Game Information
Opponent	Hampton Pirates
Game Notes	Loyola
Date	Saturday, December 21, 2024
Time	1:00 p.m.
Location	Baltimore, Md. | Reitz Arena
Tickets	Purchase
Directions	Click Here
Online Media	ESPN+ | Live Stats

Quick Hits About The Hounds

• Loyola University Maryland men's basketball plays its final regular-season non-conference home game of the year on Saturday, December 21, with a 1 p.m. tip-off against Hampton University in Reitz Arena.
• Loyola has four players averaging 9.0 points per game or more through the season's first nine games, six at 6.0 or higher.
• The Greyhounds have thus far had more rebounds than their opponents in five of their nine games, averaging 36.4 rebounds to 33.6. Milos Ilic leads the team with 9.5 rebounds per game.
• Josh Loeffler is on the bench as the Greyhounds' head coach after 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 are 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 10th of 11 non-conference contests for the Greyhounds this season before they start their 18-game non-conference slate.

Watch The Action

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

Series History Versus Hampton

• Loyola and Hampton will meet for the fourth time in series history with all of the games coming since the 2018-19 season. This year's game is the first of a home-and-home series that will see Loyola play at Hampton next season.
• The Pirates won the most-recent game, a 66-61 decision on December 7, 2022, on their home floor, but the Greyhounds hold a 2-1 advantage in the series.
• Loyola won the first meeting between the programs, 75-66, on a neutral floor in Detroit during the Legends Classic on November 20, 2018. The Greyhounds then earned a 67-54 home-floor win on December 12, 2021. Loyola's current leading scorer, Milos Ilic, had his second career game with 10 or more points, finishing as one of four Loyola players with 10 or more.

About The Pirates

• Hampton enters Saturday afternoon's game with a 6-5 record and 1-0 start in the Coastal Athletic Association (CAA). The Pirates have won three straight, four of five and five of seven after starting the year 1-3. 
• Noah Farrakhan leads Hampton with a 14.0 points per game average, while George Beale Jr. is close behind at 13.2. Kyrese Mullen averages 9.8 points and a team-high 7.8 rebounds per game.
• Hampton has outrebounded opponents 38.9 to 33.3 in 11 games; although its foes have shot 44.1 percent to its 41.7.

Last Time Out

• Jordan Stiemke scored a season-high 22 points, and Loyola made 13 free throws in the final three minutes December 14 at Mount St. Mary's to give the Greyhounds a 77-69 win in the 179th meeting between the two teams.
• Stiemke, who was one off his career-best in the scoring column, made four 3-pointers and seven field goals overall to help the Greyhounds stay in front for almost 88 percent of the game.
• Jacob Theodosiou added 13 points, making 7 of 8 free throws in the game, and Braeden Speed added 11 with four assists. Milos Ilic scored eight, grabbed eight rebounds and had four assists. David Brown III and Veljko Ilic each scored nine.
• Loyola used a 10-0 run that covered more than five minutes in the second half to build its first 10-point lead, 16-6 on a Theodosiou three, and Loyola would push the advantage to 14, 33-19 when Commander made a three at 3:20.
• The gap was 11 at halftime, 35-24, but Mount St. Mary's scored the second half's first 11 points to tie the score at 35-35 with a Javon Ervin basket 2:58 into the half.
• Brown made a three 24 seconds later to put Loyola back in front, and Theodosiou knocked down his second three of the game at 16:04 to push the lead to six.
• A Stiemke three at 12:37 and a Speed floater in the lane 41 ticks of the clock later gave Loyola a 51-39 advantage, but Mount St. Mary's would quickly get the deficit back to single digits.
• Speed hit a three at 4:09 to extend the advantage back to 10, 64-54. Milos Ilic made the first of two at the line to stretch the lead to 11, a number where Loyola would push the margin with two Theodosiou free throws at 2:12.
• Mount St. Mary's scored the next seven, and it was a five-point game, 67-62. Xavier Lipscomb pulled the Mountaineers within three, 70-67, with two free throws, but Theodosiou made a pair with 37 seconds left, and it was a two-possession game.
• It got within three once more when Arlandus Keyes converted two free throws with seven seconds left. Ilic made three free throws in the waning seconds, and Brown hit a pair to provide the final margin.

About The Start

• Loyola is 5-4 through nine games this season, it's best record through that number of contests since it had the same mark in 2021-22.
• With Josh Loeffler at the helm of the team, the 5-4 record to start the year is the best by a first-year Loyola head coach since Skip Prosser went 6-3 in his first nine games as the Greyhounds head coach during his only campaign on the Evergreen campus (1993-94).

Rewarded For The Win

• Jordan Stiemke and Braeden Speed picked up Patriot League weekly honors on Monday after the Greyhounds' win at Mount St. Mary's. Stiemke earned Player of the Week recognition for the first time in his career following a 22-point performance that was one off his career best. Speed was named Rookie of the Week for the second time this season after scoring 11 to go with four assists.

Sticky Fingers

• Tyson Commander grabbed seven steals against the Mountaineers on December 14, a career-high and the most by a Loyola player since Andrew Kostecka had seven in a win at Army West Point in February 2019.
• Commander's seven steals are tied for the third-most in school history and are tied for third-most by a player in NCAA Division I this season. He is the only Division I player this season with seven steals and five or fewer points in a game.

