Quick Hits About The Hounds
- The Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team returns to Retiz Arena on Saturday, December 9, for a 5 p.m. game against Mount St. Mary's University, a continuation of the most-played rivalry in State of Maryland college basketball history.
- Loyola and Mount St. Mary's will meet for the 178th time in a game that will stream live on ESPN+.
- The Greyhounds finished the 2023-24 season by winning five of its last six games, averaging 82 points per game in those victories.
- Deon Perry was named to the Patriot League All-Rookie Team at the end of the season after raising his scoring average throughout conference play to average 13.6 points in 18 Patriot League games. In 13 regular-season non-conference outings, he averaged 7.8 per game.
- Golden Dike and Alonso Faure similarly boosted their rebounding numbers during the conference season. Faure has averaged 6.9 against Patriot League teams, compared to 4.8 in non-league games. Dike is up to 6.6 over 6.0 earlier in the year.
- Four newcomers dot the Greyhounds' roster with a transfer, D'Angelo Stines, and three freshmen, Troy Cicero Jr., Matt Gray and Jordan Stiemke.
Watch The Action
- Saturday's game will stream live on ESPN+.
Series History Versus Mount St. Mary's
- The Loyola-Mount St. Mary's rivalry is the most played between two college basketball teams in the State of Maryland. Saturday's game will mark the 178th time the former Mason-Dixon Conference foes have met on the hardwood.
- The rivalry dates to January 20, 1910, the second season of basketball at Loyola. The Greyhounds won the initial meeting between the teams, 35-24, but The Mount holds a 101-76 advantage all-time.
- In addition to being the oldest series in state history – it predates Loyola-Maryland by two seasons – it is also the most-played. The 177 previous meetings exceed the 170 between Johns Hopkins and McDaniel (formerly Western Maryland), a series that started in 1930.
- Last season, the Mountaineers took a 51-34 decision in Emmitsburg.
Last Time Out
- La Salle made a three with just over 11 seconds left, late Loyola attempts to regain the lead rolled off the rim, and the Explorers survived on their home court with a 62-61 victory on Wednesday night.
- Loyola led 61-59 with less than 30 seconds to play, and the Greyhounds had an inbound play under the basket with one on the shot clock after a layup attempt was blocked out of bounds with 18 seconds left.
- The ball was entered to Milos Ilic, and the buzzer sounded before a shot attempt, but the play was not whistled dead. La Salle grabbed the loose ball and transitioned to the other end where Andres Marrero made a three from the right side to take a one-point lead.
- Loyola called a timeout and after getting the ball into the half court, the Greyhounds had a heavily contested layup attempt in the lane that went off the rim. Loyola got the rebound, but another shot was off the mark before time ran out.
- Marrero finished with a game-high 18 points for La Salle, and Anwar Gill scored 15. Alonso Faure had 14 points for Loyola, while Milos Ilic put up his first collegiate double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. D'Angelo Stines added 12 points for Loyola.
- La Salle (7-2 overall) took a 40-37 lead with 11:39 left in regulation, but Loyola used a 23-9 run to go up by 11, 60-49, on a Stines three. The Explorers came back with 10 unanswered, and Loyola's lead was one, 60-59, with 1:02 left on the clock.
- Faure made 1 of 2 at the line with 39 seconds to play, but Stines saved the possession after the missed attempt by throwing the ball off a La Salle player and out of bounds. Loyola had 20 on the shot clock, but a Deon Perry shot was blocked with just over 18 ticks left, setting up the final sequence.
- Perry had game-highs of six assists and four steals. Loyola had a 41-36 advantage on the boards as Faure grabbed seven, and Stines added six.
Golden Efficiency
- Golden Dike led the Greyhounds in scoring for just the third time in his career at Loyola when he scored 16 points at Florida in the season opener, doing so with efficient fashion.
- Dike made all five shots he took from the field and six of his eight free throws. He then scored 14 points on 7 of 12 shooting in the win at Brown, and he went 6 of 7 for 15 points at UMBC.
- Through Loyola's first nine games, he leads the Patriot League in shooting percentage at .627 (32 of 51).
- He entered the season ranked second in school history in field-goal percentage at 55.9 percent, a mark is now at 56.5 after the La Salle game.
- His three games with 14 or more points, through only seven contests, are already more than he's had in any one of his previous seasons. He had two such games as a freshman, sophomore and senior, as well as a one during his junior season.
- Dike is in his fifth year at Loyola and pursuing his M.B.A. in the university's graduate studies program.
