Missouri Valley
Young Ramblers Turning Heads
(St. Louis, MO) – Beating an 11 win Missouri State team is just the latest achievement for a young and improving Loyola (Chicago) men’s basketball team. Their resounding victory over the Bears (11-3 & 1-1) in their first ever Missouri Valley Conference home game sent a signal to the rest of the league that the baby Ramblers are good enough to compete!
Picked to finish ninth in the Valley the Ramblers (6-8 & 1-1) could struggle this season but Head Coach Porter Moser has a line up filled with young talent that is just going to get better.
Odds on Freshman of the Year Milton Doyle is averaging over 14 points and 3.5 rebounds AND assists so far and was just named the MVC Newcomer of the Week for the third time this season. The 6’4″ Doyle leads the charge but is not the only highly touted midwest based youngster playing at Gentile Arena.
Sophomores Jeff White (Peoria), Matt O’Leary (Terre Haute), Nick Osborne (Muncie) join Texas bread Devon Turk that continue to show signs of great talent. Turk just hung 30 points on MSU and each one of the sophomores have had their times of explosions.
Those five underclassmen join ‘old men’ Christian Thomas (St. Louis – Clayton) and Joe Crisman, who are juniors, to form Moser’s seven man rotation. The Ramblers will just get better.
Thomas is their second leading scorer to Doyle (14.4 to 14.1) and leads the team in rebounding. Turk is their leading three point shooter having already set the Loyola freshman record for shots made from beyond the arc.
The Ramblers are young and struggle on the road where they are winless in six attempts, but this will be a fun team to watch develop in their first two years in the MVC. Loyola stays in the State of Illinois this week hosting Southern Illinois and traveling to Illinois State.
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