Loyola
- Feb 26, 2022
- 5 min read
Loyola Greyhounds (13-13, 7-8) vs. Lehigh Mountain Hawks (10-17, 8-7)
Sunday, February 20, 2022
Baltimore, MD
Reitz Arena
THE SCHOOL
Loyola University Maryland is a private Catholic university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1852, Loyola enrolls 5,140 students and has an endowment of about $240 million. Trivia time: Who is Loyola's most famous graduate? Scroll to the bottom to find out.
The Loyola Greyhounds compete in the Patriot League in NCAA Division I. There are three Division I schools named Loyola: this one, Loyola Chicago, and Loyola Marymount. While Chicago is annually one of the best mid-major teams nowadays and Marymount routinely went to the NCAA Tournament in the '80s with their run-and-gun offense, Loyola Maryland has never had much of a history of success.
You can possibly trace this to the fact that - as with many Maryland institutions - basketball takes a back seat to lacrosse for the Greyhounds. Lacrosse is certainly the biggest sport at Loyola; they are almost always nationally ranked and they won the NCAA championship in 2012.
(Due to its popularity in the state, lacrosse is the official team sport in Maryland. Do you know what Maryland's official individual sport is? Would you believe it's jousting? It's jousting.)
Lehigh University is a private university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Mountain Hawks also play in the Patriot League. Lehigh is probably most known for upsetting #2 seed Duke in the 2012 NCAA Tournament behind a 30-point performance from CJ McCollum.
This is an important game for both teams. In the Patriot League, the top four teams in the standings get a first round bye in the conference tournament and they're guaranteed a home game in the quarterfinal round. Currently, Lehigh is the fourth team in the league; Loyola is one game behind at fifth. If Loyola wins this game, they'll own the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Mountain Hawks and be in fourth place with just a week left in the season.
THE TOWN
I went to Loyola straight after the Towson game. The two schools are just about three-and-a-half miles apart, so it was only a 10-15 minute drive. Easy stuff.
The north Baltimore area is highly concentrated with universities. In fact, at the exit I took to get to Towson, the sign simply says "Colleges" and then a right arrow. The Maryland Institute College of Art claims the city and county have "100,000 college students," and that's actually about accurate. Baltimore's a student-heavy city, and that provides me with several basketball teams to see.
Loyola's campus a sight to see. Spanning 80 acres along historic Charles Street,
campus features a Gothic architectural style that's visually stunning and, thus far, unique to my basketball travels. I've included a picture of the school's chapel, but there are a few buildings on campus that could easily pose as an old, Gothic church building.
They don't make it easy to Reitz Arena. There aren't any signs pointing to the gym and there isn't a building on campus that's recognizable as a basketball arena. As it turns out, Reitz Arena is located on the second floor of the Andrew White Student Center, the main student union on campus.
However, there's nothing outside the building telling you this. This is incredibly confusing for a visitor.
Nonetheless, Reitz is a pleasant spot to catch a game. It's about forty years old but it's been kept up well, and seems to fit the school and fanbase. Seating exists only on the sidelines, but the bleachers go high into the air, with over 1,000 mostly chairback seats on each side. There are two videoboards on each baseline and plenty of room for cheerleaders and dancers.
THE GAME
Remember how I said the arena is confusing? I was confused. I entered the student center (after walking around it a couple times ) and found where you buy your tickets. (My ticket cost $7, which was frustratingly less than I paid for parking.) I then found the student entrance to the court, but that was not the spot I needed to enter. I ended up walking back outside the building, going up some stairs to a different entrance, up some more stairs, and finally found the general admission entrance. I'm sure there was an easier way of this, but I didn't find it.
There was a really good crowd - nearly a packed house. At Reitz Arena, half the stands are for students and half is for everyone else. Loyola's students really showed out for a Sunday evening, as both sides were nearly evenly attended.
I've included a photo of Loyola's mascot, Iggy. I really enjoyed watching Iggy. Most mascots jump all over the place and interact with fans in a very high-energy way. Iggy liked to stand in the corner and clap. Sometimes he'd give a kid a high-five or do an awkward little dance, but mostly, Iggy liked to clap. It seemed that the person inside the costume wasn't quite sure what to do, and it was a delight.
~~
After a slow start, Loyola scored their first basket with 18:03 left in the first half, while Lehigh scored their first points at 17:09. Lehigh didn't score again for over seven minutes. With ten minutes left in the half, the Greyhounds led 19-2, so things weren't looking good for the Mountain Hawks.
They did go on a bit of a run in the half's second portion, and they got it all the way back to 23-17 at the under-four timeout. Loyola's players stepped up, however: their center, Golden Dike, played excellent interior defense and led the team in assists; Cam Spencer hit two big threes with under three minutes remaining; and Jaylin Andrews banked in a halfcourt buzzer-beater after the team forced a shot clock violation. The Greyhounds entered the half leading 34-21.
(At halftime, Loyola honored the tenth-anniversary of their 2012 team, which won their conference and is one of only two Greyhound teams to go to the NCAA Tournament.)
In the second half, Lehigh looked like a totally different team... Just kidding, they got off to a terrible start and trailed by 20 only three minutes into the half. Spencer, Andrews, and Kenneth Jones scored at will for Loyola, and Lehigh's coach put in the backups with nine minutes remaining. The rest of the game was a snoozer. Loyola is now in fourth-place in league standings.
The only excitement remaining came during a timeout, when the PA announcer revealed the loudest fan would receive a free pizza. About ten rows up and to my right was what seemed to be an entire elementary school, a demographic known to get excited over pizza. Unfortunately, they gave the pizza voucher to some college student on the other side of the court.
Final: Loyola 69, Lehigh 42
Going to both Towson and Loyola on the same day was fascinating; while they are both small DI schools just three-and-a-half miles apart, the experiences were rather different. Towson's game was mostly attended by parents and young families, while Loyola was almost entirely students and Loyola fans (with the occasional priest); Towson's campus felt very suburban, while Loyola's was a bit more urban; Towson had a lively band in nearly-new arena while Loyola only played recorded music in an older gym. I enjoyed both and look forward to visiting both teams again.
Trivia answer: It's Tom Clancy. Betcha didn't guess that one.
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