Quick Hits About The Hounds
- Loyola University Maryland men's basketball will play a two-game set this weekend with Lafayette College.
- The Greyhounds will host the Leopards on Sunday, February 7, at 12 p.m.. in Reitz Arena. The game will air live on CBS Sports Network.
- On Monday, Loyola will travel to Easton, Pennsylvania, to the Kirby Sports Center where it will face Lafayette at 7 p.m. in a game streamed on ESPN+.
- Due to Patriot League restrictions, fans will not be permitted to attend the game.
- Loyola has shot .455 in its first three games to its opponents .447.
- Santi Aldama was named to the Preseason All-Patriot League Team after being one of three Greyhounds to earn conference All-Rookie recognition last year. In just 10 games last year – Aldama missed the first 22 due to an injury – he averaged 15.2 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.7 blocked shots per game as the Greyhounds went 6-4.
- Tavaras Hardy is in his third season on the Loyola sidelines after he was named the 21st head coach in Loyola men's basketball history on March 28, 2018.
- In Hardy's first three seasons, Loyola improved its field-goal percentage from .438 in 2017-18 to .470 in 2020-21, rising from 218th in NCAA Division I in the category to 55th.
Turn On The Television
- Sunday's game against Lafayette will air live, nationally, on CBS Sports Network, with Jason Knapp and Mo Cassara calling the action.
Series History Versus Lafayette
- Loyola and Lafayette will meet for the 21st time in series history with the Leopards holding an 11-9 lead in the all-time series after a pair of two-point wins earlier this season.
- The Leopards squeezed out a 77-75 victory in the Greyhounds' first game of the season, January 16, in Easton, Pennsylvania. The following day, Lafayette left Reitz Arena with a 72-70 win. (see Loyola stats from games on next-to-last page)
Two Points Or Less
- Four of Loyola's five games this year have been decided by a total of five points with a pair of two-point losses to Lafayette and a one-point and a two-point setback to American.
- It had been 93 years since the Greyhounds have played three-straight games with margins of two or less. Between January 27-February 4, 1928, the Loyola lost three games, each by two points: American (L, 27-25), Western Maryland (L, 27-25), Blue Ridge College (L, 31-29).
- The four-straight games separated by two or fewer points mark the first time in program history that the Greyhounds have played that many games of that nature, regardless of outcome.
Last Time Out
- Loyola did not score for more than nine minutes to start the game last Saturday, as Navy jumped out to a 13-0 lead en route to a 72-50 Patriot League victory at Alumni Hall.
- The Greyhounds were held to 38.3 percent from the field and did not make their first field goal of the game until Isaiah Hart pulled up for a jumper in the lane 9-minutes, 59-seconds into the contest. At that point, they had missed eight field goals and had six turnovers.
- Navy built a 24-point lead, 38-14, with 1:59 left before halftime. Two Alonso Faure free throws less than a minute later made it a 22-point gap at the break, but the 16 points in the opening 20 minutes are the fewest by a Loyola team since it scored the same number on November 25, 2014 at Syracuse.
- Loyola quickly scored 13 of the first 18 in the second half to get within 14, 43-29, on a putback layup by Kenneth Jones with 16:02 on the clock.
- Faure, who finished with six points and six rebounds to go with three assists and two steals, knocked down his first collegiate 3-pointer from the right wing at 13:03, and it was a 12-point game, 46-34.
- Just over two minutes later, Hart converted a layup in the paint to make it 49-38, but Navy scored the next seven points and Loyola would not get closer than 11.
- Hart saw his first action of the season and had eight points, while Santi Aldama led the team with 190 points and eight rebounds.
Hart Makes Season Debut
- Senior guard Isaiah Hart made his 2020-2021 season debut last Saturday at Navy after missing the first four games of the year. Hart was in the starting five – his stretch of 66-straight starts was snapped earlier this season – and finished with eight points, two assists and a steal.
