Tuesday, December 3, 2019 6:00 p.m.
Worthen Arena, Muncie, Ind.

Around this time last year, Ball State came to the Gentile Center and handed Loyola a somewhat surprising 75-69 loss. It was one of only 15 games last season in which Loyola shot under 50% from the field, all but two of them losses. Ball State held Loyola to six of 22 shooting from behind the arc, and held the Ramblers to "only" 53% inside the arc.

Loyola tips off again in early December against the Ball State Cardinals Tuesday night in Muncie. The two teams are ranked closely to each other by KenPom.com, who has the Ramblers at 116 and Ball State at 121. The 4-3 Cardinals have looked good and bad this season, and so have the 4-4 Ramblers. Ball State beat UIC by 19 points, holding the Flames to only 48 points in their own building. Ball State beat Indiana State convincingly in Terre Haute, and lost by two points to Horizon favorite Northern Kentucky and by four points at Evansville. In their last outing they lost to woeful Western Illinois... at home... by seven points.

Ball State will likely start 6'8" senior forward Tahjai Teague, 6'0" senior guard Josh Thompson, 6'5" freshman guard Jarron Coleman, 6'7" senior forward Kyle Mallers, and 6'1" junior guard Ishmael El-Amin (yes, he's the son of former Chicago Bull and UConn point guard Khalid El-Amin). Three BSU starters average in double figures, with Teague leading the way at 15.0 per game. El-Amin averages 13.9, Mallers averages 13.0, and Walton averages 10.6. Both El-Amin and Mallers are killer three-point shooters, hitting on 46.2% and 55% of their long distance shots, respectively. Thompson, the fifth starter, is more of a playmaker who leads the team in assists with 3.7 assists per game in less than 22 minutes average.

As we saw last season, Ball State likes to move a lot on offense, and likes to shoot rather quickly in the shot clock. Although it seems like they want to play fast (and maybe they do), they are more effective when the pace is more deliberate. BSU is 3-0 when the pace is played in the 60s, and 0-3 against D1 competition when the pace is in the 70s. The Cardinals are really good at defending two-point shots (Loyola's overwhelming strength) and weak at defending against the three (Loyola's overwhelming weakness). But what the Cardinals are worst at is shooting free throws-- they're 352nd among the 354 Division I teams at the line, only 53.3%. Putting them on the line might be good strategy in certain situations, especially Teague (51.6%) , Coleman (45.5%) and Thompson (37.5%).

Leading scorer Tahjai Teague is also somewhat foul prone; he's had four or more fouls in four of BSU's six games against D1 teams. Ball State is #1 in the country at continuing to play starters who get their second foul in the first half (mostly Teague), and when Teague fouls out, BSU is 0-2. Jus' sayin'.

Ball State hasn't been very good at home, only 2-2, with their two wins coming against Division III Defiance College and Howard University. Their home losses have come against Northern Kentucky and Western Illinois. Meanwhile, the Ramblers have struggled away from home.

In almost every department this game shapes up to be a contest of which team will impose their will on the other, which team powers takes advantage of weaknesses of the other, and which team controls the pace of play.


Loyola game notes: https://loyolaramblers.com/documents/20 ... 2_3_19.pdf

Ball State game notes: https://ballstatesports.com/documents/2 ... 2_3_19.pdf

TV/Streaming Video: ESPN+ https://www.espn.com/watch?id=cf146300- ... tate-US-EN

Live audio feed: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=10&type=Live

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

Vegas odds: Ball State by 2

Another good preview.

What I am going to be interested in seeing is if we learned anything from the Thanksgiving Tournament. We started fast in all 3 games and did not sustain it and play 40 solid minutes. It seemed at times when Krut gets doubled or tripled, we still do not have anyone stepping up and we play tentative. Lucas, Tate, Paxson and Quise need to play aggressive and take advantage of the space that the doubles and triples on Krut create. We can’t have multiple stretches where we do not score. A lot of this can be tied to the turnovers, which need to come down.

I still think this team can be very good. It looks like the leadership roles after Krut and Lucas is still firming itself up. We need to stack a few wins and get on a roll.

Lucas didn’t have a great trip to the Caymans. Can’t have him average 5 pts while committing 6 assists to 6 turnovers. That’s how we end up with a 1-2 record there. He needs to step up tomorrow and be the 3rd scored to Krut and Hall. Krut needs to score first and pass second. When he looks to pass first, the offense stagnates. He needs to score to be able to facilitate. I know some/most people love Krut’s passing ability, and I do too, but when he doesn’t look to score from the high post initially, he hold’s the ball too long. Teams in the Caymans attacked him on that and he turned the ball over. MVC schools will be doing that all conference season. Hoping Hall can continue his hot streak from the Caymans, because he was hotter than Satan hot sauce I had with a meal down there. 7 days after eating that deliciously painful sauce, I have recovered. Let’s hope Tate stays en fuego.

We need Lucas's offense. He doesn't seem to be very involved in the offense. This is where we miss Custer. He did a great job of moving the ball around. We don't have the flow on offense, yet. As far as long offensive droughts are concerned, we had many of them in the Final Four Year. Our defense was so good we were able to win despite them.

Curious to see if and how much Clemons plays tonight. Hopefully he can be the spark our offense needs. We really need to shake our strategy up a bit as running the same set with Krut in the high post is far too predictable.

I forgot about him being back. Should be interesting. Tough assignment for his first action.

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I was thinking the exact same thing. I'd rather see limited action/none at all rather than risk re-injury in a non-con game. (though not the same; the Matt Chastain injury, before man-bun, comes to mind)

I don't think they'd play him if there is a non-negligible risk of re-injury. I would rather see him get up to speed and comfortable in the remaining non-conf games so that the rotations and offensive sets will hopefully be more settled come December 30.

Also interested to see if Aher starts tonight.

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I hope he doesn’t