Loyola basks in national spotlight
CHICAGO — The black-and-white photo on the back wall of his office serves as a constant reminder and inspiration for LoyolaChicago basketball coach Porter Moser.
Les Hunter, Jerry Harkness and John Egan are standing with the 1963 NCAA championship trophy, the net draped over it. Coach George Ireland has his right arm extended as he shakes hands with someone whose face is not in the picture.
Hard to believe the photo was in a closet, yet that’s where Moser found it a few days after he got the job seven years ago. There was another photo of the championship celebration in Chicago.
“I’ve had them both in there as a reminder of just where I wanted this thing to go,” Moser said. “This is what you want. I saw the excitement of the people in at San Antonio Saturday Michigan vs. LoyolaChicago, 6:09 p.m. (TBS) Villanova vs. Kansas, 8:49 p.m. (TBS) Monday Championship game, 9:20 p.m. (TBS) the streets. I saw them holding a national championship trophy.”
Everything he envisioned is playing out. A captivating Final Four run has shined a light on a program that went mostly unnoticed for decades.
The Ramblers will face Michigan in the national semifinals in San Antonio on Saturday. It’s the first trip to the Final Four for Loyola since that 1963 team with four black starters helped break down racial barriers.
The Ramblers were never ranked in the Associated Press poll. They needed a few last-second prayers, winning their first three tournament games by a total of four points, before easily handling Kansas State in the South regional final.
That made them the fourth No. 11 seed to get to the Final Four. And now, the Ramblers (32-5) will try to do what LSU (1986), George Mason (2006) and VCU (2011) could not — advance past the semifinals.
Take out the Wolverines, knock off the VillanovaKansas winner and Loyola becomes the lowest seed to win it all. Villanova with a No. 8 beat Georgetown for the championship in 1985. But whether Loyola can pull out another historic title victory or not, it has been quite a run.
Moser got off to a tough start, with a 32-61 record and a switch from the Horizon League to the Missouri Valley Conference in his first three years. Since then? The Ramblers are 89-49, with a program record for wins this season.
They even had their first sellout in 15 years, packing in 4,963 for the regular-season finale after drawing crowds of about 1,100 to 1,500 earlier in the season.
Moser never lost sight of the ultimate goal. And if he needed some inspiration, it was there in black-and-white.
“It was reminder to me every day of my energy, my passion, of getting this thing going, and I haven’t let up,” he said.