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GAME NOTES: The Iona Gaels try to avoid back-to-back losses for the first time since early December as they suit up against the Loyola-Maryland Greyhounds in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference showdown at the Hynes Athletic Center in New Rochelle this afternoon.

On Friday night, the Gaels were taken down by the Manhattan Jaspers in this same building by a score of 66-60, marking the team's second loss in the last three outings and dropping them further off the pace in the MAAC standings at 10-5.

As for the Greyhounds, they are finally getting back into action after a week off due to the rough winter weather along the east coast. The last opponent for Loyola was also Manhattan, but in the case of the Greyhounds they managed to come up with the 62-56 win. The victory was the second in a row for a team that is just 5-9 in conference this season.

The Gaels won the first meeting of the season on the road back in the middle of January with a 59-50 final, which means Iona now owns a 38-11 lead in the all-time series.

Before picking up his fifth personal foul, Shane Walker managed to put together a double-double for the Greyhounds with his 12 points and 10 rebounds, adding three blocked shots as well, in the team's victory over Manhattan last weekend. The squad made it into the win column despite just 35.2 percent shooting from the field and 3-of-9 beyond the arc. Walker has now put together back-to-back double-doubles for the program and has a total of three on the season. He is averaging 8.6 ppg and 6.7 rpg, yet his mere 37.4 percent shooting from the field is considered rather weak for someone who spends as much time in the paint as he does. Brett Harvey and Jamal Barney continue to be the leading scorers for the group, netting 13.5 and 12.3 ppg, respectively.

The Gaels didn't do themselves any favors two nights ago when they shot just 7-of-28 from the floor in the first half, in fact it buried the team to the point where it was too tough to complete the comeback. Kyle Smyth tallied 12 points on 4-of-8 shooting behind the three-point line and Scott Machado added 11 points and five boards, but he turned the ball over four times and was assessed a technical foul before leaving the contest. Averaging just over 28 minutes of playing time per game, Machado leads the program both in scoring (12.4 ppg) and assists (104), not to mention steals (44). Alejo Rodriguez accounts for another 9.0 ppg and 7.2 rpg, shooting a staggering 67.1 percent from the floor, but he has also fouled out of five contests and has suffered an embarrassing 45.7 percent accuracy at the free-throw line.

Even though the Greyhounds are well rested, playing on the road against a successful team like Iona will not be an easy trick.