Quick Hits About The Hounds
- Loyola University Maryland's men's basketball team plays the second of a two-game homestand on Saturday, January 25, with a 2 p.m. tipoff against College of the Holy Cross in Reitz Arena.
- Loyola has three players averaging 11.8 points per game or more through the season's first 18 games and five at 7.9 or higher.
- Milos Ilic is one of 50 players nationally (who qualify for the national rankings) and average 13.5 or more points and 7.5 or more rebounds per game this season. Ilic enters the eight conference game with marks of 13.9 and 7.8.
- Loyola is second in the League in rebounding margin at +2.2 per game. Milos Ilic leads the Greyhounds with 7.8 rebounds per game and four other players – Jordan Stiemke, Veljko Ilic, Jacob Theodosiou and Braeden Speed – average 3.0 or more 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.
- 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 returned to the roster this season.
Watch The Action
- The Loyola-Holy Cross game will stream live on ESPN+.
Progress Through 15
- Loyola picked up its seventh win of the season in its 15th game, matching the Greyhounds' win total from the 2023-24 season (32 total games). Loyola then eclipsed last year's total in its 17th game this season.
- In Josh Loeffler's first year as Loyola's head coach, the Greyhounds have seen improvements in just about every statistical category from last season, notably: field-goal percentage (.435 from .417), field-goal defense (.458, .465), 3-point defense (.341, .358), and scoring offense (70.0, 64.0).
Series History Versus Holy Cross
- Loyola and Holy Cross will meet for the 29th time in series history when the teams take the floor on Saturday. The game will be the 22nd regular-season Patriot League game between the teams.
- Holy Cross holds a 16-12 lead in the previous 28 games after sweeping the season series last year with an 86-78 win in Worcester on January 20, 2024, and a 70-67 victory in Baltimore on February 3.
- The Crusaders wont he first meeting this year in the teams' Patriot League opener, 74-72, on January 2, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Milos Ilic had 14 points, 12 rebounds and a career-high eight assists in the game, while Jordan Stiemke had 19 points and Braeden Speed tallied 15.
- Loyola has won six of the last 11 games in the series dating back to January 18, 2019.
Last Time Out
- Loyola cut Lafayette's halftime lead to six on a Jordan Stiemke layup with 16:23 left in regulation, but the Leopards went on an 18-0 run that covered almost eight minutes and went on to an 80-59 Patriot League victory in Reitz Arena.
- Samuel Gibbs came up with one of his career-high four steals, and Stiemke finished a transition run with a layup at 16:23 to make it a 49-43 Lafayette lead.
- That basket capped a 10-4 Loyola run to start the second half, but Andrew Phillips made a three 14 seconds later, kicking off the Leopards stretch where they would hold Loyola scoreless until Braeden Speed converted two free throws at 8:53.
- Phillips finished with a career-high 27 points, making 5 of 7 3-pointers and 10 of 15 shots overall, and Alex Chaikin added 19 points for the Leopards.
- Milos Ilic scored a team-high 16 points for Loyola, Speed added nine, and Veljko Ilic tallied eight.
Playing Efficiently
- After six conference games, Loyola ranks third in the Patriot League in offensive efficiency per Ken Pom with a 107.0 rating.
Improvement From Three
- The Greyhounds have shot the ball considerably better from 3-point range since starting Patriot League games. They finished their 11 non-conference games at 29.5 percent from behind the arc, but in the League, they are shooting 33.9 percent.
Five With Two
Focal Point
- Milos Ilic has become the focal point of the Greyhounds' offense this year, and the 6-foot-10 post from Gornji Milanovic, Serbia has responded with his best start to a season in four years at Loyola. Ilic has led the Greyhounds with 13.9 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.
- Ilic's 13.9 points per game are more than six higher than his previous season-high after he put up 7.6 points per game last year.
- Per Ken Pom, Ilic is taking 29.4 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 30.8 percent this year, a rate that ranks in the top-45 nationally.
- Ilic ranks 29th in NCAA Division I in points per game for players listed as 6-foot-10 or taller.
Shooting On Point
- Milos Ilic's rise to the top of the Greyhounds' production has been fueled by many things, with a significant improvement in shooting percentage the majority of the reason. This year, Ilic has shot 52.0 percent from the field, up from 48.1 in 2023-24 and 40.1 as a freshman in 2021-22.
