Game Information
Opponent	NJIT Highlanders
Game Notes	Loyola
Date	Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Time	7:00 p.m.
Location	Newark, N.J. | Joel & Diane Bloom Wellness & Events Center
Tickets	Purchase
Directions	Click Here
Watch	ESPN+
Online Media	Live Stats

Quick Hits About The Hounds

• The Loyola University Maryland men's basketball goes on the road for the first time during the 2024-25 season on Tuesday, November 12, to play NJIT in a non-conference game  set for 7 p.m. in Newark, New Jersey.
• Josh Loeffler is on the bench as the Greyhounds' head coach after being taking the position as Loyola's 22nd all-time head coach in March 2024.
• He is joined on the bench by four assistant coaches: Matt Blue, Kevin Farrell, Ricky Hernandez and Khyle Diaz. 
• The Greyhounds will be a new-look team in more ways than just its head coach for the 2024-25 season. Of the 6,475 total minutes played by Loyola players last year, only 53 percent of those return on the roster.
• The game is the third of 11 non-conference contests for the Greyhounds this season before they start their 18-game non-conference slate.
• Loyola started the season with two-straight home games in nine years since it began against Tennessee State and LIU Brooklyn in 2015-16.
• November 4 was the earliest on the calendar that the Greyhounds have ever played a regular-season game. It is one day earlier than the November 5, 2019, contest at Marquette.

Watch The Action

• The Loyola-NJIT game will stream live on ESPN+.

Series History Versus NJIT

• The Greyhounds and Highlanders will meet for the third time in series history when the teams take the floor on Tuesday night. The game is the first of a home-and-home series with a NJIT trip to Loyola's Reitz Arena contracted for next season.
• Loyola's first trip to Newark, New Jersey, came on January 29, 2008, when the Greyhounds posted a 72-54 victory at Fleisher Athletic Center. Michael Tuck scored 23 points and had eight rebounds in the game, and Gerald Brown added 16 for the Greyhounds.
• NJIT then came to Baltimore to play the Greyhounds on January 14, 2009. Jamal Barney made 18 of 22 free throws and scored 40 points for Loyola in a 70-62 victory.

About The Highlanders

• NJIT enters the game with a 0-2 record after a 58-57 loss to Penn on opening night and a 91-54 setback at Villanova on Friday evening.
• Tariq Francis leads the Highlanders with a 16.0 points per game average through two, while Sebastian Robinson and TIm Moore Jr. both have averaged 12.0.

Last Time Out

• Jordan Stiemke, Chris Kuzemka and Braeden Speed all scored in double figures on Saturday, and a total of 13 Loyola players tallied points in an 83-42 non-conference victory over Lancaster Bible in Reitz Arena.
• Stiemke scored all 12 of his points in the first half and finished with that total in 16 minutes of play, while Kuzemka tallied his 11 in 12 minutes, and Speed posted 11 in 17. No Loyola player saw more than 20 minutes of action in the game.
• The Greyhounds went up by 10 less than eight minutes into the game as part of 14-0 run that saw the lead reach 18, 26-8, on a Veljko Ilic dunk at 10:13. Lancaster Bible scored with 8:59 to go in the first half, but Loyola then responded with the 12 points to extend the run to 26-2.
• Stiemke made a three with 1:43 left in the half to push the lead to 29, 43-14, and he converted a traditional 3-point play with 45 seconds to go before the break, and it was 46-14. Speed made two free throws with 14 seconds on the clock, and Loyola took 48-14 advantage at the break.
• Loyola went up by 40 just over six minutes into the second half, and the lead never dipped below that point. Milos Ilic and Goap Kodi led Loyola with nine rebounds each as the Greyhounds had a 48-24 advantage on the boards. 
• The Greyhounds scored 32 points off Chargers turnovers, and Loyola finished with 17 steals. Speed had five, and Tyson Commander grabbed four.

Rookie Honors

• Braeden Speed earned Patriot League Rookie of the Week honors after averaging 12.0 points, 3.0 steals and 2.5 assists in two games during the season's first week.
• His 24 points are the most by a Loyola player in their first two games with the program since Andre Walker scored 17 at Texas Tech and 11 versus Cornell in the first two games of his career in November 2014. Walker would go on to earn All-Patriot League honors three times.
• Speed scored 13 in the opener against Columbia, tallying his first points five seconds into his collegiate career after grabbing the loose ball off the tip and getting to the rim for two.
• He followed that performance with 11 points and five steals in less than 17 minutes Saturday versus Lancaster Bible.

