Kevin T. Connor, The Examiner
2007-02-07 08:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

BALTIMORE -

The Loyola College men’s basketball returned home in the wee hours Tuesday licking their wounds.

The Greyhounds dropped back-to-back road games in the Metro Atlantic Conference on Saturday and Monday. They are the team’s first consecutive defeats since a winter break road trip that consisted of three straight losses to High Point, Northwestern and Michigan State. More importantly, they were the first road losses for the Greyhounds (13-10, 9-4) in the MAAC this season.

“It was a learning experience,” Loyola coach Jimmy Patsos said. “They were both great games. But we lost and they won. Marist was a tremendous atmosphere. It was unbelievable. It was the best atmosphere I have ever experienced in the league. It had a Duke-like feeling.”

Patsos was more disappointed with the loss to Fairfield on Monday. The Greyhounds gave up a six-point lead when they turned the ball over on four straight possessions with less than three minutes to play.

“It was very ugly,” Patsos said. “We turned the ball over four times in a row. We gave it away.”

Until this road trip, the Greyhounds were playing well enough on the road that Patsos expressed concerns about the team’s intensity at home. He hopes these losses will spark the Greyhounds’ play at Reitz Arena, where they will host Canisius (11-12, 6-7) Friday night in an ESPNU-televised game.

“I would like to see us a little more disappointed in the losses,” Patsos said. “We are tied for first place. We will find out what we are made of on Friday.”

Loyola is tied with Marist (17-7, 9-4) for the top spot in the MAAC and is just ahead of Manhattan, Fairfield, Niagara and Siena. Loyola has five more league games, with three in a row coming up at home.

“We have been playing hard, and hopefully we have learned our lesson from those games and we will put on a good show against Canisius,” Patsos said.

HOME, SWEET HOME

» Loyola should be happy to get back some of its home-court advantage. At Fairfield, Loyola was perfect from the free-throw line, but only took nine shots there. Fairfield however, was good for 17 of 22 shots from the charity stripe.

» High-scoring Loyola guard Gerald Brown was well below his average of 21.7 points a game on the road trip, scoring 15 against Marist and 13 at Fairfield.