Friday, November 25, 2022 1:00 p.m. Central
Lavietes Pavilion, Allston, Mass.


Loyola plays its first game against an Ivy League team in 14 years, and its first ever game against Harvard on Friday afternoon. The Ramblers have lost three in a row for the first time since 2017 after a last-place finish in the Myrtle Beach Invitational, and are under .500 for the first time since 2019.

Two people with family connections to Loyola are on this Harvard men’s basketball squad. First year Assistant Coach Larry Farmer is the son of Loyola’s coach from 1998-2004, and as a child used to play at post-game receptions in Alumni Gym. The brother of former Rambler recruit Paxson Wojcik, Denham, is one of nine players on the Crimson to see court time in every game this year. Harvard’s second-leading scorer, junior guard Sam Silverstein, is from suburban Glencoe. Presumably, this is a home-and-home series with a game in Chicago next year.

This is the 16th season for Harvard Head Coach Tommy Amaker, and he’s accumulated a 268-153 (.637) record at Harvard. Add his record at Michigan and Seton Hall, and he’s 444-292 overall—quite a record, with only four seasons below .500 out of 25 seasons as head coach. Amaker sent Harvard to the NCAA Tournament four straight years from 2012-15. Harvard is 4-1 this season, picked to finish 4th in the Ivy.

Harvard is likely to start 6’2” sophomore guard Evan Nelson, 6’6” junior guard Sam Silverstein, 6’6” senior guard Luka Sakota, 6’8” freshman forward Chisom Okpara, and 6’10” junior forward Justice Ajogbor. Chris Ledlum leads the Crimson with 18.8 points per game, and he’s also the top rebounder at 6.6 per—he’s started all but the last game. Only Sakota (8.2 ppg), and Ajogbor (3.0 ppg) have started every game, as Coach Amaker has fielded several different starting fives. Silverstein leads the team in minutes per game and averages 12.0 points.

The Crimson are coming off a 69-59 home win on Sunday over a pretty good Siena team (Siena beat up Florida State pretty good on Thanksgiving), and their only loss was to Louisiana (formerly known as Louisiana-Lafayette). In their last outing, Harvard forced Siena into 20 turnovers (including 15 steals), so the Ramblers need to take care of the ball. Each game this season the Crimson have improved their shooting percentage, and each game this season they’ve improved their defense on three pointers.

This will be an important game for Rambler fans to see how the team rebounds after a truly awful MTE in Myrtle Beach. There's room for improvement just about everywhere.


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

Harvard game notes: https://gocrimson.com/documents/2022/11 ... _Notes.pdf

TV/Streaming video: ESPN+ https://www.espn.com/watch/player/_/eve ... /401487431

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=124&type=Live

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

Vegas odds: Loyola by 2

Take care of the ball. Win the free throw battle. Rebound.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Well. We didn't lose by double digits. We played hard to the end, even won the second half. We also didn't turn the ball over 20+ times.

That being said, offense is still a bit of a mess. Defense gives up too many easy buckets. Shooting is a mess (25% from 3, 60% from the charity stripe and 43% overall from the field). 17 turnovers is still way too many. Sheldon is apparently only a good shooter when he is shooting against Loyola. Nice to see Welch and Braden get a couple from deep. We had no answer at all vs Ledlum. I'm surprised to see Jayden has seemingly passed up Quinn in the pecking order.

Need to get right vs Central Arkansas on Wednesday. Get a confidence boosting win going into the DePaul game. Blue Demons got their doors blown off by Texas A&M today, didn't look much better against them than we did.

Eight straight games shooting under 30% from three.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

Yikes! What's the longer streak, the last time we lost 4 straight or the last time there were no in-game posts? Don't give up. This team needs support. And I need your expert opinions on what I just saw every game.

Large Rambler contingent at the game. Could have won the game, but the offense is woeful.

well that was a better played game anyway...and maybe let us see clearer some of our issues .The only guy that is really quick to the basket is Norris and is just too short usually to finish well. We really have no one on the team that demands a double team and our outside shooting really exasperates our offensive woes. Some of our guys go in with little or no control (Alston, Schwieger). To sum up we are easily guarded one on one...no one can break down the defense which results in a lot of our 3s being contested.
Defensively we looked better..getting better with switches and stupid fouls. What I really liked is we played some zone coming off of a full court 1-2-2 into a 3-2/1-2-2 . I saw it 3 times and each time we got a steal and a hoop...Maybe this lanky team is a zone team?
I still do not think Marquis and Edwards are up to 100%, at least hope not.
The youngsters and newbies will just get better with lots of potential there.
Next year and the years after could really be something. Will need to get there.
We wont get the Ws we have had the last few years but should be fun to watch this team develop.

Saw Fordham bear Harvard by 8 yesterday. Fordham is expected to be a bottom tier A10 team so that doesn't look great for us. They also held Ledlum to just 7 points after he exploded for 30 on us.

Watched Fordham and Harvard. Ledlum was held in check because Fordham has a 6-9 big who put up 16 points, 15 rebounds, 5 blocks, with only three personal fouls in 25 minutes on the floor. The Rams also had only 10 turnovers….
LUC needs to find some “big”, to provide a solid middle both on offense and defense.…. Hmmmm? Most A-10 games I’ve watched there is size in the middle, not just perimeter play. Any ideas?

I thought that person was Golden. In the first several games he didn't look effective at either end.

I'm really really really ready to be patient with this team-- 11 newcomers, 2nd year coach, new league, etc.-- but I'd like to know more about where we're trying to go. What are we trying to do? I assume there's some overall plan, because we're making way too many turnovers for what this team is doing to be the accidental or intentional outcome. What are we trying to do that we're not doing right that's causing so many turnovers? Why are some players from last year making twice as many turnovers and shooting half of last year's fg percentage? We are dead last or next to last in all of college basketball in several categories-- turnover percentage, steal percentage, non-steal turnover percentage, and opponents free throw to field goal ratio. We're 27th in two-point field goal percentage, but 347th in two pointer attempts per game!!! We're 247th in three point fg percentage, 277th in assists per game, and 7th in fouls called per game-- things we used to do really well. Are we not practicing these things and practicing something else instead because we're trying to do something that we haven't yet mastered? I need to know what the plan is, what the goal is, what we're trying to do that isn't there yet..... That will help me with being patient.

I had a ticket to the kickoff luncheon, but missed it because of a late conflict. Are there any comments from the coaches at the end of the audio broadcasts? Has anyone heard anything about what we're trying to do? I don't mean guesses, because I've had mine, and they're proving unsatisfactory.