- Hart is the Greyhounds' active leader in nearly every statistical category, including games played (96), started (92), minutes (2,707) and points (948). He has averaged 9.9 points per game in his three-plus years.
Build Off The Performance
- One Loyola player who did show positives Saturday was freshman post Alonso Faure who saw a season-high 20 minutes of action.
- Faure tallied six points and six rebounds, both modest career-highs. He also had three assists, a blocked shot and a pair of steals.
- This season, despite averaging only 11.4 minutes per game, Faure is fourth on the team with 3.4 rebounds per game.
Dueling Double-Doubles
- Santi Aldama (25 points, 10 rebounds) and Jaylin Andrews (13 points, 10 rebounds) each had double-doubles January 23 at American, marking the second time in as many seasons that two Greyhounds have done so in the same game.
- Andrews was involved in both affairs as he had 15 points and 10 boards at the U.S. Military Academy on January 18, 2020, in the same game KaVaughn Scott had 12 points and 10 boards.
Triple The Fun
- Loyola's triple-overtime game on January 24 against American is tied for the longest in the school's documented history. It matches games in 1991 (loss to Saint Peter's), 2002 (loss to Siena) and 2015 (win versus Colgate). All four of the documented games took place in Reitz Arena.
Patriot League On ESPN+
- A new season means a new home for streaming video of Patriot League contests. Last summer, the conference announced a multi-year agreement that made ESPN+ the exclusive digital home for live Patriot League events.
- Fans can subscribe to ESPN+ for great Patriot League games, as well as much more. Information is available at http://loyo.la/espnplus20.
- Additionally, international fans can subscribe to watch games via SIDEARM Sports. Information for that can also be found at LoyolaGreyhounds.com.
Glass Ceiling Shattered
- When Corin 'Tiny' Adams assumed her seat on the Loyola bench Saturday in its game at Lafayette, she became the first female assistant coach of a Patriot League men's basketball team.
- Adams joined the Loyola staff in October 2020, and she is one of two female assistant coaches on a Division I bench this year, along with the University of Maine's Edniesha Curry. Adams is the sixth woman to serve as an assistant coach in NCAA Division I history.
As Advertised
- Santi Aldama was heralded as one of the Class of 2019's Top 100 players by national recruiting analysts prior to his arrival, and he has lived up to the strong billing since making a late debut for the Greyhounds.
- The Most Valuable Player of the 2019 FIBA U-18 European Championships was ranked as high as the No. 65 recruit in the nation prior to his freshman season, but he missed the first 22 games of 2019-2020 before debuting on February 1, 2020, against the U.S. Naval Academy. He came off the bench in that game to score 11 points, and he followed that with two more 11-point outings while his minutes were built up.
- He had a nine-point game on February 12, 2020, at American, but since then, Aldama has put together a streak of nine-straight games scoring in double-figures with five games of 20 or more intermixed.
- In the last nine games, spanning the end of last season and the start of this, Aldama has nearly averaged a double-double with 19.8 points and 9.6 rebounds per game. He also has averaged 3.1 assists and 2.0 blocks per game during that stretch.
- This year, Aldama has shot 51.5 percent from the field – up from 45.9 last year – while averaging 17.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.6 blocks per game.
Stepping Into Leading Role
- Jaylin Andrews shook off a slow start to the 2019-20 season, averaging just 5.2 points in Loyola's 13 non-conference games, shooting 31.9 percent from the field and 20.9 from 3-point range. In Patriot League games, though, Andrews averaged 9.9 points.
- He opened 2020-2021 slowly with just three points in the first half of the opener at Lafayette, but he shook that off quickly by tallying 10 in the second half to finish with 13 points, seven rebounds and a pair of assists.
- Andrews posted his second career double-double at American, putting up 13 points and a career-high tying 10 rebounds, and he followed that with a 22-point, 6-rebound, 4-steal game against the Eagles at home the next day.
- This year, Andrews has shot 50 percent from the field and is second on the team in both points (12.0) and rebounds (5.4) per game.