- Last season, Dike had fewer than nine rebounds only once in the month of February, averaging 9.4 in that period to raise his season average to 6.7 per game, good for fourth in the Patriot League.
Top 10 On The Boards
- With his ninth and final rebound against Sacred Heart, Golden Dike moved into a tie for 10th all-time at Loyola with 690 rebounds, matching Bernard Allen's total from 2001-05.
- Against Missouri, he became the 10th player in school history to grab 700 or more rebounds in a career. With 12 rebounds at Columbia, he moved into ninth all-time in the category, and he now has 727 total; Roderick Platt is 8th in school history with 745 total rebounds.
- Dike leads the Patriot League in rebounding with 8.0 per game this year.
Consistent In His Return
- Milos Ilic missed the entirety of the 2022-23 season while rehabbing a knee injury suffered on January 25, 2022, at Lafayette. His return this season has seen him start all four games, averaging 26.7 minutes, 9.5 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.
- After opening with five points at Florida, Ilic has scored nine points at Brown and then 12 against both Binghamton and Sacred Heart. He had four rebounds in each of the first four games before grabbing nine against the Pioneers.
- He had his first collegiate double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds at La Salle, leading the team in rebounds with his first double-digit performance on the boards.
- Ilic is third on the team in field-goal percentage, making 25 of 54 shots for a 46.3 percent mark.
Faure Breaks Out
- Alonso Faure entered the November 25 game at Missouri averaging just 4.4 points per game while shooting 37 percent from the field, but the senior post player went 6 of 7 from the field against the Tigers, was the same from the free-throw line, and he had a game-high 18 points.
- The 18 points matched his career-high output He then led the Greyhounds with 16 points against Delaware State, and he had a team-best 14 at La Salle. He is now averaging 7.8 points per game, and his field-goal percentage is 50.9 percent.
- Last season, Faure scored just nine points in th his first two games of the year – DePaul and Brown – but he went for 18 in a November 17 game against Washington College. That sparked a five-game stretch in which he scored 60 points and averaged 12 per game.
- Later in the year, he averaged 13.8 points (69 total) in five games between February 11 at Lehigh and the regular-season finale on February 25 versus American.
- The native of Alicante, Spain, shot a team-best 58.1 percent from the field last year, making 115 of 198 shots to rank fifth in the conference in field-goal percentage; his 2-point field goal percentage was 63.6 percent (105 of 165). He has a career field-goal percentage of 54.5 percent that ranks fourth in school history.
DBIII For Three
- David Brown III has lived up to the three in his name this season as the Greyhounds leading 3-point shooter. He has made 14 of 32 from 3-point range to average 43.8 percent from behind the arc. That is good for third in the conference, although he is second among players who have attempted more than 17 3-pointers.
- Brown has averaged 6.4 points through eight games this season with a season-high 12 points coming at Brown and 11 at Missouri.
Playing Big
- Deon Perry, who was named to the Patriot League All-Rookie Team following the regular season, and was the Greyhounds' leading scorer over their last 16 games, averaging 16.2 points in a stretch that opened January 11 with a then-career-high 22 at Bucknell.
- The 5-foot-8 guard shot 44.0 percent (51 of 116) from 3-point range during the 16 games, raising his per-game scoring average from 6.9 after the January 8 game at Holy Cross to its final mark of 11.4.
- Perry was more aggressive in getting into the paint during the stretch of 16 games and has gone to the free-throw line 53 times, making 49. Prior to the first Bucknell game, he had taken only 16 free throws this year.
- In his last 10 games of 2023-24, Perry averaged 19.3 points per game and was 39 of 82 from 3-point range (47.6 percent).
- Defensively, Perry had 19 steals in Loyola's last 11 games to raise his season total to 51, a number that was sixth in the Patriot League.
- Perry had the seventh game with 20 or more points in his career at Brown early in 2023-24 and then came back with 17 against Binghamton. He is leading Loyola with a 12.3 points per game average to boost his career mark to 11.6 points. He is eighth in the Patriot League in points per game, and he is fourth in assists (4.2).
Stines' Second Half Success
- D'Angelo Stines became the first incoming transfer to play for Loyola since Tavaras Hardy has been the head coach (dating to 2018-19). After spending two years at Old Dominion, the Baltimore-area native joined the Loyola program this offseason.
- Stines played in 55 games over two seasons for the Monarchs, making six starts and averaging 12.1 minutes per game. He averaged 2.5 points per game in those two seasons.
