Quick Hits About The Hounds
- The 2021 Patriot League Men's Basketball Championships open on Saturday, March 6, when Loyola University Maryland travels to Annapolis, Maryland to face the U.S. Naval Academy.
- Tip-off is scheduled for 12 p.m. at Alumni Hall.
- The game will stream on ESPN+.
- Due to Patriot League restrictions, fans may not attend the game.
- The Greyhounds have scored more points in the paint than their opponents in all but one game this year (Feb. 28).
- Loyola has shot .454 in its first 14 games to its opponents .419.
- 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 .454 in 2020-21, rising from 218th in NCAA Division I in the category to 65th.
Postseason Honors
- Santi Aldama was named to the All-Patriot League First Team on Tuesday and a day later he garnered recognition on the Academic All-Patriot League Team.
- He was one of three players (Lafayette's Justin Jaworski and Navy's Cam Davis) who were recognized on both lists.
- Aldama's first-team honor marks the fifth year in a row Loyola has had a member of the All-Patriot League First Team. It is the only school to have done so during the span.
Series History Versus Navy
- With campuses located 26 miles apart (as the crow flies), Loyola and Navy will meet for the 39th time on the hardwood when the teams play Saturday.
- The Midshipmen lead the series 30-9 after Navy won all three regular-season meetings, this season. Navy won 70-52 on January 30 in Annapolis, 73-67 in Baltimore on February 27 and 66-58 a day later in the state capital.
- The teams split the 2019-2020 games, each winning on its own home court.
Championships Format Change
- The Patriot League announced Thursday that all 10 men's basketball teams would compete in the Championships, starting with first-round action March 3.
- Teams with the best records in the North, Central and South Divisions will earn the top three seeds, and the remaining seven seeds will be determined by overall winning percentage.
- Seeds seven and eight will host the nine and 10 seeds on March 3 with the one, two, three and four seeds hosting quarterfinals March 6. Semifinals are slated for March 10, and the Championship Game is March 14.
- The Greyhounds are the No. 9 seed in the tournament this year and were originally slated to play College of the Holy Cross on Wednesday, March 6. Due to a positive COVID-19 test result amongst the Crusaders Tier 1 testing cohort, the Greyhounds' game in Worcester, Massachusetts, was canceled and Loyola moved forward to play Navy.
Patriot League Championships History
- Loyola is making its eighth appearance in the Patriot League Championships since joining the conference in 2013-14. The Greyhounds are 2-6 in the Championships overall, 2-5 in first-round games.
Difference Makers
- The biggest differences for Loyola in its four wins versus its 10 losses have come defensively and ball-handling.
- Loyola has held its opponents to 34.7 percent from the field in its four wins, while the eight losses have come while opponents have shot 44.6 percent. Additionally, the Greyhounds defended the three to the tune of 28.8 percent compared to 35.8 percent.
- Loyola has, meanwhile, shot 46.2 percent from the field in the wins as opposed to 45.1 in the losses.
- Buoyed by only seven turnovers on Valentine's Day in a win, the Greyhounds have averaged only 9.8 giveaways in wins as opposed to 16.4 in the other eight.
Defense Dominates
- Loyola held American to just 28.3 percent from the field on February 24, the lowest an Eagles team has shot from the field since a November 2012 game at Minnesota.
- It was the second time in a week that the Greyhounds had held an opponent to under 50 points after it also did so February 20 at Lehigh.
One And Only Aldama
- Santi Aldama is the only player in NCAA Division I this season to average more than 18 points, nine rebounds, two assists and 1.5 blocks per game (per SportsReference.com).
- The sophomore from the Canary Islands has posted 21.4 points, 10.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.9 blocks per game through 14 outings.
- If his stats hold average out for the remainder of the season, he would be the only player in Patriot League history with those numbers in a season.
Aldama's Last Nine
- Santi Aldama has put up his best basketball over the last nine games. He has seven games with 20 or more points, and another was a 19-point outing.
- Five of the games have come as double-doubles, while he has grabbed at least six in the other four.
- Over the stretch, Aldama has averaged 23.6 points and 11.0 rebounds.
Spencer Returns
- Cam Spencer missed the season's first 12 games recovering from off-season surgery, but he made his presence felt in last weekend's two games against Navy. He came off the bench in both, scoring 10 while logging three rebounds, two assists and two steals on Saturday in 17 minutes. Spencer then had 11 points and five rebounds in 25 minutes Sunday.
- Last year, Spencer averaged 10.0 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 23 games. He had a 3.8:1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Above Average
- Santi Aldama is on pace to become just the second Loyola player this century to average 10 or more rebounds per game. Currently averaging 10.7, Aldama would be the first Greyhound to top 10 since Brian Carroll did in 2000-01. In all, players have averaged 10 or more 14 times in school history.
Not The First
- Rare as games where an individual has 18 or more rebounds are, Santi Aldama is not the first player in school history to do it twice in one season.
