Box Score Griffin Jr. collects a double-double in the season-opening victory.
The Loyola University men's basketball team kicked off the 2016-17 season on Monday night against Carver Bible College in the inaugural basketball game at the recently renamed First NBC Court.
Powered by a double-double from Johnny Griffin Jr. (SR/Chicago, IL.), the Wolf Pack defeated the Cougars 74-60 to improve to 1-0 on the year and 6-1 all-time against Carver Bible.
Nick Parker (JR/Port Allen, La.) found Nate Pierre (SR/Folsom, La.) for a layup underneath for the first field goal of the year to give Loyola the 2-0 advantage. Griffin Jr. connected on two free throws to put the Wolf Pack up 4-0 before a triple by the Cougars brought the game to 4-3. Up 9-8, Loyola used free throws from Robert White (JR/Los Angeles, Ca.) and Ethan Turner (SO/Covington, La), paired with a jumper by Parker, to take the 14-8 lead with 10:54 to play in the half. The Cougars battled back to knot the game at 16-16 at the 9:16 mark, before Loyola strung together a 9-0 spurt to retake the lead at 25-16. The home team kept the pressure up for the final four minutes and closed the opening half on a 13-6 run to take the 38-22 cushion into the locker room.
Loyola began to put the game out of reach in the second half – jumping out a 27-point advantage with just under 13 minutes to play. Carver Bible was able to cut the deficit to 17 (61-44) at the 7:48 mark, before a long triple by Eric Brown (SO/Homer, La.) put the Wolf Pack back up by 20. Down 45-66 with 5:10 remaining, the Cougars poured in nine-unanswered points to trim the lead to just 12 with 3:07 to go. Loyola was able to keep the Cougars at a safe distance (between 13-15 points) for the remainder of the half to earn the 74-60 victory at home.
As a team, Loyola shot 44.8% (26-of-58) from the floor and 42.9% (6-of-14) from beyond the arc. The Wolf Pack held the 43-31 rebounding advantage and dished out 16 assists compared to 12 by Carver Bible.
Griffin picked up on Monday right where he left off last season; collecting 16 points and a team-high 13 rebounds. Parker also added 16 points on Monday to go along with three assists and three steals. Jalen Gray (SR/New Orleans, La.) had a great all-around game against the Cougars; tallying 13 points, a team-high eight assists, five rebounds and two steals in the victory. Off the bench, Brown chipped in seven points, four rebounds and one assist.
Saveyon Edwards led Carver Bible with 21 points to go along with four rebounds and two steals on Monday evening.
Loyola returns to First NBC Court on Saturday, Oct.29, to take on Louisiana State University-Alexandria and 4:00 p.m.
