Loyola suffers loss at Blue Mountain

Box Score

BLUE MOUNTAIN, Miss. – The Loyola University New Orleans men's basketball suffered a road Southern States Athletics Conference loss to Blue Mountain Christian on Thursday, 85-73. The Wolf Pack will now head to Tennessee Southern for a 2 p.m. tip-off on Saturday. 
 

Loyola got off to a good start, taking a 23-16 lead after eight-plus minutes of play. The Pack made nine of their first 14 shots, including 3-of-3 from the 3-point line, and Braelee Albert led the team with 12 of those points while Julian Baldwin chipped in eight. After those two made Loyola's first two shots, Leonard Jackson got on the board with a 3-pointer, 7-4, two minutes into the contest. Baldwin hit back-to-back shots, including an and-1 on the latter made bucket, then Albert sunk consecutive 3s to help get off to the good start. 
 

Blue Mountain, however, picked things up after that. The Toppers tied the game at 23-all with eight minutes left until halftime, and even took a one-point lead before Loyola pushed back ahead 31-26, thanks to five points from Kameron Johnson. The Toppers finished the first half on a 14-3 run, though, to take a 40-34 advantage at the break. 
 

It was tough sledding for the Wolf Pack in the first 10 minutes of the second half, as the Toppers hit 5-for-6 from the 3-point line while Loyola was 0-of-6 from beyond the arc and 5-for-17 from the field to fall behind 61-48. 
 

Jarvis Brown scored his first points in a Loyola uniform, a 3 to make it a 10-point game, but the Toppers answered quickly, 66-51. Brown hit two more 3s to pull the Pack within single digits, 68-59, with four minutes remaining, and Milan Mejia drained one from long range, too, 68-62, a couple of minutes later. BMCU, though, went 5-for-5 from the floor and 7-for-7 from the free throw down the stretch to hold on to the win.
 

Pack Facts

• Braelee Albert led all scorers with 15 points at halftime, finishing with 19 plus seven rebounds and three assists. Albert was 3-of-6 on triples. 

• In his Wolf Pack debut, Jarvis Brown poured in 14 second-half points. All of his shot attempts came from behind the three-point line, and he went 4-of-8 from distance. 

• Julian Baldwin went a perfect 6-of-6 from the field, scoring 14 points in 17 minutes while grabbing five rebounds. 

• Kameron Johnson got into double figures in the game's final minutes, finishing with 12 points, a game-high five assists, and two steals. 

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