Quick Hits About The Hounds
- Loyola University Maryland men's basketball closes non-conference play on Saturday, December 28, when it heads to the Windy City for a 1 p.m. (Central) tip-off at DePaul University.
- Loyola has seven players averaging 6.0 points per game or more through the season's first 10 games, four at 8.9 or higher.
- Milos Ilic is one of only 15 players nationally (who qualify for the national rankings) and average 14 or more points and nine or more rebounds per game this season. Ilic enters the final non-conference game with marks of 14.8 and 9.2.
- 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 11th of 11 non-conference contests for the Greyhounds this season before they start their 18-game non-conference slate.
Watch The Action
- The Loyola-DePaul game will be televised live on FS1.
Series History Versus DePaul
- Loyola and DePaul will meet for the second time in series history on Saturday with the first meeting coming just two seasons ago.
- The Greyhounds and Blue Demons opened the 2022 season on November 7 at Wintrust Arena with DePaul defending its home floor for a six-point victory, 72-66.
- Kenneth Jones led the Greyhounds with 20 points, making 4 of 7 3-pointers in the game, while Golden Dike had nine points and 11 rebounds. Javan Johnson scored a game-high 24 to lead DePaul.
About The Blue Demons
- Saturday's game is also the final non-conference tilt for DePaul, which brings an 8-4 overall record and 0-2 mark in the Big East into the game.
- The Blue Demons started the season with seven straight wins under first-year Head Coach Chris Holtmann before having setbacks in four of their last five.
- DePaul is outscoring its 12 opponents by a 9.7 points per game margin while shooting 46.3 percent from the field and 40.1 from 3-point range. The Blue Demons are tied for 15th in the nation in assists per game with 18.3.
- Jacob Meyer leads the team with 14.7 points per game while shooting 45.1 percent (32 of 71) from behind the 3-point line. Isaiah Rivera is nearly as efficient, shooting 44.4 percent from deep with an 11.4 points per game mark. David Skogman tops the team with 6.5 rebounds.
Last Time Out
- A game that saw Loyola and Hampton combined for just 39 points in the game's first 16 minutes picked up its pace in the final 24, and the Pirates held on for a 76-68 victory over the host Greyhounds on Saturday afternoon in Reitz Arena.
- Loyola led by one, 17-16, after a Tyson Commander layup with 7:51 left in the first half, and Hampton gained a 21-18 advantage on a Wayne Bristol Jr. bucket with 7:13 in the first half, but neither team scored for almost four minutes.
- When scoring picked back up with 3:21 on the clock, the teams combined for 105 points over the game's final 23-plus minutes.
- Loyola outshot the Pirates, 46.3 percent to 39.3, but Hampton had five fewer turnovers (14-9) and was the beneficiary of taking 14 more free throws (35-21).
- Hampton got out to an 11-point advantage, 52-41, just under 10 minutes into the second half capped by four-straight points by Etienne Strothers. The Greyhounds got within five three times after that, but Hampton made six free throws in the final 80 seconds to seal the win.
- Milos Ilic scored a game-high 22 points to lead Loyola, and Jordan Stiemke had all 12 of his points in the second half.
About The Start
- Loyola is 5-5 through 10 games this season, its 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 5-5 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).
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 9.2 rebounds per game.
- Per Ken Pom, Ilic is taking 25.8 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. His Ken Pom usage rate is 27.6 percent this year.
- Ilic ranks 17th in NCAA Division I in points per game for players listed as 6-foot-10 or taller.
Pounding The Boards
- Milos Ilic is second in the Patriot League in rebounding through games of December 24 with 9.2 per game. His rebounding average is also 28th in NCAA Division I, and he ranks in the top 55 nationally in both offensive (40th, 3.2) and defensive (51st, 6.0) rebounds.
On The Defensive
- Loyola's perimeter defense has helped it lead the Patriot League – and rank No. 29 in Division I – through games of December 24 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 and then 12 on December 21 against Hampton. He has made nine 3-pointers over three games while averaging 16.3 points.
Bench Scorer
- Jordan Stiemke has been the top scorer off the bench in the Patriot League this season, averaging 11.9 points per game through 10 contests to lead conference players who have started three or fewer games.
- Nationally, he is tied for 42nd points per game among NCAA Division I players who have three or fewer starts per stathead.com.
- The native of Bel Air, Maryland, was Loyola's second-leading scorer in the last 10 games of his freshman season (2023-24), averaging 10.3 points. Prior to that, he had scored just 34 points in 15 games.
- Spanning the last two seasons, Stiemke is averaging 11.2 points over the Greyhounds' last 20 games.
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 7.8 points and 5.8 rebounds in 15.0 minutes per game during the last four.
Dimes, Swats & Boards
- Braeden Speed had seven assists and three blocked shots on November 26 against VMI to become one of just nine NCAA Division I players this year with those totals in a game (per Stathead.com as of Dec. 24 games).
- Speed came back with seven rebounds, five assists and seven points in the Greyhounds' next game at Coppin State.
- Over the Greyhounds' last five games, Speed has averaged 4.2 assists per game (21 total).
Contributions In Many Areas
- Jacob Theodosiou is second on the team in minutes played (27.8) through 10 games as one of only three players on the roster averaging more than 26 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 (1.5) and fourth in rebounds (3.4).
Efficient With More Shots
- Milos Ilic has taken 10 or more shots from the field six times this year and 10 times in his career.
- In the 10 games he has taken 10 or more shots, Ilic is 65 of 120 (.542). He is 48 of 77 (.623) in the six 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. He reached that point plateau again against Hampton, scoring 22.
Turnaround On The Line
- Loyola is second in the Patriot League and No. 74 in the nation as of December 11 with a 75.1 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.
Last Week's Honors
- 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.
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.
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 (8.9), second in assists (3.2), and third in minutes per game (27.5).
- Speed has shot 46.9 percent from the field and 84 percent from the free-throw line while ranking fourth on the team with an 8.9 points per game average. He has scored 10 or more in five of his 10 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 200 NBA games through December 24 and is averaging 13.3 points and 7.4 rebounds through 30 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.
Up Next
- Loyola opens up its 12th season as a member of the Patriot League on Thursday, January 2, with a 6 p.m. game at Holy Cross. The Greyhounds return to Reitz Arena on Sunday, January 5, to host Lehigh at 1 p.m.
