Paul Mills has issued a challenge. Can Wichita State answer it against Loyola?
Paul Mills has a number on his mind this week, and it’s not the score.
It’s 75.
That’s the percentage of defensive rebounds the Wichita State men’s basketball coach believes his team needs to secure to be victorious Thursday night when Loyola-Chicago renews a former Missouri Valley rivalry at 6:30 p.m. inside Koch Arena.
WSU is off to a 2-0 start to the season with a pair of double-digit victories, but Mills has a nitpick: the Shockers are only grabbing 71% of their opponent’s misses. While slightly above the national average, Mills is demanding more from his team. It hasn’t mattered yet, but even a small increase could mean the difference between victory and defeat when games become tighter.
“When you deal with one- and two- and three-possession games, that stuff makes a difference,” Mills said. “To not perform up to caliber against UNC Asheville, then do the same thing again, it’s just not good enough.”
It’s not a case of being tougher on the glass. After all, the Shockers rank as one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country after two games. From studying the film, Mills sees an obvious solution.
“A lot of it has to do with us being behind the play,” Mills explained. “Our pick-and-roll coverage is not what it needs to be and it’s not where it needs to be. We find ourselves behind the play and it’s causing us not to defensive rebound at the level that we should.”
Scouting the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers basketball team
This isn’t Porter Moser’s Cinderella Loyola anymore, but fifth-year head coach Drew Valentine has built a similar profile: disciplined defense, unselfish offense and smart shot selection.
Loyola loves the 3-pointer, maybe a bit too much. Through its 1-2 start, more than half of the Ramblers’ field-goal attempts have come from beyond the arc, but they’re only converting 30% of them. That inefficiency has been costly: an eight-point home loss to Mercyhurst and a gut-punch buzzer-beating loss to North Texas.
But the Ramblers remain dangerous with a talent like Miles Rubin, a 6-foot-10, 205-pound center who anchors Loyola’s defense and is closing in on the program’s career blocks record. He averaged 2.3 swats per game last season and shot 71.4% from the field, almost all of it around the rim. He is a force that Mills respects.
“They can really apply pressure defensively,” he said. “They have versatility where they can switch 1 through 5 and they can push up on people and say, ‘Here’s Miles Rubin, we’re going to channel everything toward him. Deal with it.’”
Rubin’s shot-blocking instincts force opponents to alter shots and rethink drives, but they also expose a potential weakness. When Rubin leaves his feet to contest, Loyola’s rebounding structure breaks down. The Ramblers rank 307th nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, as opponents are retrieving nearly four out of every 10 of their own misses.
That’s a recipe for trouble against a WSU team that thrives on second-chance points.
Where Wichita State can win Loyola-Chicago matchup
The Shockers have been dominant on the offensive boards so far, ranking No. 8 nationally in offensive rebounding rate at 46.7%. In the season-opening win over UNC Asheville, that translated to 21 offensive rebounds and 27 second-chance points, a defining edge on a night when the team’s first shots weren’t falling.
Mills wants that same edge on Thursday, to go along with a dominant effort on the defensive end.
In order to do that, WSU will have to improve its pick-and-roll defense. The challenge is even greater on Thursday, as Loyola brings a potent pick-and-roll duo in Rubin and star point guard Justin Moore, a 6-foot-3 junior who is averaging 14.3 points and 5.3 assists.
“We’re going to find ourselves in these 1-5 pick-and-rolls and they are really going to put us in a number of compromising positions because they have so many shooters out there,” Mills said. “They let their elite-level 5 (Rubin) do what he does and they let their elite-level point guard (Moore) do what he does and that is dropping dimes all over the place.”
North Texas found success forcing the ball out of Moore’s hands and being physical with him. If the Shockers can find a way to slow him down from penetrating the lane and Rubin from feasting on lobs or put-backs, they should have a chance to dictate the terms of the game and limit Loyola’s offensive rhythm.
But Mills knows the Shockers are about to face a desperate team looking to end a losing streak.
“I actually wish they would have won that game against North Texas,” Mills said. “Because I know how desperate and how hungry a team is after you drop a couple. To get a chance to prove yourself on the road like this, it’s going to be a heck of a matchup and a heck of a fight on Thursday night.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2025 at 7:04 AM.
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