Loyola Ramblers Preview - https://loyolaramblers.com/news/2024/12 ... assic.aspx

Oakland Grizzlies Intel - https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... /2025.html

Record: 3-7 (1-2, 6th in Horizon MBB)
Coach: Greg Kampe
PS/G: 62.7 (352nd of 364)
PA/G: 70.2 (154th of 364)
SRS: -6.04 (234th of 364)
SOS: 4.85 (45th of 364)
ORtg: 98.4 (325th of 364)
DRtg: 110.1 (329th of 364)


The Christmas Tournament is here!

Loyola Chicago (9-1) opens The Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Sunday night (4pm CST ESPN2) with a duel versus the Oakland Golden Grizzlies (3-7, 1-2 Horizon).

Injury-riddled for the short term, the Ramblers are coming off a 72-60 win over Canisius as 24.5-point favorites. The Golden Grizzlies are coming off a 92-75 loss to Cleveland State as one-point favorites.

This Golden Grizzlies and Ramblers split their only two meetings ever, last played in 2000.

Winner of the opening round advances to play either Oregon State, or College of Charleston on day-2 (we can discuss them both Monday am). The Championship game scheduled on Christmas night will come down to a field of Nebraska, Murray State, Charlotte and Hawaii.

The Ramblers are off to a good start this season after winning nine of their first 10 games. Has this mark met everyone’s expectations for thus far? I would hope so. Loyola will try to keep the momentum going and pick up its 10th win, and second in a row.

Playing short-handed through the duration of the Classic, Loyola will rely heavily on all 8 remaining healthy players, running a starting lineup of JQ, Watson, Edward’s Jr., Nwaokorie, and Rubin. DeLoach, Glazkov, and Hendawy round out the lineup in relief, with all 8 likely to receive heavy minutes.

Loyola heads into this game averaging 79.7 pts per game (93rd in the nation) while shooting 47.2% from the field. The Ramblers are hitting 36.0% on 3-pointers (87 of 242) and a below-average 64.3% from the free throw line. Collectively, Loyola is pulling down 38.3 rebounds per game and averages 18.8 assists per game, which is 12th best in the nation. With the season-ending loss of Justin Moore, Loyola will need to look from within for playmaking and shot creation to help maintain this impressive statistic. Of surprise, taking good care of the ball has been as thing up to this point, as they average only 11.4 turnovers per game.

Defensively, the Ramblers are forcing 14.6 turnovers per contest while drawing 18.6 personal fouls, and they rank 36th in PPG allowed (64.5). Other than giving up 52 second half points versus San Francisco last weekend, team defense continues to be a priority under Drew Valentine. The Ramblers gave up 60 points in their last game versus Canisius and will need a similar defensive effort if they want to win this game, and finish the event with a winning record.

The Golden Grizzlies 3-7 (1-2 Horizon) haven’t played well this season, and they enter this game on a three-game losing streak. Unfortunately, this is not the same team and roster from 2023-24 that finished 24-12 (15-5, 1st in Horizon), and nearly advanced through the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament largely due to the heroics of Jack Gohlke and Trey Townsend. With a mostly new roster, the Golden Grizzlies are led by a trio of senior forwards, DQ Cole (12.8ppg), Allen David Mukeba (12.4ppg) and Tuburu Naivalurua (11.4ppg).

As a team, Oakland commits 14.2 fouls every game and they go 59.6% from the free throw line (they are worse than us, if you can believe it!). Offensively, Oakland is one of the worst teams in the nation in points per game, averaging only 62.7 per game, while shooting 40.8% from the floor. Despite these shortcomings, the Golden Grizzlies play a difficult and physical game at times, as evidenced by the 30 minutes of hell they gave Michigan State last week.

Oakland is led by Greg Kampe, in his 41st season. Kampe is one of the good guys and gems in college hoops. This matchup will be unique from a fan’s perspective to watch Drew coach against his former coach, and see the two duel and embrace one another.

Opening round match will be televised on ESPN2 and can be listened to Rambler Sports Network with our friends Sudikoff and CT.