Five Above Ten

• Five Loyola players scored in double figures in the season opener against Columbia, marking the first time in 117 games.
• The last time the Greyhounds did so was in a February 19, 2020, game against Army West Point that was an 81-77 victory at home. In that game, Andrew Kostecka scored 17, Isaiah Hart had 16, Santi Aldama scored 13, KaVaughn Scott added 12 points and 12 rebounds, and Cam Spencer scored 11.

Twenty-Seven From Two Debuts

• Jacob Theodosiou and Braeden Speed made their Loyola debuts on opening night, and the backcourt pair combined to score 27 points.
• Theodosiou, a sophomore transfer from Wyoming, and Speed, a freshman from Phoenix, Arizona, opened in the starting five for the Greyhounds. Speed led the Greyhounds at halftime with 11 points and finished with 13, while Theodosiou split his 14 points evenly over the two halves.
• The two combined to shoot 11 of 21 from the field 3 of 7 from 3-point range.

Efficient With More Shots

• The November 4 game against Columbia was the fifth time in Milos Ilic's career that he took more than 10 shots from the field, something he did four times a year ago.
• The senior from Serbia went 7 of 10 from the field against the Lions and is 29 of 53 (.547) in the five games he's shot 10 or more times.
• In only one of those games, a December 2023 contest at La Salle, did Ilic not shoot 50 percent or better from the field; he was 4 of 10 shooting in that game.
• Ilic also had the second double-double of his career with 18 points and 11 rebounds. He had his first with 11 points and 10 rebounds in the aforementioned game against La Salle. It was Ilic's fifth career game with 10 or more rebounds, the other four coming last season.

Continuing To Board

• By outrebounding Columbia (34-31) and Lancaster Bible (48-24) in the year's first two games, Loyola continued a strength from the 2023-24 season.
• During the 2023-24 season, Loyola pulled down 34.3 rebounds to its opponents 32.8.

Addition From Injury

• While the Greyhounds lost a significant number of minutes played from last year's roster, they do return a considerable group that was out last season due to injury.
• Chris Kuzemka was averaging 6.7 points and shooting 36.7 percent from 3-point range through nine games when a broken hand in the December 6 contest at La Salle forced him to miss the rest of the year.
• A guard, Kuzemka averaged 21.6 minutes per game before his injury and had made one start. His season-high of 15 points came at Columbia, a week before his injury.
• Veljko Ilic missed all of last season and the last chunk of the 2022-23 season with an injury, but his return bolsters the Greyhounds' post play.
• Ilic averaged 13.7 minutes of action in 44 games from 2021-23, scoring 5.2 points and grabbing 3.3 rebounds per game.
• Samuel Gibbs was a rotation player for Loyola in the first five games of the year, averaging 6.6 minutes per, before missing the remainder of the season with an injury. A pair of freshmen, Troy Cicero Jr. and Matt Gray, were limited to four games and one game, respectively, last year.

Twins Back Together

• Twins Milos and Veljko Ilic are rarely apart off the court, but they have been separated in playing time since the 2021-22 season.
• They played together in 26 games that year before a knee injury cut Milos Ilic's season short during the second half of Patriot League play.
• He would miss the entirety of the 2022-23 season while rehabilitating the leg, and Veljko Ilic missed the first 13 games of that year with an off-season injury. He came back to the lineup to play in 14 games during 2022-23 before injuring his knee and missing the remainder of the year and all of 2023-24.
• Milos Ilic was on the court last year, save for two games, but the November 4 season-opener was the first time they played in a regular-season game together in 993 days since February 16, 2022, the date of Milos' injury.

Milos In The Middle

• A solid player his first two seasons on the court for the Greyhounds, Milos Ilic is expected to take an elevated role in the offense this season as the team's top returning scorer.
• Last year, Ilic averaged 7.6 points per game on just under seven shots per game. He shot 48.1 percent from the field in the process, a number that was identical in non-conference play versus Patriot League games.
• Ilic had his first career double-double in December 2023 at La Salle and finished the year third on the team with 5.1 rebounds per game.
• Through two games, he is averaging a double-double with 11.0 points and 10.0 rebounds.

