Men's Basketball Notebook

The Biggest Positive in the First Four: Leading Tennessee St. by one, 71-70, Loyola made a huge defensive stop off a play where the Tigers took the ball out underneath the basket. The ball ended up in the hands of Tiger Fr. guard Parker Smith who accepted the in-bounds pass along the right baseline and was smothered on his way to the hoop and never got a shot off. Harvey controlled the loose ball, and proceeded to seal the deal with a pair of free throws to end the game and give the ‘Hounds their first W of ’08-’09. Folks, it’s very simple basketball; if you play a good sound defense down the stretch of ballgames, you’ll get the win. In the three losses, they have given up over 80 in each contest, but against Tennessee St. they closed the game out with a great defensive effort.

Coach Patsos Shows He Can Coach from Anywhere: In the span of just four games, fifth year head coach Jimmy Patsos has shown he enjoys sitting all over the place during games. In the pair of games at home he stayed relatively calm (just 1 T) and in the coach’s box. But by the time the team got back from Boston, Coach Patsos was reported to be coaching from the end of the bench and even in the stands! How many other times has Loyola ever made the Top Headlines on espn.com? The links below are to the ESPN article and the Baltimore Sun’s story. By the way… in the Sun article, saying Coach P. was sitting with “scrubs,” that’s just a really poor selection of a word.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3713452
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/basketball/mens/bal-sp.patsos20nov20,0,1635343.story

Wright and Reid Show They Will Compete Down Low: One of the biggest questions that still remains to be seen with this ball club is whether or not Loyola will be able to hang on the boards with their opponents. Well, in my opinion, redshirt junior F/C Jawaan Wright and sophomore power forward Isaac Reid have played pretty well in the frontcourt. Wright, the 6’8 230lb Agawam, MA native was a perfect 5-5 from the field for 11 points against Tennessee State and is averaging over 5 boars a game. Reid is Loyola’s top rebounder statistically, pulling down 7.3 per game including a career high 12 against Tennessee State. The guards will always be looked to as team’s scorers but Reid has shown a very nice jump shot going 6/12 from beyond the arc – a weapon I was not aware he possessed.

Street Clothes for Sullivan: Already the school’s all-time leading 3-point marksman, Sr. guard Marquis Sullivan’s season has not gotten off to the start he or Coach P. had hoped for. Sullivan only saw action against Mt. St. Mary’s where he played 15 minutes scoring 3 points on 1-6 shooting. Then, for Tennessee State and the whole trip to Boston he was at the end of Loyola’s bench out of uniform. Perhaps suspended for disciplinary reasons? I’ve heard he’ll be ready to go for James Madison.

Up Next: Loyola will once again be packing their bags and heading onto the road. This time it’s a southern trip to Davidson, NC where they’ll take on James Madison University tonight at 5:45 and then will take the court with the host school, Davidson and All-American candidate Stephen Curry. It should be very interesting to see whether Loyola will be able to pick up a win on the trip. Obviously, they’d best try to get it done against JMU because Stephen Curry will put 35 on the Greyhounds. No offense, Brian Rudolph, or Jamal Barney, Brett Harvey, J’hared Hall, or Tony Lewis… he’s just really good. Worth noting – a familiar face will be on the opposing sidelines for the Dukes; Matt Brady, who left the position of head coach at Marist after serving at his alma mater for 4 seasons, is in his first season at JMU head man.