Saturday, February 4, 2023 1:30 p.m.
Gentile Arena, Chicago, Ill.


Loyola returns home Saturday afternoon for the re-match with George Mason, a team that beat the Ramblers 86-75, on Jan. 7. Mason is one of four teams Loyola has scheduled with a home and road game in conference play (Dayton, St. Joe's, and Saint Louis are the others), and this will be the first chance for Loyola to even the slate this season after going 0-4 the first time around.

Last time against the Patriots, Loyola’s starters played well but the bench could only manage six points in 51 court minutes. Loyola got Oduro into foul trouble, and he only played 23 minutes; Mason’s bench scored 26 points, as junior Malik Henry stepped in for Oduro and scored a career-high 15 points in 17 minutes.

After opening the season 10-6, 2-1 with their win over the Ramblers, Mason has had a rough go of it. The Patriots arrive in Chicago at 13-10, 5-5, having struggled in two three-point home losses to St. Joe's and local rival George Washington, and a 20-point beatdown at state rival VCU. Even the wins haven't come very easy, like a two-point home win over Davidson, and a win at Rhody. Wednesday night, the Patriots turned up the defense with a 70-59 win over UMass. Meanwhile, the Ramblers have been improving in fits and starts-- getting their first win over St. Bonaventure, building a sizable first half lead on the road at Duquesne, and taking Dayton to OT.

Say what you will about moral victories, but Loyola played hard, never backed down, and nearly knocked off Dayton in front of a packed UD Arena in an 85-81 OT thriller on Tuesday night. Complaining about the refs can be even more annoying than declaring moral victories. But just for the sake of interesting statistics, guess which team had 31 trips to the free throw line and a clear technical foul no-call, and which team had 12 free throw attempts?

Coach Kim English is likely to start 6'9" senior forward Josh Oduro, 6'8" junior forward Malik Henry, 6'5" freshman guard Justyn Fernandez (18 points in the win over UMass on Wednesday), 6'4" senior guard DeVon Cooper, and 6'2" junior point guard Ronald Polite. Oduro leads the team in scoring (15.2 ppg) and rebounding (8.0 rpg). Cooper and Polite each average over 10 ppg, and Polite (3.8), Cooper (3.1), and Oduro (3.0) average over three assists per game.

With 6’7” senior Davonte Gaines still out with a wrist injury, the Patriots' bench consists almost entirely of 6’4” senior guard Victor Bailey (12.3 ppg) and 6’10” backup forward/center Ginka Ojiako. Freshman backup point guard Devin Dinkins and 6’6” senior guard Saquan Singleton get several minutes in most games without incurring or inflicting terrible damage.

It will be really interesting to see what kind of adjustments and game plan Coach Valentine puts in place now that he has some experience seeing GMU up close, and has more time to work with the team to adapt to A-10 play. Mason is not a very good road team-- they won at Rhode Island by seven points and nicked Tulane at a neutral site. That’s the extent of their success this year away from home. And hopefully in this game, as Coach Valentine (and the home crowd) begins to insist more vocally, the Ramblers will start to get at least as many calls at home as they don't get on the road.

Loyola matches up well with George Mason. If the Ramblers bring the effort and execution of the Dayton game back home, they should have a great chance at their second conference win.


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

George Mason game notes: https://gomason.com/news/2023/2/3/mens- ... oyola.aspx

TV/Streaming video: USA Network https://www.usanetwork.com/

Radio/Streaming audio: https://loyolaramblers.com/watch/?Live=140&type=Live

Live stats: https://stats.statbroadcast.com/broadcast/?id=426267

Vegas odds: Mason by 1

Recently we have had better play in the post...we have gone to double teaming the opponents post player a lot more and we have gotten more consistent play from Hutty and Golden...It comes at the cost of a lot of fouls...but I think this combo and tactic can hold down Oduro.

But hope we get the 6th man in the student and fan section.

Sold out Gentile Arena. Should be a fun one. There's still a very slight chance we can play our way out of the Tuesday night pillow fight, but the margin for error is extremely slim. We must hold serve at home these next two games to even have a prayer. So let's continue our strong play and get a win to show for it.

Pack the house. Will be a fun afternoon. The beers will flow aplenty.

Decent 1st half. Defense looks really good. GMU, of course, got two lucky deep end-of-shot-clock 3's. A few empty offensive possessions (turnovers) let GMU cut it to 3. But that was a beautiful offensive scramble on the last offensive possession to get it to 5 going into half.

Keep this defensive intensity.

5 fouls in 4 minutes to start the half. Alston & Golden in foul trouble. Not quite the 2nd half start we were hoping for. Lead has evaporated and we will rely on Hutty for some minutes. So, so immensely frustrating.

^^^ was literally going to say exact same thing about the fouls. As good as defense was first half, we look the exact opposite now

Well Drew just told the team to ‘f’in figure it out!” and walked off at this timeout so we shall see?

Back to a 5 point lead. Great plays by Ben. Missed FTs and fouls have really hurt us this half, but this game is still ours for taking.

What a ref show this has turned into. Lord.