St. Louis, Missouri:

20th ranked Loyola Chicago opened their Arch Madness with an impressive ( final score) win over the Southern Illinois Salukis. From the opening tip-off to the final buzzer, Loyola Chicago dominated SIU across the board. The Ramblers came out and punched the Salukis in the mouth and had little to no fightback from SIU.

In the first half, Loyola Chicago jumped to a 35-22 lead at the break. From there, the Ramblers were able to bury the Salukis with hot shooting from deep and crashing the boards on both sides of the court.

From the box score standpoint, Loyola Chicago did everything right. Loyola shot well from the field, had multiple guys scoring in the double figures, and outrebounded SIU by double-digits, and also finished the game with 19 assists.

In scoring, Loyola Chicago had three guys score in the double-digits, with Cameron Krutwig not far behind with eight points.

Not only was Loyola unstoppable on the offensive side of the court, but on defense, the Ramblers were a force to be reckoned with. Loyola Chicago held SIU to 40% from the field and a dismal 20% from behind the arc. Loyola Chicago forced SIU out of its comfort zone by forcing the Salukis to play an up-tempo style of play and holding the SIU bench to only seven points compared to the 28 scored by Loyola Chicago.

With the win, Loyola Chicago advances to the semifinal round on Saturday, where they will await the winner of the Evansville and Indiana State matchup for the right to play in the MVC Championship game on Sunday.

Loyola Chicago split with Indiana State this season and won both matchups with Evansville. Either way, Saturday’s semifinal game will tip-off at noon and can be viewed on the CBS Sports Network.