On The Defensive

• Loyola's perimeter defense has helped it lead the Patriot League – and rank No. 40 in Division I – through games of December 18 in 3-point field goal defense. Opponents are shooting just 29.1 percent from behind the arc against the Greyhounds this year.
• It's a significant turnaround for Loyola from a year ago when it ranked 310th out of 351 Division I teams as teams shot 35.8 percent from 3-point range against the Greyhounds.

Bouncing Back Nicely

• Jordan Stiemke had his lowest scoring output of the 2024-25 season to start December when he saw just 14 minutes of action, went 1 of 5 from the field and scored two points at Coppin State.
• Stiemke responded by tying his to-date season-high in scoring with 15 points five days later at Delaware State before scoring a game-best 22 at Mount St. Mary's on December 14. He has made seven 3-pointers over two games while averaging 18.5 points, 2.0 steals and 2.0 assists.

Focal Point

• Milos Ilic has become the focal point of the Greyhounds' offense this year, and the 6-foot-10 post from Serbia has responded with his best start to a season in four years at Loyola. Ilic has led the Greyhounds with 14.8 points and a Patriot League-high 9.3 rebounds per game.
• Per Ken Pom, Ilic is taking 27.8 percent of Loyola's shots when he's on the court this season, up from 17.2 percent a year ago and 16.9 as a freshman in 2021-22.

Pounding The Boards

• Milos Ilic leads the Patriot League in rebounding through games of December 18 with 9.3 per game. His rebounding average is also 22nd in NCAA Division I, and he ranks in the top 55 nationally in both offensive (51st, 3.11) and defensive (43rd, 6.22) rebounds.

Back On The Court

• Veljko Ilic has been a big contributor for the Greyhounds in the last three games after missing the VCU, Boston College and VMI contests with an injury.
• He made 5 of 8 shots at Coppin State and scored 12 points in just 13 minutes of action. He then had a career-high 11 rebounds on December 7 at Delaware State, and he scored nine at Mount St. Mary's. He's averaged 8.7 points and 6.7 rebounds in 14.3 minutes per game during the last three.

Dimes, Swats & Boards

• Braeden Speed had seven assists and three blocked shots on November 26 against VMI to become one of just four NCAA Division I players this year with those totals in a game (per Stathead.com as of Nov. 29 games).
• Speed came back with seven rebounds, five assists and seven points in the Greyhounds' next game at Coppin State.
• Over the Greyhounds' last four games, Speed has 20 assists.

Contributions In Many Areas

• Jacob Theodosiou has led Loyola in minutes played (27.9) through nine games as only of only three players on the roster averaging more than 25 minutes per contest.
• The sophomore transfer scored a career-high 23 points at Coppin State, making 4 of 8 3-pointers with three in the final 11 minutes of the comeback win. He is third on the team in scoring (10.8), first in steals (1.6) and fourth in rebounds (3.4).

Efficient With More Shots

• Milos Ilic has taken 10 or more shots from the field five times this year and nine times in his career. 
• The senior from Serbia went 7 of 10 from the field against Columbia in the season opener, was then 6 of 12 versus NJIT and at Boston College and then made a career-high 12 of 16 shots versus VMI. In the nine games he has taken 10 or more shots, Ilic is 56 of 106 (.528). He is 34 of 63 (.539) in the five games this season.
• In only two of those overall games – a December 2023 contest at La Salle and this year's VCU game – did Ilic not shoot 50 percent or better from the field; he was 7 of 23 shooting in those games.
• Ilic recorded his third career double-double on November 19 at Boston College, scoring 12 points while grabbing a career-best 14 rebounds. He had back-to-back double-doubles for the first time in his career with 28 points and 11 boards against VMI; the 28 points were the first time as a collegian he's scored 20 or more.

Turnaround On The Line

• Loyola leads the Patriot League and No. 34 in the nation as of December 11 with a 76.9 percent mark from the free-throw line. This year's percentage is more than 10 points better than the 64.4 percent the Greyhounds shot from the charity stripe in 2023-24 when they ranked 341st out of 351 NCAA Division I teams.
• Braeden Speed leads the Patriot League with a 95 percent mark having made 19 of 20 foul shots.

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. They also saw time together against Lancaster Bible and NJIT, but Veljko missed the VCU, Boston College and VMI games with an injury. He returned to action against Coppin State.

Stiemke Spark

• Jordan Stiemke drew his first starting assignment for Loyola on February 3, 2024, and has been a mainstay in the lineup since.
• The native of Bel Air, Maryland, was Loyola's second-leading scorer after moving into the starting rotation for the last 10 games of 2023-24, averaging 10.3 points. Prior to that, he had scored just 34 points in 15 games.
• This season, Stiemke has continued to be one of the Greyhounds' top scorers. Through eight contests, he is second on the team with 11.8 points per game; he has a team-best 19 3-pointers made. Spanning the last two seasons, Stiemke is averaging 11.1 points over the Greyhounds' last 19 games.

Fast Start For Speed

• Braeden Speed has been one of the Patriot League's top freshmen through non-conference play, ranking fourth in points per game (9.0), second in assists (3.3), and third in minutes per game (26.7).
• Speed has shot 45.8 percent from the field and 95 percent from the free-throw line while ranking fourth on the team with a 9.0 points per game average. He has scored 10 or more in five of his nine collegiate games.

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 198 NBA games through December 18 and is averaging 13.2 points and 7.3 rebounds through 27 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 an NCAA Championship at Connecticut in 2023-24, made his NBA debut on November 20 in a Grizzlies game against Philadelphia and later scored his first NBA basket on November 23... off an Aldama assist.
• 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 an NBA head coach and guided the Nuggets to the 2023 NBA Championship.