Sunday, January 10, 2021 5:30 p.m.
Hullman Center, Terre Haute, Ind.


The Ramblers will tip off against Indiana State in Terre Haute less than 48 hours after the cancellation of their scheduled game Sunday against Drake in Des Moines. The last-minute change in plans (assuming it actually comes to pass) will be the fifth and sixth games (out of 11 games through Monday) that Loyola has had to schedule with short turnaround.

The 3-6 Sycamores are 0-4 in conference with two home losses to Drake and two road losses at Missouri State. Despite the bad start, the trees have played their opponents fairly close. ISU got blown out in their home conference opener against Drake, but rebounded the next day to play the Bulldogs close. The Sycamores are the only team to play Drake within single digits. They also played well at Purdue, before the Boilermakers pulled away late to win 80-68. Their best win is a 67-57 home victory over Ball State.

ISU has started the same five in all nine of their games: Tyreke Key, Jake LaRavia, Cooper Neese, Julian Larry, and Tre Williams. Senior guard Key and junior guard Neese each average double-digit points (13.7 and 12.2 respectively). Neese is the outside sharp shooter (20 made threes at 46.5% accuracy), Key likes to use his wide body to drive to the basket. Freshman guard Julian Larry leads the team in steals. Six-nine sophomore Jake LaRavia is listed as a guard/forward, and averages 12.8 ppg to go with 5.7 rebounds. Wide-bodied 6’7” sophomore center Tre Williams averages 9.4 points and 5.9 boards, and has very skillful footwork and positioning.

The top bench players are 6’2” grad transfer Randy Miller, 6’2” grad transfer Tobias Howard, and 6’6” sophomore guard Cobie Barnes. Six-eight juco forward Ndongo Ndaw also gets some significant court time.

Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... 10_21_.pdf

Indiana State game notes: Pending

TV/Streaming video: https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/eve ... rceLang=en

Internet audio feed: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=47&type=Live

Live stats: https://gosycamores.com/sidearmstats/mbball/summary

Vegas odds: Loyola by 8

Poor Lansing is getting hung out to dry this year. They've always wanted to fire him, but their dysfunctional administration is instead going to let him finish his contract as a lame duck with a less than stellar roster and a low budget recruiting class before moving on to someone else. It's a shame too because I think he's a good coach, even if we've had some lopsided games against them. If Porter ever has an opening on his staff, he's someone who would be a really good top assistant or special assistant/consultant role like Malnati was a few years back.

The other side of the equation on the crappy situation JCT talked about is for the other team.

If I have to play Indiana State on the road, do I want to play them with a week of practice and prep work to scheme against what we have, or do I want to just play them on 48-hours’ notice with no time to prepare? Talent vs. talent, we stack up far better. Them not getting a week of practice to try and come up with ways to effectively double team Krutwig or dissect the North Texas game plays in our favor.

They know they don’t have the horses to run with us, so with little time to prepare, I anticipate them just trying to limit the number of possessions by running the clock down on offense and hoping they can keep it close. If we are knocking down shots early and get some separation, they’ll have to retool that plan. That’s where we might really be able to put them away. They are not nearly as disciplined on defense as North Texas, so I think we take Game 1 by 15 points.

Taking Loyola -8, and feeling pretty good about it

Toledo -- Good point on the other team not having prep time either, but I'd much rather be the home team playing back-to-backs with no prep than the road team.

Dansen -- I like -8 also. I hope the Ramblers are amped up and not burned out by last minute changes.

Black unis. Down 7 already

I guess I like the jerseys.. but it’s almost jarring to see them in something different! Interested to hear the story about them

Honestly not a big fan of black unis for us. I get that they "look cool" but black isn't one of our colors. I prefer to keep our primary colors with the uniforms

Love the black jerseys. Also, the patch above the heart seems to be related to the social justice movement Loyola had promoted. Love it.

Don’t like them at all! Not one of our primary colors. A non primary color should not be the primary color of a jersey. If we need a third alternate jersey (which would be cool if worn no more than 3-4 times per season) it should be GOLD. We had black uniforms under Whitesell and they wore them more than the primary maroons. Look for these to be worn more than the unbelievable maroon uniforms (which looked even better in the Final Four year when the numbers were gold). These jerseys will end up being worn too much and being more than an just alternate because of the “look cool” thing. Thought Porter would keep us traditional like the Yankees or Dodgers. Duke made the black uniform mistake in the past too. Iowa State football made the same mistake of all black uniforms in their bowl game and so did the NY Mets in the 2000s. UNI has ugly black uniforms too.

These uniforms make us look like SIU!