minutes and averaging 1.6 points per game. Depth won't be much of an issue in this game with GT coming off five days rest, but foul trouble might play a role. Moses Wright has fouled out three times and picked up four or more fouls eight times; Tech is 1-2 in games he's fouled out and 4-4 in games with four or more fouls. Alvarado has fouled out twice, and the team is 2-2 when he plays in foul trouble.

The Yellow Jackets are known for their 1-3-1 zone defense, which morphs and adapts to confound passers and frustrate shooters. But the real calling card for this year's Tech team is making steals and forcing turnovers. They rank 2nd in the country in defensive steal percentage, and force an average of 15.9 opposition turnovers.

Surprisingly, if you don't pay that much attention to the ACC year in and year out, Georgia Tech is making their first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2010. A perennial resident of the NCAA Tournament in the 80s and early 90s under Bobby Cremins, the Yellow Jackets appeared in nine straight tournaments from 1985 to 1993. Under Coach Paul Hewitt, Tech appeared in five tournaments in the 10 years from 2001 to 2010, including a trip to the National Championship game in 2004.

A bit like Georgia Tech, Loyola has also grown into their identity over the year. Picked to finish second in the MVC, the Ramblers also started out the season shaky. A Covid outbreak with nearly all the players testing positive delayed the start of the season, and Covid also wrought havoc with the schedule. Loyola missed out on their MTE (and an opportunity to get quality wins), and then had to schedule games in slapdash fashion as other teams had outbreaks and pauses. But ever since shifting Keith Clemons to the starting lineup and moving Tate Hall to the front of the bench, the Ramblers are 16-1 with the one loss on the road in overtime to a Tournament team.

Ever since Loyola's run in the 2018 NCAA Tournament, the Ramblers have had to combat persistent doubts about the strength of the conference and the quality of the opposition in the league. This year, with the probable end of the Krutwig-Williamson era looming, the Selection Committee gave the Ramblers a chance to prove-- under the most difficult draw imaginable-- that the program is more than just a good Mid Major. This first round game will be a huge part of how the legacy of this era of Loyola men's basketball is remembered.


Loyola Game Notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... _19_21.pdf

Georgia Tech Game Notes: https://ramblinwreck.com/wp-content/upl ... a-NCAA.pdf

TV/Streaming video: TBS, March Madness Live https://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live/watch

Radio/Streaming audio: WLUW https://wluw.org/tag/stream/

Live stats: https://www.ncaa.com/scoreboard/basketball-men/d1

Vegas Odds: Loyola by 1.5

Tech fans all starting to think their star, Moses Wright, is the one that tested positive for COVID.... yikes for them.

First “official” source I’ve seen report it

Was just coming here to post the same tweet, 01.

One of the last things I did before posting the preview was check the Vegas odds. It surprised me when it was up to Loyola -5. Some of those Vegas types must have had the news an hour or two ago before this journalistic reporting just a few minutes ago.

Here’s a question though: will it affect the game plan the coaches have been putting together all week? Stuff like this always makes me a little nervous for the presumed favorite, especially when I’m rooting for them. You can never predict how college age kids might rally around something like this. But obviously it’s a huge blow to GT, who was already short in depth.

Simply put, another outstanding preview. Thanks for your tireless work in making the game experience even better.
You have a talent for sure!

In the unlikely event that more Georgia Tech players test positive, to the point that they are unable to field a 5 man team, will Loyola get a bye or will they play a replacement team Friday?

When is/was the "drop dead" deadline for making this decision?

Believe that was Tuesday. So no more replacement teams.

According to what I understand from a lot of reading, Moses Wright got a positive test. His results showed "abnormalities" on Saturday night when they won the ACC Tournament against Florida State, but the test was positive on Monday. He was separated from the team, put in isolation. Even if the test turns out to be a false positive (there have been several instances of this), the rules of the NCAA Tournament say that a person has to receive seven consecutive NEGATIVE test results before being allowed to participate.

As I mention in the preview, they have a little-used backup at the center position (he's a Georgia transfer) who's played about 130 minutes this season and averaged less than 2 points per game. There are a couple of other players who have even less experience on their roster.... including a freshman 7-footer, Saba Gigiberia.

They'll be able to play, but missing the ACC Player of the Year on a team that really goes only 7 deep is a huge blow.

Does anybody know how contact tracing comes into play in the Wright situation?

I thought in the Northern Iowa forfeit players were ruled out not only if they tested positive but if they had been in close contact with somebody who had tested positive. I understood the controversy there was that the City of St. Louis had different contact tracing standards than the MVC.

Here, Wright was presumptively (or suspect) Covid positive after their Saturday game, and conclusively positive on Monday (disregarding the possibility of a false positive test).
Wouldn't his Covid status on Saturday trigger a requirement to do contract tracing from that date forward?

Or is it simply that in the NCAA Tournament only players who test positive are ineligible to play, and those in close contact but test negative are given a pass?