- That percentage is in large part to the fact he has played more than 90 percent of his minutes at the five position for the Greyhounds this year after spending almost all of his time on the court as a four in his first two seasons.
- As a result, Ilic has taken 86.2 percent of his shots this year as two-pointers, and he has made those at a clip of 55.6 percent (94 of 169) through 18 games, a 3-percent improvement over his first two seasons.
- He has attempted only 27 shots from 3-point range this year (13.8 percent of his shots attempted). As a freshman in 2021-22, he took 71 3-pointers before his season-ending injury which comprised 51.8 percent of his 137 attempts. Last year, he took threes 23.4 percent of the time on 183 shots.
Pounding The Boards
- Milos Ilic is fourth in the Patriot League in rebounding through games of January 24 with 7.8 per game. His rebounding average is also 91st in NCAA Division I, and he ranks in the top 145 nationally in both offensive (78th, 2.78) and defensive (142nd, 5.06) rebounds.
Dishing, Too
- In addition to leading the team in scoring and rebounding, Milos Ilic leads the Greyhounds in assists with 51, an average of 2.83 per game. He is the only Patriot League player to lead his team in all three categories.
- He ranks ninth in the nation in assists per game for players 6-foot-10 or taller, and he is one of three players nationally of that height category to lead his team in rebounds, assists and points per game, joining College of Charleston's Ante Brzovic and Davidson's Reed Bailey.
Veljko In VIctories
- Veljko Ilic has been key in Loyola's wins this year, and his statistics reflect it. The senior post player has averaged 10.7 points in the seven wins he has played in – he missed the VMI game with an injury – a more than five-point increase over the 5.1 he's averaged in seven losses.
- Ilic has shot 66.0 percent from the field in the wins (31 of 47) compared to 40.0 (16 of 40) in the losses. The numbers in wins are buoyed significantly by going 7 of 9 in wins against both Navy and at Lehigh.
- With his 7 of 9 shooting performance at Lehigh on January 18 moved him into qualifying for the conference statistics in field goal percentage. He ranks fourth at 54.0 percent.
Scoring Outside The Starting Five
- Loyola tops the Patriot League and ranks 80th in NCAA Division I in points from players coming off the bench this season, averaging 25.28 per game.
- The effort has been led by Jordan Stiemke and Veljko Ilic who have averaged 12.6 and 7.9 points per game when coming off the bench this year.
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 then scored 12 on December 21 against Hampton and had 10 at DePaul.
- He had his second-highest scoring output of the year with 19 in the Patriot League opener at Holy Cross, and he set a to-date career-high with 25 against Lehigh. Stiemke has averaged 14.2 points over Loyola's last 11 games.
Bench Scorer
- Jordan Stiemke has been the top scorer off the bench in the Patriot League this season, averaging 12.5 points per game through 18 Loyola contests to lead conference players who have started nine or fewer games.
- Nationally, he is ranked 17th in points per game among NCAA Division I players who have played in 16 or more games and have nine 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 11.8 points over the Greyhounds' last 27 games.
Contributions In Many Areas
- Jacob Theodosiou leads the team in minutes played (28.4) through 18 games as a first-year player on the Greyhounds' roster.
- The sophomore transfer scored a then-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 had another 20-plus point game at DePaul when he made 9 of 10 shots to score 22. The native of Waterloo, Ontario, then put up a new high of 27 points in a one-point win over Navy, going 6 of 11 from 3-point range and 7 of 8 at the free-throw line.
- He is third on the team in scoring (11.8), tied for first in steals (1.4) and fourth in rebounds (3.8).
Settled In
- Jacob Theodosiou opened his Loyola career with 14 points against Columbia, but then he was averaging just 8.2 through six games.
- Since then, he is tied for the team lead with Milos Ilic with 13.6 points (163 total) in the last 12 games dating to his 23-point effort on December 2 against Coppin State. During the 12 games, a big difference has been his ability to get to the free-throw line. He has averaged 6.0 attempts from the stripe per game in those contests, up from 1.7 in the year's first six games. He has also shot 37.3 percent from 3-point range since the start of December.
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 207 NBA games through January 20 and is averaging 13.0 points and 7.0 rebounds in 37 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.
