Loyola Men's Basketball Soundly Defeats Cross-State Rival Mount St. Mary's

Loyola never trailed in a 65–42 romp of cross-state rival Mount St. Mary's in snapping a three-game losing streak Saturday at Reitz Arena.

Shane Walker led the Greyhounds with game-highs of 22 points and 10 rebounds and senior Jamal Barney surpassed 1,000 career points as the home team won the 167th meeting between the two Catholic schools.

The margin was never less than nine points after a fast start by the Greyhounds.

After a pair of David Golladay free throws pulled the Mount within 5–4, Loyola went on a 13–0 run that began with an Erik Etherly dunk and included a fadeaway 3 from Walker.

Barney put an exclamation point on the end of the run by catching an alley-oop pass from Rudolph. It was a symbolic play for Loyola's two seniors, who were 0–3 in their career against the Mount.

"It meant a lot to score 1,000 points in my career, especially against a team I never beat since I've been here," Barney said.

Although he contributed 10 points of his own, the Baltimore native knows that Walker—a transfer from Maryland—was a big piece of the puzzle.

"We got some red carpet for our fearless leader?" Barney asked no one in particular in a hallway after the game.

Walker hit both of his 3-point attempts and added a second alley-oop from Rudolph to extend the lead to 30–14 with 4:02 remaining in the first half. He finished with 15 points and seven rebounds in the first 20 minutes.

"I thought it was Shane Walker's best performance overall since he's been here," said Loyola head coach Jimmy Patsos, who was happy with the rest of his team, too. "I thought it was the best effort we've had for 40 minutes this year."

The Greyhounds finished the game shooting 48.9 percent from the floor while holding the Mount to 28.6 percent. Mount head coach Robert Burke said his team let its guard down after some solid play recently, including a last-second loss at Penn State.

"I think as a young group maybe they thought, 'Oh, that means we're here,'" Burke said. "We got everything we wanted in the first half and nothing went down."

Trailing 34–23 at the half, the Mount got within 36–27, but the Greyhounds put the game out of reach with a 14–3 run that was capped by Barney's milestone on a layup with 12:54 remaining in the game.

Walker said the key to Loyola getting so many open looks was emphasizing something that had eluded the team recently.

"Just making sure that we screened. The past couple games we haven't been screening the opponent and that was really stressed this past week," Walker said.

Added Barney: "We spaced the floor and reversed the ball a lot, too."

In making all seven of his shots from the floor, Etherly was second in scoring behind Walker with 17 points and was one rebound short of a double-double.

Danny Thompson and Golladay led the Mount with eight points each. Thompson also had eight rebounds and a game-high four blocks.

Patsos knows a difficult matchup at Georgetown looms Dec. 18 after a week of final exams, but was all smiles about beating the Mountaineers.

"[I have] two seniors talking about, 'We've never beat them,'" Patsos said. "They wrote it on the board: 'We've never beaten the Mount.' And then they went out and played defense like they've never beaten the Mount."