Odds: Loyola -6.5


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Checking out the entire field: - Courtesy of Loyolaramblers.com

College of Charleston has won its last four games, entering the tournament at 8-2 overall. The season started out with three straight wins, including a double overtime win over FAU. Ante Brzovic leads the offense, averaging 19.5 points per game. He's scored at least 10 in all but one game this season. Brzovic dropped a season-high 39 vs. FAU.

Oregon State is also on a four-game win streak and heads to Diamond Head at 8-2. The Beavers held Sacramento State to just 45 points in a win earlier this week. Michael Rataj is the leading scorer, averaging 16.7 points per game on over 50 percent from the field. Rataj has five double-doubles after posting 23 points and 12 rebounds vs. Sac State.

Nebraska sits at 7-2 this season and dropped its lone neutral site game of the year to Saint Mary's back on Nov. 17. The Huskers beat Indiana last week after dropping their Big Ten opener at Michigan State. Brice Williams is averaging 18.9 points per game for Nebraska and had 10 in at least every game. He dropped 30 vs. Indiana on 10-of-15 from the field last week.

Murray State is 6-4 overall and dropped its last two games to Western Kentucky and Indiana State. The Racers are 1-0 at neutral sites with a 79-66 win over UT Arlington. Four players are averaging double-figure scoring, but the Racers are led by JaCobi Wood at 15.0 ppg. Over the last four games, Wood has dropped at least 15 points and scored over 20 in three.

Charlotte won its last two, improving to 6-4 ahead of the tournament. They took down Georgia State and West Georgia last week. Nik Graves leads the team with 16.7 ppg and has scored double-figures in every game this season. Graves has four 20-point performances, including a season-high 23 points two times this year.

Hawaii is 6-3 overall after beating Texas A&M - Corpus Christie last weekend. All three of the team's losses came in the last two weeks to North Carolina, Grand Canyon, and Long Beach State. Gytis Nemeiksa leads Hawaii, scoring 14.0 points per game on over 53 percent from the field. Nemeiksa dropped a season-best 24 points vs. Grand Canyon.

Thanks for the write up, Ragas.

Not a great start for the Ramblers thus far. The offense just doesn't seem to flow the same without Justin at the point, and we're really
missing the scoring that Dawson and Houinsou would provide.

Now it looks like DeLoach come down bad on his ankle. Hope he's okay.

Down 6 to an Oakland team that is 3-7. Woof.

Gonna be a rough tournament, but on the bright side Daniil and Seif are getting some solid experience that will
be helpful when we get deep into conference play.

Also...at the risk of beating a dead horse, anyone know what happened with JCT? Seems like he disappeared after the election. He also
just recently deleted the Ramblermania twitter account. Is he upset with program?

JCT, if you read this, hope all is well and looking forward to seeing you back on Ramblermania. We all miss your commentary and insight.

Awful start, maybe travel and adjusting to new time? Know UConn struggled in Hawaii but we don’t look good at all.

We shoot way too many 3s, we aren’t not good at it and don’t have the shooters to be a 3pt shot first look team. We chuck it up like 2010s warriors and we just aren’t efficient at it. Seems like there is too much one on one play and not enough set plays, pick and rolls, or back door cuts, etc. Losing 3 starters hurts but we should be relying on more set plays and it just doesn’t look like we have many to rely on.

Hope we can pull this out or as Rambler12 said it will be a long tourney. If we lose to a 3-7 team from the horizon that will show our record is a mirage. Positive like previously stated above is freshman are getting lots of experience and hopefully that builds confidence in them.

Jack Turner just came in the game.

Does that mean's he's not redshirting anymore?

Except Oakland played on Thursday and got there after us.

Jack Turner burning his redshirt. Hopefully, it's worth it and he gets good time the rest of the year too.

Even less of an excuse then; burning turners redshirt is also a questionable move.

Sheldon and Miles have put the team on their back.

Defense needs to step it up though. We just gave Oakland 3 tries under our own basket.
Can't keep trading baskets with them. Need some stops here with 5 minutes left in the game.

This would be a terrible loss.

That was a terrible foul call on Quinn.

Brutal. We fought back but those last 10 seconds were just horrible. We are not a good team.