- The product of Baltimore Catholic League power Mount St. Joseph's High School made his Loyola regular-season debut at Florida and finished with 13 points, hitting 3 of 7 from 3-point range and 5 of 12 overall. He also had three assists against the Gators in 25 minutes. He then had 10 points in the win at Brown.
- Stines has scored 52 of his 87 points this season in the second half of the eight games. Overall, he's averaging 9.7 points in 26.5 minutes per game this season.
The Spanish Affair
- Loyola took an eight-day, three-game trip to Spain during August that enabled the Greyhounds to play outside competition while spending time immersed in the culture of a foreign country.
- The Greyhounds visited the cities of Bilbao, Madrid and Alicante while also taking trips to San Sebastian and the town of Loyola, birthplace of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order which founded the university.
- On the court, the Greyhounds went 2-1 with a win over a junior team from Bilbao and a professional select group from Madrid. Valencia's juniors edged the Greyhounds by three in their final game. Note: the junior teams were comprised of college-age players in Spain.
- Tyson Commander led the Greyhounds with a 16.0 points per game average in Spain, while D'Angelo Stines put up 14.7 and Deon Perry averaged 12.0. Golden Dike and Alonso Faure both nearly averaged double-doubles with each averaging 9.3 points per game; the former posted 12.7 rebounds per game and the latter 10.3.
New Faces On The Sideline
- Three new voices have joined the men's basketball coaching staff and will be on the bench with Tavaras Hardy who is in his sixth season as Greyhounds' head coach.
- JerShon Cobb is back for his second year as an assistant coach with Loyola, and he is joined by two new-to-the-Greyhounds assistant coaches and a new director of operations.
- Mike Brennan is not a strange to Patriot League sidelines, but the 1994 graduate of Princeton is in his first season with Loyola. Brennan spent the last 10 seasons as head coach at American where he guided the Eagles to the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Coincidentally, Brennan was an assistant coach at Georgetown before taking the head coaching job at American in 2013-14, and Hardy replaced him on John Thompson III's staff with the Hoyas at that time.
- Matt Miller spent the last five seasons with as an assistant coach at Mount St. Mary's. He has nearly 20 years of experience as a collegiate and high school coach in the DMV area including as the head coach of St. Maria Goretti in the Baltimore Catholic League.
- Ricky Hernandez joined the staff as director of operations following five years on the bench as an assistant coach at nearby Johns Hopkins. He was a part of the 2023 Centennial Conference Coaching Staff of the Year as the Blue Jays reached the NCAA Sweet 16 for the first time since 2015 and tied a school record with 25 wins.
Second Half Story
- Loyola finished the first half of 2022-23 Patriot League play with a 2-7 record, but it went 5-4 during the second half.
- Improved offense was the key to the improved second half as the Greyhounds shot 47.3 percent from the field, 40.4 from 3-point range and 70.4 from the free-throw line. During the first half of the conference schedule, Loyola shot 43.7 overall, 31.3 from 3-point range and 57.1 from the line. This led to an increase in scoring from 59.7 points per game to 74.4
- Assists were up, as well, going from 10.9 to 15.1, while turnovers decreased from 14.6 to 10.8.
- Individually, Kenneth Jones was the only Loyola player averaging more than nine points per game in the first nine conference games, but in the second half, all five Greyhounds starters – Deon Perry (18.7), Jaylin Andrews (13.9), Jones (11.4), Alonso Faure (11.3), and Golden Dike (8.4) – were at eight points or more.
- Perry made the biggest increase, going from 8.4 points in the first nine games to 18.7 in the last nine. Faure raised his scoring average from 6.7 to 11.3, while Andrews jumped from 8.1 to 13.9.
At The Next Level
- Former Loyola standout Santi Aldama (SAHN-tee ALL-dah-muh) has made a considerable impact in his second NBA season during 2022-23. Aldama, who played for the Greyhounds from 2018-2020, earning 2019 Patriot League All-Rookie honors and then 2020 All-Patriot League First Team recognition, was a first-round pick of the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2021 NBA Draft.
- After seeing action in 32 games as a rookie, Aldama stepped into Memphis' starting lineup early last year at the four spot and is averaged 9.0 points and 4.8 rebounds per game for the Grizzlies in 77 games played. Aldama missed the first six games of the 2023-24 regular season before making his debut on November 5. In 14 games this season, Aldama is averaging 13.4 points and 6.1 rebounds per game. He led the Grizzlies with 24 points on November 14 against the Los Angeles Lakers, and he had a double-double with a career-high 28 points to go with 12 rebounds on November 19 against Boston.
