Game Information
Opponent	Lehigh Mountain Hawks
Game Notes	Loyola
Date	Sunday, January 5, 2025
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

• The Loyola University Maryland men's basketball team makes its Patriot League home debut on Sunday, January 5, with a 6 p.m. game against Lehigh University.
• Loyola has three players averaging 11.8 points per game or more through the season's first 12 games and five at 6.4 or higher.
• Milos Ilic is one of only 17 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 second conference game with marks of 14.6 and 9.2.
• The Greyhounds enter League play with balanced in the minutes played column. Three players average between 27-28 per game and six average 20 or more.
• 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 returned to the roster this season.

Watch The Action

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

Busy Start To League Play

• Loyola will play its first five Patriot League games over a stretch of just 12 days spanning from January 2-13.
• The Greyhounds are one of two teams in the conference to have as many games in as few days. Loyola and American's first meeting of the year will take place on Monday, January 13, as the League's first CBS Sports Network game of the year.

Series History Versus Lehigh

• Loyola and Lehigh will meet for the 32nd time in series history on Sunday afternoon and the 24th time since Loyola joined the Patriot League in 2013-14.
• The Mountain Hawks hold a 16-15 advantage in the previous 31 games after winning both during the 2023-24 regular-season.
• Lehigh took an 88-76 decision on January 6, 2024, in Baltimore despite Golden Dike recording the second triple-double in Loyola's program history. The Mountain Hawks then held on for a 75-70 victory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on February 17.
• The teams first played a pair of trio of games between 1913 and 1915 making Lehigh the second oldest Patriot League foe of the Greyhounds other than Navy.

About The Mountain Hawks

• Lehigh lost its first four games of the season before going 5-2 over its last seven non-conference contests. The Mountain Hawks then won their third in a row on January 2, opening League play with a 66-64 overtime win against Bucknell.
• Keith Higgins has led Lehigh in scoring seven out of 12 times this year and checks in as the Mountain Hawks leading scorer with 17.9 points per game. Tyler Whitney-Sidney is the other Lehigh player averaging in double figures with 12.3.
• Higgins is also the team's leading rebounds with 5.0 per game, although the Mountain Hawks have been outrebounded by almost four per game (36.3 to 32.5).

Last Time Out

• Holy Cross' Max Green pulled up from inside the free-throw line wand made a jumper with 27 seconds left to give the Crusaders a one-point cushion, and they held on for a 74-72 victory over Loyola in the teams' Patriot League opener.
• Loyola had two attempts to tie or take the lead after Green's basket, but a Tyson Commander shot was blocked, and Milos Ilic's three at the buzzer went off the rim.
• Four Greyhounds scored in double figures, led by Jordan Stiemke's 19 and Braeden Speed's 15. Jacob Theodosiou added 14 points, and Ilic finished two assists shy of a triple-double with 14 points, 12 rebounds and a career-high eight assists.
• Loyola built a pair of 10-point leads in the second half, the first coming as the Greyhounds opened the half on a 7-0 run to lead 43-33 after a Theodosiou three at 18:14.
• Four-plus minutes later, two Theodosiou free throws made it a 51-41 game in Loyola's favor, but this time Holy Cross (9-5, 1-0) scored the next eight points, and it was 51-49 following a Jaiden Feroah three.
• Speed momentarily stopped the run with a basket, but the Crusaders came back to go up moments later.
• The Holy Cross lead never grew to more than three, and after 15 seconds after two Green free throws with 4:15 to play, Ilic converted a traditional 3-point play to tie the game. Speed then beat the shot-clock buzzer with a corner three at 3:04, and Loyola was up 72-69.
• The game was scoreless for almost two minutes before Caleb Kenny scored in the paint for Holy Cross to bring the Crusaders within a point at 1:11. Green then made his pull-up jumper to take the lead, and Joe Nugent hit 1 of 2 at the free-throw line with 10 seconds left to provide the final margin.
• Loyola had a 37-30 advantage on the glass behind Ilic's 12 and seven each from Stiemke and Theodosiou. 

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 14.6 points and 9.2 rebounds per game.
• Ilic's 14.6 points per game are almost double his previous season-high after he put up 7.6 points per game last year. 
• Per Ken Pom, Ilic is taking 26.9 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 29.0 percent this year, a rate that ranks in the top-100 nationally.
• Ilic ranks 19th 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 53.1 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 57.1 percent (64 of 112) through 12 games, a three-percent improvement over his first two seasons.
• He has also attempted only 18 shots from 3-point range this year. 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 in 183 shots.

Pounding The Boards

• Milos Ilic leads the Patriot League in rebounding through games of January 2 with 9.2 per game. His rebounding average is also 26th in NCAA Division I, and he ranks in the top 55 nationally in both offensive (46th, 3.17) and defensive (55th, 6.00) rebounds.

On The Defensive

• Loyola's perimeter defense has helped it lead the Patriot League – and rank No. 49 in Division I – through games of January 2 in 3-point field goal defense. Opponents are shooting just 29.5 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.
• One of the notable non-conference defensive performances the Greyhounds had was at DePaul. The Blue Demons entered the game ranked 14th in the nation in 3-point percentage at better than 41 percent, but Loyola held them to 20.8 percent (5 of 24).

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. Stiemke has averaged 15.6 points over Loyola's last five games.

Bench Scorer

• Jordan Stiemke has been the top scorer off the bench in the Patriot League this season, averaging 12.3 points per game through 12 Loyola contests to lead conference players who have started five or fewer games.
• Nationally, he is ranked 27th in points per game among NCAA Division I players who have five 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 11.5 points over the Greyhounds' last 22 games.

Contributions In Many Areas

• Jacob Theodosiou is second on the team in minutes played (27.6) through 12 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 had another 20-plus point game at DePaul when he made 9 of 10 shots to score 22.
• He is third on the team in scoring (11.8), first in steals (1.4) and fourth in rebounds (3.4).

Efficient With More Shots

• Milos Ilic has taken 10 or more shots from the field eight times this year and 12 times in his career. 
• In the 10 games he has taken 10 or more shots, Ilic is 75 of 143 (.524). He is 58 of 100 (.580) in the eight games this season.
• 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. 105 in the nation as of January 2 with a 74.2 percent mark from the free-throw line. This year's percentage is almost  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.

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 (8.8), second in assists (3.0), and third in minutes per game (27.7).
• Speed has shot 44.8 percent from the field and 81.5 percent from the free-throw line while ranking fourth on the team with an 8.2 points per game average. He has scored 10 or more in five of his 11 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 January 1 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 heads on the road for a Wednesday, January 8, game at Army West Point.