It had been nearly two years since Loyola men’s basketball earned a victory like the one on Wednesday night against Lafayette in Reitz Arena. The Greyhounds used a tremendous defensive effort and a balanced scoring attack to rout the Leopards, 62-43, pushing both teams into a four-way tie for fourth place in the crowded Patriot League standings.
Loyola’s 19-point victory was its largest since G.G. Smith took over as head coach, and its largest since moving to the Patriot League. The team’s last win by a margin that large was an 80-57 blowout of Siena on Feb. 16, 2013.
Lafayette (14-10, 6-7 Patriot League) entered the game ranked 10th in the nation in 3-point field goal percentage at 40.4 percent, but shot just 4-for-18 from beyond the arc against Loyola (10-14, 6-7). The Leopards shot poorly the entire game, shooting 14-for-45 (31.1 percent) from the field, and making just 11 of their 19 free throw attempts (57.9 percent).
As they have often done in their victories, the Greyhounds used defense and rebounding to dominate Lafayette. The Hounds outrebounded the Leopards, 35-26, while forcing 13 turnovers.
Lafayette held its only lead of the game after a 3-pointer by Bryce Scott gave the Leopards a 3-2 lead two minutes into the game, but a layup by freshman Andre Walker with 17:34 left in the half put Loyola up for good.
The Greyhounds stormed out to a 28-13 lead with just over four minutes left before the half, but Lafayette cut Loyola’s lead to 30-21 at the break.
The Leopards briefly made it a seven-point game to open the second half, but from there the Hounds took off with a suffocating 29-6 run. Junior Tyler Hubbard sank a 3-pointer with 10 minutes remaining to cap a 14-0 Loyola run, but they kept bringing the heat after that.
With 8:10 remaining, sophomore S.J. Tuohy hit his first career 3-pointer to give the Greyhounds a 30-point lead at 59-29, for their largest lead of the evening.
Lafayette would then go on a 14-0 run of its own, but it was too little too late, as it only put a dent in Loyola’s dominant performance.
The Greyhounds shot 24-for-52 (46.2 percent) from the field, even after a rough stretch during the game’s final minutes. They converted on seven of their 18 three-point attempts and shot 7-of-9 from the free-throw line.
After a recent slump, Hubbard led the team with 14 points, including a trio of 3-pointers, along with five rebounds.
“We had to get [Hubbard] going,” Coach G.G. Smith said. “He hadn’t been playing well the last few games, but he got us going today. I was also proud of his defensive effort and the overall team defensive effort. It was our best defensive effort by far this year against the highest-scoring team in our league.”
Junior Franz Rassman put together a strong performance, scoring 13 points (5-8 FG) with three boards and two assists.
“Offensively, I was playing pretty well, but that’s because our defense played so well,” Rassman said. “After you get stops, you get the momentum. The first 33 minutes were probably the best we’ve played [this season], but the last seven minutes we kind of let up, which we shouldn’t have done. But overall, it was a great game.”
The Greyhounds will look to pull to .500 in conference play when they travel to Boston University on Saturday for a 1 p.m. contest.
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