Valpo, Loyola-Chicago meet in MVC quarters

Valparaiso (17-15, 10-9) vs. No. 2 seed Loyola of Chicago (21-10, 13-5)

Missouri Valley Conference Tourney Quarterfinals, Enterprise Center, St. Louis; Friday, 7 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Valparaiso is set to square off against Loyola of Chicago in the quarterfinals of the MVC tourney. In the regular season, Loyola of Chicago won both of the head-to-head matchups. The teams last played on Feb. 9, when the Ramblers shot 58.7 percent from the field while limiting Valparaiso to just 50.9 percent en route to the two-point victory.

SENIOR STUDS: Valparaiso's Javon Freeman-Liberty, John Kiser and Ryan Fazekas have combined to score 39 percent of all Crusaders points this season.

CREATING OFFENSE: Cameron Krutwig has made or assisted on 44 percent of all Loyola of Chicago field goals over the last three games. The junior big man has accounted for 20 field goals and nine assists in those games.

UNDEFEATED WHEN: Valparaiso is a perfect 6-0 when it holds an opponent to 62 points or fewer. The Crusaders are 11-15 when opponents score more than 62.

ASSIST DISTRIBUTION: The Crusaders have recently used assists to create baskets more often than the Ramblers. Loyola of Chicago has 34 assists on 66 field goals (51.5 percent) across its previous three games while Valparaiso has assists on 43 of 81 field goals (53.1 percent) during its past three games.

DID YOU KNOW: Loyola of Chicago gets to the line more often than any other MVC team. The Ramblers have averaged 19.3 foul shots per game this season and 22.6 per game over their last five games.

___

For more AP college basketball coverage: https://apnews.com/Collegebasketball and http://twitter.com/AP_Top25

___

This was generated by Automated Insights, http://www.automatedinsights.com/ap, using data from STATS LLC, https://www.stats.com