The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
RAMBLERS ROLL INTO FINAL FOUR
Loyola-Chicago dominates Kansan State
The past 10 days generated so many shocks that we should have been beyond surprised, but here came another: A No. 11 seed, a card-carrying mid-major, didn’t just become the first qualifier for the 2018 Final Four; Loyola-Chicago won the South Regional via utter domination of a Power Five opponent.
The Ramblers became the fourth 11th seed to win a regional. The first was LSU
over Kentucky in this city in 1986. The second was George Mason over UConn in 2006. The third was Virginia Commonwealth over Kansas in 2011. The margins in those three upsets were two, two and 10 points. Loyola won the South at Philips Arena on Saturday 78-62.
Loyola’s first three victories in this NCAA Tournament had been hairbreadth things, won by an aggregate four points. (Which is, we note, one above
the minimum.) There was never a doubt in the Ramblers’ dismissal of Kansas State. A No.
11 seed is headed for San Antonio off something approaching a mandate.
Loyola was the better team from the opening tip, which
— just for the record — it controlled. The Ramblers made 10 of their first 12 shots. Of those 10 baskets, six were layups; three were 3-pointers. Know how analytics people insist the only shots worth taking are layups and treys? Here’s your college equivalent of the Houston Rockets.
Loyola led 15-5, then 19-7, then 36-24 at the half. If not for six turnovers, off which K-State scored exactly half its points, this would have been done and dusted after 20 minutes. Not six minutes after intermission, all doubt had been removed. When Donte Ingram, whose 3-pointer against Miami in Round 1 launched the Ramblers on this amazing journey, spun for a layup with 14:04 remaining, their lead was 19 points.
Two nights after holding SEC champion Kentucky to 58 points in 40 minutes, K-State yielded 52 points in the first 25 minutes and 56 seconds against the Missouri Valley champs. But that’s the thing: If you took away the uniforms Saturday – or at any point over the past 10 days – you never would have guessed the Ramblers aren’t cut from Power Five cloth.
Not to get all gushy here, but they play beautiful basketball. They do the pace-and-space thing. They pass the ball. They shoot the ball. They have no McDonald’s All-Americans on their roster, but no collection of McDonald’s men could have coalesced the way Loyola has. You look at their players and think nobody would be all that tough to defend; then you see the team on the floor, and everybody’s hard to guard.
Back in 1977, the Portland Trail Blazers’ victory in the NBA Finals over the Philadelphia 76ers — who boasted Julius Erving, George McGinnis, World B. Free, Doug Collins and Darryl Dawkins — was hailed as “good for the game.” Loyola’s ascension to the Final Four is reminiscent of that, with this difference: Portland had Bill Walton, at worst the second-best collegiate player ever. How many Ramblers could you have named on Selection Sunday?
Sometimes, though, the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. Among Ramblers, only Ingram might be even a Round 2 NBA draftee, but what does that matter in the Big Dance? This is the tournament of survive-and-advance, of One Shining Moments. Loyola has crammed four shining moments into 10 days.
Their coach, Porter Moser, has long been considered a deft X-and-O man, though it didn’t prevent him from getting fired by Illinois State in 2007. Here’s a 49-year-old basketball lifer who, apart from two stints as an assistant at Texas A&M in the ’90s under Tony Barone, who was his college coach at Creighton, has never worked at a Power Five school. From Creighton to Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Arkansas-Little Rock to Illinois State to St. Louis to Loyola-Chicago … and now to the Final Four.
The Ramblers won’t be favored to win a game in San Antonio, which will be fine by them. They weren’t supposed to win any of these, either. They weren’t supposed to beat Cincinnati, which was going for a third consecutive national championship, in 1963, but they rallied from a 45-30 deficit with 14 minutes left to win in overtime on Vic Rouse’s putback at the buzzer.
Oh, and you’re wondering about Sister Jean. She was again on hand Saturday, having again offered a pregame blessing. She’s famously a woman of great faith, but even she had the Ramblers losing in the Sweet 16. That’s how good Loyola has been these past 10 days. Even their biggest fan never saw this coming. But but here they are, and off to Texas they go.