Stiemke Spark

• Jordan Stiemke drew his first starting assignment for Loyola on February 3, 2024, against Holy Cross and scored five points in 17 minutes of action. He then upped his playing time to 25 minutes on February 7 at American, converting a layup and free throw for the game-winning points while finishing with six points and six rebounds.
• He then saw 32 minutes of action against Colgate on February 10, scoring 12 points for career-highs in both categories. The freshman from Bel Air, Maryland, came up with another career high four days later at Lafayette, going for 18 points in 38 minutes of action.
• Stiemke had his best statistical game on February 25 at Boston University, scoring 23 points on 8 of 18 shooting and 5 of 10 from the floor.
• The native of Bel Air, Maryland, has been Loyola's second-leading scorer since moving into the starting rotation, averaging 10.3 points in the 10 games. Prior to that, he had scored just 34 points in 15 games.
• As a starter to end 2023-24, he shot 42.3 percent from the field, 45.7 from 3-point range and 78.0 at the free-throw line. His biggest statistical improvement came in 3-point shooting where he was just 3 of 12 (.250) in his first 15 before going 21 of 46 in the last 10.

New Faces

• Five new players dot the roster for the Greyhounds, four freshmen and a sophomore transfer.
• Jacob Theodosiou joined the program after spending his first collegiate season at Wyoming where he played in 10 games for the Cowboys. Theodosiou is a native of Ontario, Canada, but he played in high school at Western Reserve Academy in Ohio and helped his school win the Ohio Prep Conference Championship as a senior when he averaged 18 points and six rebounds in 2022-23.
• Braeden Speed comes to Loyola from Brophy Prep in Phoenix, Arizona, he earned All-State Second Team honors and helped the Broncos to the Class 6A (largest group) State Championship Game in 2022-23.
• Greg Guidinger led Central York High School to the 2024 Pennsylvania 6A (largest group) State Championship and was named Mr. PA Basketball a year ago.
• Goap Kodi joins the Greyhounds out of the DMV area where he was a starting post player for Georgetown Prep's 2023-24 team that went 22-6 overall.
• Ben Menker joined the team as a walk-on from Mason, Ohio, where he earned All-GMC honors at Mason High School.
• The newcomers are not limited to the players for the Greyhounds as two of Josh Loeffler's assistant coaches are new to the Evergreen campus.
• Matt Blue joined the program as an assistant coach after spending the last four years at the NBA Global Academy located Basketball Australia's Centre of Excellence at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. Previously, Blue was a collegiate assistant at Lafayette, Hartford and Susquehanna.
• Khyle Diaz is an assistant coach in his first year at Loyola after serving in an operations role at Cleveland State.

You Look Familiar

• Josh Loeffler slides a few chairs to his right on the Greyhounds bench into the spot as head coach after spending four years as an assistant at Loyola on G.G. Smith's staff from 2013-17.
• Two of his assistants are also familiar to the Loyola crowd.
• Ricky Hernandez was the team's director of operations during the 2023-24 season after spending five years as an assistant to Loeffler down the road at Johns Hopkins.
• Kevin Farrell is a 2012 graduate of Loyola and was a four-year team manager before spending nine years (2012-21) as the team's director of operations.

At The Next Level

• As a school of less than 4,000 undergraduate students, Loyola University Maryland boasted three former student-athletes on NBA rosters as players and one as a head coach last month on opening night. Two members of the men's basketball incoming class of 2019, Santi Aldama (SAHN-tee ALL-dah-muh) and Cam Spencer, are on the Memphis Grizzlies' roster, and four-time men's lacrosse All-American is a member of the Golden State Warriors.
• Michael Malone, a 1994 graduate of Loyola, was a four-year letterwinner as a point guard for the Greyhounds. He is now the head coach of the Denver Nuggets.
• Aldama was a first-round draft pick in the 2021 NBA Draft after leading the Patriot League in scoring and rebounding in 2020-21, and Cam Spencer led the conference in scoring the following season.
• Aldama has played in 176 NBA games through November 1 and is averaging 13.8 points and 7.0 rebounds through six outings this season.
• He starred for his native Spain this summer, earning TISSOT Most Outstanding Player honors at the Olympic Qualifying Tournament before averaging 17.7 points and 9.3 rebounds in three games during the Olympics.
• Cam Spencer, who was a three-year starter for the Greyhounds from 2019-22, and won a NCAA Championship at Connecticut in 2023-24, has not yet played in a NBA game this season.
• Pat Spencer holds the Loyola men's lacrosse records for career assists and points and was the 2019 NCAA Division I Player of the Year for the Greyhounds. He switched to basketball after graduating from Loyola and has seen action in six career games with the Warriors.
• Malone had 282 assists in 108 career games with the Greyhounds from 1989-93. He is in his 12th season as a NBA head coach and guided the Nuggets to the 2023 NBA Championship.

Up Next

• Loyola continues its road trip with two more games, playing at VCU on Saturday, November 16, before going to Boston College on Tuesday, November 19.