Women's Basketball at Loyola Chicago
Date	Friday, Jan. 1 | 1 p.m. ET
Location // Venue	Chicago, Ill. // Gentile Arena
Preview Info	Indiana State Notes // Loyola Notes // MVC Notes
Live Stats	Live Stat Feed (FRI) // Live Stat Feed (SAT)
Watch	ESPN+ (FRI) // ESPN3 (SAT)
Listen	N/A
Social Media	@IndStWBB // @IndStAthletics
Attendance Information	No fans permitted.

CHICAGO – Indiana State women's basketball will open 2021 and Missouri Valley Conference play on Friday when they travel to Chicago for a series with Loyola Chicago.
 
TWO WEEKS LATER…
College basketball is anything but normal during the COVID landscape and much like other programs across the country, ISU has felt the impact. They Sycamores lost their last two non-conference matchups due to positive cases within the Saint Louis and Dayton programs, making Friday's game with Loyola their first action since December 14. 
 
DIALING IT UP
During the 2019-20 campaign, the Sycamores struggled to shoot the ball from behind the arc, ranking ninth in the Valley while connecting at a clip of 28%. Fast forward to 2020-21 and the Trees ended the non-conference the third-best team in the Valley from three-point land, shooting 35.1% from three through the first five games. A big contributor to that number is newcomer Essy Latu who leads the MVC with 3.2 threes per game and is third in the conference in three-point field goal percentage at 41.0%.
 
TAKING CARE OF THE GLASS
Indiana State has been a force on the boards through the non-conference portion of the schedule, averaging 42.4 each game. However, the Sycamores find themselves at second in the conference in offensive rebounds per game, pulling down 15.0 partially thanks to Jamyra McChristine's Valley-leading 4.6 offensive boards per game. ISU is also third in the MVC and 58th in the nation in rebounding margin, coming in at +7.8.
 
COVID CHANGES
The MVC has postponed the UNI-Missouri State series this weekend due to positive COVID-19 test results among Missouri State's Tier I personnel, which consists of student-athletes, coaches, managers and staff.    The Conference will announce make-up dates for the series/games at a later date.  The league also postponed the Illinois State-Valparaiso women's basketball series (Jan. 1-2) due to positive COVID-19 test results among Valparaiso's Tier I personnel. Illinois State, however, will now face UNI on Jan. 1-2 at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and both games will be played at 2 p.m. CT.   ISU and UNI were originally scheduled to face one another on Jan. 15-16 in Cedar Falls.
 
For the latest information on the Sycamore Women's Basketball team, make sure to check out GoSycamores.com. You can also find the team on social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.