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

Mercyhurst Stats and Intel - https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/schools/mercyhurst/men/2026.html

Record: 0-1 (NEC MBB)
Coach: Gary Manchel
PS/G: 47.0 (326th of 365)
PA/G: 70.0 (146th of 365)
SRS: 0.00 (1st of 256)
SOS: 23.00 (52nd of 256)
ORtg: 69.5 (324th of 365)
DRtg: 103.5 (189th of 365)


Mercyhurst Lakers (0-1) at Loyola Chicago Ramblers (1-0) – 8:00pm CST Gentile Arena, Chicago IL

Loyola Chicago continues opening week action at home against Mercyhurst Thursday night, as part of a Thursday night double-header featuring the Women’s game at 5pm and Men’s game at 8pm. The Ramblers look to pick up their second win against a winless Lakers squad and get all the kinks out in time for next week’s matchups with formidable mid-majors North Texas, Wichita State, and Colorado State.

In Monday’s season opener against Cleveland State, Deywilk Tavarez caught fire during the final minute, draining two threes in the game’s final 18 seconds, including the game winner with 0.5 seconds left. Tavarez finished with 16 points and five threes in his Rambler debut. Additionally, Miles Rubin and Kayde Dotson each had 16, Chuck Love III contributed 14 points and very high energy 21-minutes in his college career debut, and Justin Moore led the Ramblers with 6 assists.

"The feeling from Monday’s game is fairly positive,” said Coach Valentine in his postgame interview. “Cleveland State is a tough first opponent to play. We're pretty thorough in our scouting, and we kind of had an idea of what they were going to, but we didn't know everything, so it was tough to prep for,” admitted Valentine.

Mercyhurst University, of Erie PA, has been a Division-1 member for only 1 season. In their 2024-25 debut as members of the NEC, the Lakers finished with a 15-16 overall record, and 9-7 in league play which was good enough for third place. They are led by long-time head coach, Gary Manchel, who is in his 23rd season as leader of the program. His career record is 388-236.

On Monday night, Mercyhurst lost at Northwestern 70-47, and has lost nine of its last 10 games against non-Conference opponents.

A name we will never forget after this one, Bernie Blunt III is Mercyhurst’s leading returning scorer, having started 27 games and averaging 12.5 ppg, 2.1 rpg, and 1.5 apg. At Northwestern, he recorded 8 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. Teammate Jake Lemelman led the Lakers with 14 points in the opener.

Mercyhurst’s lineup will feature 6-0 G Bernie Blunt III, 6-2 G Jake Lemelman, 6-5 F Qadir Martin, 6-8 F Mykolaus Ivanauskas, and 6-2 G Deshaun Jackson.

Mercyhurst was severely outclassed against Northwestern in terms of talent, but shooting 5.6 percent from three and having one double-digit scorer is inexcusable. It’s one game, but it’s hard to show Mercyhurst love after such a showing. The Ramblers, on Monday, looked great at times offensively and I expect the defense to finally lock in with more reps and having actual game tape this week to scout Mercyhurst on.

The Ramblers have won each of their last 17 night games at Gentile Arena against non-AP-ranked opponents. Mercyhurst is another opponent this week whom the Ramblers must work out all the bugs on, and not lallygag on.

Mercyhurst Probable Starters – (see above)

Loyola Probable Starters – Rubin, TBD, Houinsou, Moore, Dotson


LAST 10 GAMES FOR BOTH SQUADS

N/A


Watch / Listen – Thursday night’s game is regionally broadcast on Marquee Sports 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 -21.5

Maybe they can outrebound this team.

The TBD as the 5th starter is intriguing. Harris was a surprise starter in the CS game. He replaced Ola-Joseph. I am not sure he did enough to warrant staying in that 5th starter role.

I think Drew might be tempted to start Love, but I would not at this point. I say this not because Love is not playing well, he is, but I would continue to keep him in his current role. I think Love is playing with great energy and confidence, but I would keep him in his current role and let him continue to thrive without any added pressure of being a starter. It may only be a matter of time before he is starter, but let him keep working and improving where he is...for now.

Tavarez may have earned a starting role for this one as well after his performance against CS. He is of course used to being a starter throughout his career and it might be a good mental boost to him being new to the program.

If I had my choice, I would go with Ola-Joseph as he has a bit more size and until Amos comes back we will need him to be a big part of what we do. It would also be a little bit of a confidence boost for him being new to the program. I also like the added firepower of Love and Taveras playing together on a second unit. I know Drew likes to play 1-4 with the guards and smaller personnel, but we got hammered on the glass and I would think heading into some tougher games next week, we should be focusing on cleaning that up in a hurry. Unless we shoot lights out, we will not win a lot games being out rebounded by double digits.

Some other things to watch:

1. Drew shortened the rotation in the second half of the CS game. I think he maybe is concerned and has a bit more of a sense of urgency with winning some of these non-con games this year. If this is true, there are some guys that need to take better advantage of their opportunities when they get on the floor. History has shown us that Drew will give you some minutes in the non-con and if you do not produce, you can find yourself buried on the bench in a hurry as we get closer to the A10.

The obvious player that needs to show some progress is Glazkov. He is a second year player so excuses of being a freshman, learning the system, etc. are not gonna fly much longer. His minutes in the CS game were dramatically reduced and he did not play in the second half. Love is playing great and with Moore, Dotson, Taveras, Ola-Joseph, and Harris (more on him shortly) he can't afford to fall too far behind these guys.

