BALTIMORE – On a night of celebrations in Reitz Arena, the Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team had plenty of reason to smile after holding visiting Lehigh University to under 30-percent from the field and only 42 points as the Greyhounds cruised to a 69-42 Patriot League win on Sunday.
The 42 points are the fewest Loyola has allowed in a conference game since joining the Patriot League in 2013-2014, and Lehigh's 29.8 percent mark from the field was the second lowest by a conference foe during the same span.
Cam Spencer scored 23 points and matched his career-high with nine rebounds, while
Jaylin Andrews collected his fourth career double-double with 15 points and a game-high 10 rebounds and
Kenneth Jones added 16 points and four assists.
Prior to the game, the Greyhounds honored their four seniors – Andrews, Jones,
Casmir Ochiaka and
Markese Redding – before the last regular-season home game that class would play together.
The program then had two special recognitions throughout the contest. Coaches, players and managers from the 2012 MAAC Championship Team came back to celebrate their 10-year reunion and were honored on the court at halftime. In the second half, the largest crowd of the season in Reitz Arena came to its feet to recognize
Santi Aldama of the Memphis Grizzlies who last summer became the first Loyola player to be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft.
Loyola's lead escalated quickly during the early portions of the game as threes by Andrews, Spencer and
David Brown III helped Loyola led 19-2 with 10 minutes to play in the first half before the Mountain Hawks made their second field goal of the game, a Keith Higgins Jr. basket, with 9:57 to play.
Lehigh did chip away at the deficit, getting to within four, 23-19, on an Evan Taylor layup with 3:26 to go before halftime, but Spencer knocked down his second three of the half 19 seconds later.
Higgins then converted a pull-up jumper for the Mountain Hawks at 2:18 to make it 26-21, but
Golden Dike scored in the paint at 1:59 to spark what would turn into a 22-2 Loyola run which spanned both halves.
Spencer made a three with 37 second left before the break, and then after Loyola forced a shot-clock violation by Lehigh, the Greyhounds had a sideline inbounds play with two seconds left in the half. Jones inbounded the ball to Andrews, and he hit a falling 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded to send Loyola to the locker room up 34-21.
Loyola came out of the locker room and scored the first seven points on a layup by Spencer, a Jones three and a Dike layup, forcing a Lehigh timeout with the Mountain Hawks down, 41-21.
The lead stretched to 45-22 on an Andrews basket just over four minutes into the half, and the Loyola advantage never dipped below 20 the rest of the way.
Lehigh entered the game averaging 47.3 percent from 3-point range over its last 11 games, including six where it shot over 50 percent, but Loyola held the Mountain Hawks to 4 of 19 (21.1 percent) rom behind the arc tonight.
No Lehigh player scored in double figures, and only two had more than five.
Loyola also controlled a 39-32 advantage on the boards behind the 19 combined rebounds by Andrews and Spencer.
Golden Dike led the Greyhounds with five assists, while Jones had four and
Veljko Ilic added three.
The Greyhounds play their final two regular-season games on the road, starting Wednesday, February 23, in Annapolis, Maryland, at the U.S. Naval Academy for a 7 p.m. contest.
