Loyola scores late, ousts Vols
Another NCAA Tournament pray answered for Loyola-Chicago, and the Ramblers are set to bring Sister Jean to the Sweet 16.
Clayton Custer’s jumper took a friendly bounce off the rim and in with 3.6 seconds left, and 11th-seeded Loyola (30-5) beat No. 3 seed Tennessee (26-7) in Dallas.
Custer’s winner came two days after Donte Ingram’s buzzer-beating 3 for Loyola against Miami, surely to the delight of Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the 98year-old nun, team chaplain and primary booster watching from her wheelchair on a platform near the main TV cameras.
The Ramblers, who won the Missouri Valley tournament, broke the school record for wins set by the 1963 NCAA championship team. Loyola will play the Cincinnati-Nevada winner in the regional semifinals Thursday in Atlanta.
Tennessee took its only lead of the second half on three-point play by Grant Williams with 20 seconds remaining. After Loyola almost lost the ball on an outof-bounds call confirmed on replay, Custer dribbled to his right, pulled up and let go a short jumper that hit the front of the rim, bounced off the backboard and went in.
A last-gasp shot from the Vols’ Jordan Bone bounced away, and Custer threw the ball off the scoreboard high above the court as he was mobbed by teammates in the same spot that the Ramblers celebrateD Ingram’s dramatic winner.
The Ramblers fell behind 15-6 in less than 5 minutes before the Volunteers missed their next nine shots and fell behind for the first time on Custer’s 3-pointer with 6 minutes left in the first half.
Admiral Schofield scored 11 of those first 15 Tennessee points but didn’t score again until a 3 nearly 32 minutes later that started a rally from a 10-point deficit in the final 4 minutes by the SEC regularseason co-champions.
Kentucky 95, Buffalo 75
Kentucky put an end to any upset talk on its watch Saturday, getting 27 points and a near-perfect shooting game from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a pullaway from 13th-seeded Buffalo in Boise, Idaho.
Gilgeous-Alexander went 10 for 12 and made both of his 3-point attempts to send fifth-seeded Kentucky (26-10) to the Sweet 16 for the second straight season.
Coming into the day, the basketball world was still reverberating from Maryland-Baltimore County’s 16 vs. 1 stunner over Virginia the night before. Villanova and Duke both rolled early; the evening slate started with Kentucky, and the Wildcats, with their all-freshman starting lineup, trailed only once: 2-0.
It wasn’t a runaway until the last 7 minutes.
Buffalo (27-9), which got here with a 21-point blowout over Arizona, twice trimmed a double-digit lead to five midway
through the second half.
Villanova 81, Alabama 58
Mikal Bridges hit five 3s, scored 23 points and helped No. 1 seed Villanova put the field on notice that it’s the team to beat with a win over ninth-seeded Alabama in Pittsburgh.
The Wildcats (32-4) are in the Sweet 16 for the first time since they won the 2016 national championship. Bridges, Jalen Brunson, Phil Booth – and yes, The Big Ragu – look every bit the favorite to make it two in three years.
Villanova plays Friday in Boston against the Marshall-West Virginia winner.
The sport is still buzzing from topseeded Virginia’s 20-point loss to 16thseeded UMBC on Friday night.
Alabama (20-16) failed to make it two No. 1s KO’d in less than 24 hours.
After a tense first half in a round that has given the program fits, the Wildcats hit their first six 3s in the second and put on a thrashing up there among the most dominant under coach Jay Wright.
Duke 87, Rhode Island 62
Mike Krzyzewski might want to stop worrying about his team’s inexperience. The loaded if young Blue Devils hardly seemed intimidated by NCAA Tournament’s bright lights.
If anything, they’re thriving under them.
Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year Marvin Bagley scored 22 points to go with nine rebounds, fellow freshman big man Wendell Carter Jr. added 13 points and second-seeded Duke (28-7) rolled by seventh-seeded Rhode Island (26-8) in Pittsburgh to earn the program’s 26th trip to the Sweet 16. Freshmen guards Gary Trent Jr. and Trevon Duval combined for 29 points and 11 assists for the Blue Devils.
Duke will play either Michigan State or Syracuse in the Midwest Regional semifinals in Omaha, Nebraska on Friday. The victory gave Krzyzewski 1,098 wins during his Hall of Fame career, breaking a tie with Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt for the most ever by an NCAA basketball coach.