The second player that needs to show more is Harris. Harris is athletic and has some ability, but he is under pressure for sure. He got the start but was not very impressive against CS.

2. Production. Harris, and Glazkov (really anyone who gets in) need to realize that are many ways to be productive. You do not have to score to be productive. You can be valuable by doing a lot of things to help the team. This can come in the form of playing defense, getting steals, rebounding, distributing the ball, providing energy, taking good shots. I think sometimes guys think they are not being productive if they are not scoring, so they do things that are detrimental to team performance. This can manifest itself in several ways such as forcing bad shots, trying to make a crazy pass leading to turnovers, or committing dumb fouls that helps the opponent get into the bonus early. These two guys need to focus on what they can do to be productive in a team concept and not being detrimental overall when they are on the floor.

3. So I will be watching who is being "productive" and how the team is playing overall when these guys are actually on the floor. Points do not tell the whole story.

Go 'blers!

Agree with all that Mudville. I think a low-key name to add to the hot seat list is Moore. Not that he played that bad against Cleveland State (although it was not a good game for him), but with a few tough opponents upcoming, I wonder if Drew might think about going back to lineups with Houinsou at PG.

It's unorthodox but it worked wonders last year -- efficiency numbers skyrocketed with that lineup, because it allowed the team to leverage Houinsou and Rubin's defense and put shooter everywhere else. On offense, Houinsou isn't good at getting by anyone off the dribble, but he's sneaky good with his back to the basket, distributing the ball from there.

The issue we ran into was when we needed a playmaker at the end of the shot clock -- usually defaulted to Des, and creating his own shot was not one of his strengths. So that's the argument for keeping Moore in the lineup, but... maybe Dotson can be that guy. If so, I could see that pushing Moore into a bench role, if his shooting and/or defense slumps -- basically an improved version of Quinn's role last year.

Lineups like this could be deadly:

Housinsou/Dotson/Love/Ola-Joseph/Rubin if we need size, or
Houinsou/Dotson/Tavarez/Love/Rubin if we want to space the floor by putting all of our best shooters out there

I'm also hoping Young gets some time tonight. I wasn't very impressed with Richardson's defense last game.

Think the calls for Moore to the bench are way too premature. Every year there are 1-2 guys Drew gives a lot more grace to than others (sometimes to a fault). Last year that was 100% Des, year before was Norris and to an extent Phil Alston.

The waY Drew was pumping up Moore in pre-season interviews (saying he was the best PG in the league), I think he’ll ride and die with Moore all year. CS wasn’t his best game. I think he lost some rhythm due to fouls, and there couple questionable drives/no calls. Few things go the other way maybe he has a great game.

If CS is his floor, and the DePaul game is the ceiling it’s going to take more than one off night for Drew to hand the keys to a sophomore who rarely played last year in Dotson vs a 4th year guy in Moore.

It's not so much that Moore himself played that bad, more that the defense and rebounding were unacceptable as a team. We know from last year that having Houinsou and Rubin on the floor is recipe for defensive success. And Ola-Joseph probably needs to start to help with rebounding. So if that's three starting roles that we need to keep defense/rebounding above water, then we need shooting, playmaking, and size, probably in that order.

If Moore's shot really is improved, he can probably keep most of his minutes. But if not I get the feeling he's going to have a hard time fighting off the other guys. I have a feeling Love is going to force himself into a major role, with his shooting and length, and Tavarez might be like Sheldon where his shooting is too great to keep off the floor. With only so much playing time available... if it comes down to Dotson vs. Moore... could easily go either way. Dotson seems really talented.

That said, hope Moore makes me look like an idiot the next couple weeks.

I've come to not put too much thought into Drew's lineups in games like this. He's clearly used these early games as an opportunity to test different lineups. The exception might be starting lineups, but even there I think the only two players that are cemented in starting roles are Miles and Moore. Way, way, waaaay too early to judge Moore. Remember what he showed last year, and how big of a loss it was when he was hurt. He does need to just lay it in sometimes, though...that missed dunk was painful, and thank God he didn't hurt himself.

All I'm really hoping to see tonight (besides a win by a decent margin), is better rebounding and playing better together on defense. With the talent and makeup of this team, most nights we're going to have someone who is hitting their shots...but defense and rebounding will determine how good this team can be. Hopefully Amos is back by conference season, as I expect that he can help a lot with both of those.

Moore and Dotson need to be the primary ball handlers. Hynsou did an OK job last year when he was pressed into the PG position. However, when he was pressured by someone who was a good on ball defender anda little bigger, his deficiency as a PG was exposed. Perfect example was against VCU in A10 tourney when they put Schulga on him. He was forced to turn his back to the basket when he was coming across halfcourt. This leads to the offense starting too high in the offensive end. It costs him court vision, makes the initial passes too long, disrupts the timing of the screens and cuts.

Moore and Dotson are true ball handlers who bring the ball up facing the basket. Moore's issue is only that he tries to do too much. He's not at Drexel anymore more and what he was able to do there doesn't always work in higher D1. When he stays within the flow and let's the game develop naturally, he plays better.

Embarrassing first half

We have three 4-star recruits on this team and are gonna lose to a team ranked 360 in Kenpom