The Loyola men?s basketball team was just 40 minutes away from claiming its first Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular season title in its 19-year history in the league against Marist on Sunday.
But the Greyhounds will have to wait at least another year to accomplish that goal following an 82-64 loss to the Red Foxes in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
“It?s back to the drawing board, but it?s great to be in position to play for the league titlein the last game of the regular season,” Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos said. “It?s a process.”
If Loyola (18-13, 12-6) would have defeated Marist (17-13, 11-7), it would have clinched ? at worst ? a spot in the 32-team National Invitation Tournament later this month. Now, it must win three games in three days from March 7-10 at the MAAC Tournament at Times Union Center in Albany, N.Y., to earn its first berth in the NCAA Tournament in 14 years. The Greyhounds only MAAC Tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth came in 1994.
Loyola also dropped from a No. 1 seed to a No. 4 seed in the conference tournament, falling behind top-seeded Rider (21-9, 13-5), No. 2 Siena (19-10, 13-5) and defending champion and third-seeded Niagara (19-9, 12-6).
The Greyhounds are slated to play fifth-seeded Fairfield (14-15, 11-7) on Saturday afternoon at 2:15. Loyola lost to the Stags, 69-67, in Baltimore on Jan. 4, but seven days later split the season-series with a 67-63 win in Connecticut. The Greyhounds are 3-0 all-time against Fairfield in the MAAC Tournament, including a 75-72 win to end the Stags? season last year.
If Loyola finds a way to get past Fairfield, it will play in the semifinals on Sunday night at 6 against the winner of Rider and the winner of the St. Peter?s-Manhattan opening-round game on Friday.
Loyola had no shortage of mistakes on Sunday. The team came out slow, trailing by double-digits before trimming the deficit to 38-32 at intermission. In the second half, the Greyhounds got as close as 44-43 with 15:22 left, but Marist finished an 18-3 run with fewer than five minutes remaining to take a 17-point lead and secure the win.
Loyola shot just 39 percent from the floor and was outrebounded, 42-31.
Junior guard Marquis Sullivan scored a team-high 20 points, but senior guard Gerald Brown (19.1 ppg) had just 10 and battled foul trouble most of the second half, before being disqualified.
“We didn?t take that last step [Sunday],” Patsos said. “But we have a chance to take that step in Albany.”
