With Loyola men’s basketball down, 78-77, with less than three minutes to go in the second overtime session against Lehigh on Feb. 4, a steal by junior guard Jordan Stiemke triggered a fast break and basket for freshman guard Carter Berg-McLean to put the Greyhounds up, 79-78.
The Greyhounds were then down, 81-79, with about a minute to go when junior guard Troy Cicero Jr. probed his way into the middle of the Mountain Hawks’ 2-3 zone and found freshman big man Emmett Adair for an easy bucket to tie the game. Cicero pulled off a steal-and-score quickly thereafter to push Loyola in front, 83-81, with 36.2 seconds left, a lead the Greyhounds wouldn’t relinquish.
Loyola eventually defeated Lehigh, 89-84, to improve to 9-15 overall and 5-6 in the Patriot League, with the key plays late from Stiemke and Cicero paving the way for the Greyhounds’ third win in four games.
“We’re starting to trust each other,” Stiemke said of his team. “We always had good off-the-court trust, but we’re starting to trust each other more, sticking together, bringing the energy every day. It starts in practice. Every day we’re pushing each other. It shows up in big moments like this.”
“Every night could be one of our nights. … We put a lot of work in, so we all trust each other’s work,” Cicero added. “No matter whose night it is — my night, Jordan’s night, whoever’s night — we just all love each other. I feel like that’s what winning teams are all about.”
Stiemke finished with 19 points on 8 of 13 shooting (2 of 5 from 3-point range). The 6-foot-5, 213-pound guard also threw down three highlight-reel dunks, not an unusual occurrence for one of the best athletes in the Patriot League. Cicero finished with a career-high 17 points on 6 of 11 shooting (3 of 8 from deep). The 6-foot-2, 185-pound guard showed off the pretty stepback 3-pointer in his bag.
Stiemke started the first 15 games of Loyola’s season but shot 5 of 25 from the field in the final three games of that stretch. He then came off the bench for three games before returning to the starting lineup for the past six contests. Cicero played just eight minutes and didn’t score at Navy on Jan. 31 but helped the Greyhounds get to the finish line against Lehigh four days later.
Stiemke, a native of Bel Air and graduate of C. Milton Wright, is averaging 9.2 points and 3.2 rebounds per game on the season. Cicero, a native of Joliet, Ill., and graduate of Romeoville High School, is averaging 6.3 points and 42 percent shooting from 3-point range. The two picked a good night to combine for 36 points and seven steals.
“Probably the performances of the year from those two,” Loyola head coach Josh Loeffler said. “Glad we have them. They are, in my opinion, very good players who continue to mature. They’ve had some adversity this year, and I think that they’ve pushed through that adversity. It’s really nice to see them come out on the other end and succeed.”
Stiemke and Cicero were both recruited to Loyola by former head coach Tavaras Hardy, who stepped down following the 2023-24 campaign. Stiemke contributed that season — 25 games, 10 starts, 5.3 points per game and some dunks one normally doesn’t see in the Patriot League — but Cicero was limited to four games because of a cartilage issue in his left knee.
Loyola announced Loeffler’s hire on March 30, 2024, and the coach immediately got to work trying to keep players like Cicero in Baltimore.
“I was actually coming off an injury, so I was at home talking to him on Zoom calls and stuff like that,” Cicero said. “Just hearing what he’s about, his winning pedigree and everything like that, I wanted to stick around and get wins for him as well.”
Loeffler brought in guards Braeden Speed and Jacob Theodosiou to bolster the roster ahead of the 2024-25 season and scored an intriguing freshman class (Emmett Adair, Everett Barnes, Carter Berg-McLean and Sebastien Emenalo) ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Those efforts are starting to bear fruit.
“After my sophomore year, after my first year with Coach Loeffler, I really thought what he was bringing in, what we were going to bring into [this] year, I thought we were going to have a great team coming,” Stiemke said. “I wanted to put faith and loyalty into that and just grow with my team, grow with my guys.”
It certainly helps to have veterans like Stiemke and Cicero, too.
“They’re awesome,” Loeffler said. “Those two guys are about all the right stuff. We’ve got so many guys like that. I’m glad they stayed around. I’m glad to coach them. And right now I’m even more happy because they made huge plays. I’m so fortunate to have a group of guys that’s this great.”
Photo Credits: Michael Eigenbrode