Prayer answered again: Loyola tops Tennessee on late jumper
No. 11 Ramblers headed to Sweet 16
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 beat Tennessee 6362 in a South Region second-round game Saturday night.
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 98-year-old nun, team chaplain and primary booster watching from her wheelchair on a platform near the main TV cameras.
The Ramblers (30-5), who won the Missouri Valley tournament, broke the school record for wins set by the 1963 NCAA championship team. Loyola will play the CincinnatiNevada winner in the regional semifinals Thursday in Atlanta.
No. 3 seed Tennessee (26-7) took its only lead of the second half on threepoint play by Grant Williams with 20 seconds remaining. After Loyola almost lost the ball on an out-of-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 celebrates 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 regular-season co-champions.
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes lost at American Airlines Center, home of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, for the first time in six NCAA games. The first four wins were during his 17 seasons leading the Texas Longhorns.
Schmidt, who leads the pregame prayer and gives the players feedback after, wasn’t the only one pulling hard for Loyola.
Late-arriving fans waiting for crowd favorite Texas Tech in the late game joined the raucous Ramblers supporters wearing maroon-and-gold scarfs and standing almost the entire game in sections across the court from their team’s bench.
Aundre Jackson, who grew up in the Dallas area, led Loyola with 16 points, and Custer had 10. Schofield scored 14 for Tennessee.
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 95-75 pullaway from 13th-seeded Buffalo.
Gilgeous-Alexander went 10 for 12 and made both of his 3-point attempts to send fifthseeded 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 doubledigit lead to five midway through the second half.
Gilgeous-Alexander answered both times — once with a 3-pointer to extend the lead to eight, then again a few minutes later with a three-point play that started a 12-2 run and put the game away.
Hamidou Diallo also went off — going 9 for 12 and scoring all but four of his 22 points in the second half while the Wildcats were turning this one into a laugher.
About that UMBC win — it could impact Kentucky more than you think. With Virginia and Arizona gone, the Wildcats came into the day seeded behind only Cincinnati and Tennessee in the South.
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 rolled by seventh-seeded Rhode Island 87-62 in the second round on Saturday 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 (28-7) 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.
The Rams (26-8) and their senior-laden roster never threatened after the opening 10 minutes. E.C. Matthews led Rhode Island with 23 points but the Rams were never really in it after the Blue Devils revved it up midway through the first half.
Krzyzewski’s relationship with Rhode Island head coach Dan Hurley dates back to when Krzyzewski recruited Dan’s older brother Bobby to Duke 30 years ago. Krzyzewski praised the Hurley family for their love of the “dignity of work,” an ethos that has helped Dan turn the Rams into a force in the Atlantic 10.
Work ethic is one thing. Talent is another. The Rams have plenty of the former. When the young but rapidly maturing Blue Devils are as fully engaged as they were on Saturday, they have a staggering amount of both.
The proof came in a clinically efficient opening half in which Duke picked the Rams a part. If Allen and Trent weren’t knocking down 3-pointers then they were getting the ball inside to Bagley or Carter, the program’s “other” potential lottery pick who is dealing with an achy Achilles. Though he winced at least once while trying to set up on the block, when Carter had the ball in his hands, the grimace disappeared. He scored nine of Duke’s first 11 points to establish the Blue Devils’ dominance in the paint and when the backcourt got going, the Rams simply couldn’t keep pace.
A 23-5 surge midway through the first half put the Blue Devils firmly in command. Their extended zone defense with Allen at the top disrupted Rhode Island’s rhythm, at one point forcing Matthews it put up an off-balance, one-handed airball from the 3-point line as the shot clock expired.
By the time Duval’s second 3-pointer of the half went down, the Blue Devils were up 45-28 at the break.
As the Rams came out for the second half, junior guard Will Leviton went over to a section of Rhode Island fans and urged them to “get up, I still need you! It’s still a game.”