Big Amongst His Class Peers
- Golden Dike put together a solid freshman season in 2019-2020, averaging 7.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per game while seeing action in all 32 outings.
- He finished second amongst qualified Patriot League freshmen in rebounding, and he is first amongst those in that category who return this year. Dike shot 58.9 percent from the field, a team-best, in 2019-2020. He was sixth overall in the Patriot League in field-goal percentage, tops amongst freshmen.
- In the 2020-2021 season-opener, Dike nearly had his third career double-double, coming up two rebounds shy with 15 points and eight boards at Lafayette. Dike later scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half or overtime on January 24 against American, and he enters the Lafayette series averaging 10.0 points and 5.0 rebounds per game this year.
Cool Hand Luke
- With Loyola's top three returning guards (by scoring average and minutes played) sidelined due to injury, senior guard Luke Johnson has brought experience to an otherwise green backcourt for the Greyhounds.
- Johnson has seen the most extended playing time of his career through four games, averaging 26.5 per game while making his first career start on Sunday against American.
- The Lexington, Kentucky native was sidelined for nearly all of the 2019-2020 Patriot League season with a broken foot, and he entered this year with 310 minutes played over the last three seasons.
- Johnson made his second-straight start, and the second of his career, at Navy, and finished with a steal and two blocked shots. The swats were the first two of his 54-game career.
- Through five games, Johnson leads Loyola with nine steals, and he is second in the Patriot League with 1.8 steals per game.
- Johnson's nine steals have more than doubled his previous career total of four, all which came during his freshman season of 2017-2018.
Bradsher Goes Big
- Making the first start of his collegiate career in the season-opener at Lafayette, senior guard Brandon Bradsher entered 2019-2020 with 14 total points in 17 career games.
- The walk-on shattered that total with a team-high 21 points, going 6 of 9 from the field, 5 of 7 from 3-point range and 4 of 5 from the free-throw line against the Leopards in 25 minutes of action.
- Bradsher, who started his time at Loyola as a manager with the program in 2017-18, had played just 28 total minutes before the game last Saturday. He banked in his first 3-point attempt in the opening two minutes, the first of five he'd hit in the game.
- He followed that performance with a 12-point outing against Lafayette last Sunday, and he was named to the Patriot League Weekly Honor Roll.
Follow-Up Act
- Loyola's Class of 2023 will have a tough act to follow up on after its performance last year. Now sophomores, forwards Santi Aldama and Golden Dike and guard Cam Spencer were all three named to the Patriot League All-Rookie Team after excellent freshman seasons.
- It was just the second time in conference history that three players from the same school were named to the All-Rookie Team as Aldama, Dike and Spencer joined Bucknell University's Bryson Johnson, Mike Muscala and Joe Willman in 2009-10.
Graduation Success
- Loyola University Maryland tied for the fifth-highest overall Graduate Success Rate (GSR) in the NCAA report released in November, highlighting the Greyhounds success in the classroom. Loyola had a 95 percent GSR, and it has ranked in the top-25 of the GSR in all 16 years since the report's inception.
- Loyola's men's basketball program was the only one in the State of Maryland that had a NCAA Graduation Success Rate of 100 percent for the most-recent report.
Not A Coincidence
- The Greyhounds went 7-3 in Patriot League games last year in which Cam Spencer and/or Santi Aldama were on the court.
- Spencer played in the opening win over Holy Cross, and Aldama came back on February 1 when Loyola started a stretch of six wins in its last seven games. Spencer played in the last six of those games, and the Greyhounds were 14-9 in the games he has played.
Spencer Sparks Offense
- Cam Spencer was Loyola's second-leading scorer after the first 14 games of the year, and he led the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio by a wide margin following the Patriot League opener on January 2.
- That game, however, was Spencer's last until February 5 when he returned to action after an injury. He missed nine-straight games, a stretch in which the Greyhounds went 1-8.
- He saved his best for last as he scored a game-high 24 points to go with six assists in the Patriot League Championships at Lehigh.