- His 22 rebounds on February 22 at Lafayette and his 18 February 21 at home against Lehigh mark the second time at Loyola that a player has posted 18 or more in a year. Mike Krawczyk did it in consecutive games, posting 19 on February 3 and 6, 1971, against Western Maryland (now McDaniel) and Towson. The four combined games by Krawczyk and Aldama are two of the eight instances of players grabbing 18 or more rebounds in a game at Loyola.
Context To Aldama's 30-20 Game
- Santi Aldama broke the school's single-game rebounding that had stood for nearly 45 years. Jimmy "Jumpshot" Smith set the previous best on February 23, 1976 – before any member of the Loyola coaching staff was born – when he had 21 in a game against American.
- Aldama matched the 22 rebounds by Colgate's Adonal Foyle – a player who went on to a 13-year NBA career – for most in a Patriot League game. Foyle had 22 in a 1995 game against Army West Point.
- Aldama is the first player in Loyola history to amass a game with 20 or more points and rebounds, and obviously the first to have a 30-20 game.
- Foyle is the only other Patriot League player to have a 30-20 game, something he did twice. He had 32 points and 20 rebounds in February 1995 against Army.
- Per SportsReference.com, Aldama is one of three NCAA Division I players to have 30-20 games this season, joining Long Island's Eral Penn, who had 33 points and 20 rebounds against Fairleigh Dickinson earlier this month, and The Citadel's Hayden Brown, who in December had 31 points and 21 boards against NAIA foe Columbia International.
- In the last 10 years, Aldama's accomplishment marks the 26th time a NCAA Division I player has had 30-20.
Another Rebounding Record
- The Greyhounds set a team rebounding record, as well, on Feb. 13, grabbing 57 total boards. That number eclipsed the 53 they had last year against Elizabethtown (December 21, 2019).
Two Points Or Less
- Loyola's first four games of the season were decided by a total of seven 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 marked the first time in program history that the Greyhounds have played that many games of that nature, regardless of outcome.
- In all, seven of the Greyhounds' 10 losses this year have come by four or fewer points, and nine of the 10 have been by eight or fewer.
Glass Ceiling Shattered
- When Corin 'Tiny' Adams assumed her seat on the Loyola bench January 16 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 17-straight games scoring in double-figures with five games of 20 or more intermixed.
- In his last 17 games, spanning the end of last season and the start of this, Aldama has averaged a double-double with 19.9 points and 10 rebounds per game.
- This year, Aldama has shot 49.8 percent from the field – up from 45.9 last year – while averaging 21.4 points, 10.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.9 blocks per game.
- Aldama has posted double-doubles in seven of the Greyhounds' last 11 games to give him nine in his 22 game career.
- He had a career-high 30 points in the Greyhounds' February 8 game at Lafayette, grabbing 10 rebounds while tallying four assists and a pair of blocked shots, too. A day after the game, he was named Patriot League Player of the Week for the first time in his career.
- Aldama followed that on February 13 with a 30-point, 22-rebound game at Lafayette. He then had 19 points and nine boards the following day, picking up his second-straight Patriot League Player of the Week nod.
- He then had 27 points on February 20 at Lehigh, followed by a 24-point, 18-rebound game the next night.
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 is second on the team with 11.0 points, and he is third with 5.0 rebounds per game.
Hart Makes Big Plays Late
- On Sunday, February 21, Isaiah Hart became the 40th player in Loyola men's basketball history to score 1,000 career points, dropping his two in with a layup midway through the second half.
- February 24 against American, he tallied a game-best 20 points, his high for the season, and he is now averaging 9.5 points this season
- Hart is the Greyhounds' active leader in nearly every statistical category, including games played (105), started (98), minutes (2,941) and points (1,035). He has averaged 9.9 points per game in his three-plus years, and he is 37th in school history in total points.
Triple The Fun
- Loyola's triple-overtime game on February 13 at Lafayette is tied for the longest in the school's documented history, and it comes only 20 days after the Greyhounds played a three-overtime game on February 24 against American. The games match contests in 1991 (loss to Saint Peter's), 2002 (loss to Siena) and 2015 (win versus Colgate). All four of the documented games prior to February 13 took place in Reitz Arena.
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. He had his first double-double of the year on February 13 at Lafayette, and he enters Saturday's game averaging 7.6 points, 6.3 assists and a team-best 2.5 assists per game.
Cool Hand Luke
- With Loyola's top three returning guards (by scoring average and minutes played) sidelined due to injury to start the year, senior guard Luke Johnson brought experience to an otherwise green backcourt for the Greyhounds early in the year.
- His steady hand has continued through the season as he has received the most extended playing time of his career, averaging 25.9 minutes per game. He made his first career start on January 24 against American, the first of 11-straight starts.
- 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.
- Through 14 games, Johnson leads Loyola with 26 steals, and he is third in the Patriot League with 1.9 steals per game.
- Johnson has averaged 7.0 points over Loyola's last seven games, raising his season average to 5.9 points.
