The Mercury News Weekend

Loyola moves on to Elite Eight with FSU, Michigan and K-State

- By Gene Wang The Washington Post

ATLANTA » A sign in the first few rows of a section filled with Loyola Chicago faithful — and that’s the precise word Ramblers basketball fans use to refer to themselves, with good reason — told the story of the No. 11 seed that continued to defy the odds in the NCAA tournament.

“Mission From God,” it read, quoting fromthe Chicago-centric comedy classic “The Blues Brothers” and complete with a picture of themost famous member of the Loyola community.

That would be Sister Jean Delores- Schmidt, the 98-year- old nun and team chaplain who’s sticking around through the weekend after her Ramblers held off a rally to outlast seventh-seeded Nevada 69- 68 on Thursday night in the South Region round of 16 at Atlanta’s Philips Arena.

The difference was Marques Townes’ 3-pointer with six seconds to play that provided Loyola with a 6965 margin and stemmed the momentum the Wolf Pack had gathered following a push that erased a doubledigi­t deficit in the second half.

Townes released his 3-pointer from in front of the Loyola bench as the shot clock reached one second. The redshirt junior guard finished with a team-high 18 points on 6-for-10 shooting in addition to five assists and four rebounds.

“Like I’ve been saying all year, this team never quits,” Townes said. “We’re such a resilient team. Nevada, they’re a great team as well, and we respect them, and they fought real hard, and they made that huge run. We got some stops. We made some big shots.”

With the outcome secure and the final seconds ticking off the game clock, Sister Jean appeared from the tunnel in her wheelchair to take her familiar place along side the Loyola bench. Ramblers fans stood and applauded as players hugged Sister Jean on their way to the locker room.

“I’m happy for us, for my community, for Loyola, for the city of Chicago and for the world,” Sister Jean said outside Loyola’s locker room, “because we have people watching us all over the world. The viewing numbers on every chan- nel should go up over this weekend, and I’m sure that it will.”

In front by four at halftime, the Ramblers made their first 13 shots in a row in the second half to open a 55- 45 lead with 10:05 to play. Eleven of those field goals came on layups, with seven players overall contributi­ng to the perfect shooting stretch.

The first miss occurred when guard Ben Richardson’s desperatio­n heave from well beyond the 3-point line landed short, creating a turnover for Nevada, which soon used a 12-2 run to tie it at 59 with 4:06 to play.

A 3- pointer from reserve senior forward Aundre Jackson followed to put Loyola ahead to stay with 2:57 left, setting the stage for Townes’ dramatic shot.

“You’ve got to give so much credit to Nevada,” Ramblers coach Porter Moser said. “They never quit. I mean, those guys keep coming.”

Nevada’s path to its second appearance in the regional semifinals comprised a pair of memorable comeback victories. The most recent was overcoming a 22-point deficit in the second half to rally past No. 2 seed Cincinnati 75-73 in the round of 32 in Nashville, Tennessee, for the secondlarg­est comeback in tournament history.

In the opening round, the Wolf Pack toppled No. 5 seed Texas 87-83 after trailing by 14 points in the second half.

As it has been virtually the entire season, the Mar- tin twins, Caleb and Cody, were front and center in Thursday night’s showdown for Nevada, combining for 37 points and 11 rebounds.

The 6-foot-7 juniors began their careers at North Carolina State, playing two seasons for Mark Gottfried before electing to transfer.

“We’ll just remember all the work that we had put in,” Caleb Martin said. “This is something really, really hard to do that people don’t really realize that we’ve been doing with around a six- or seven-people rotation and without a true big, and just howmuch preparatio­n and behindthe-scenes stuff that we go through.

“It’s hard, but I’ll remember all the relationsh­ips and the work and stuff that we put. It’s been a special year.”

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