NUN HAD THEM
Sister Jean’s Loyola tops Nevada, on to Elite 8
ATLANTA — Marques Townes didn’t want to go home. He had plans to play on Saturday night. With 6.2 seconds left, the redshirt junior knocked down a 3-pointer to put LoyolaChicago up by four, and the Ramblers held on to beat the Nevada Wolf Pack 69-68 in the semifinals of the NCAA tournament South Regional at Philips Arena. “I’ll probably remember it for the rest of my life,” said Townes about his clutch shot. “I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Clay made a great play, got downhill, kicked me to the corner. The guy came flying at me, I just gave him a little shot fake, and I shot it, and it went in. It was just — that’s something you dream about. You’re in the Sweet 16 and you hit a big shot like that. It’s just amazing. I’m just blessed to be in that position.”
Throughout the night, it was Townes — from Edison, New Jersey — who always seemed to respond with a big shot whenever the Ramblers needed it most.
It was as if team chaplain and super fan Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt said a special prayer for No. 5, even if she didn’t have the Ramblers advancing.
“We had much success all year doing the same things that we’ve been doing, and I’m sorry for Sister Jean, for busting her bracket, but yeah, we’re just happy to be in this position and going to the Elite 8,” said Townes.
Loyola started the second half on an 8-2 run. In a game in which both teams played well in spurts, Loyola was able to use a late first half rally to hold off Nevada.
Townes connected on a pair of free throws late in the first half to give the Ramblers their first lead of the game at 25-24. Townes would then knock down a 3-pointer as the shot clock expired to give the Ramblers a 28-24 lead as both teams headed into the locker room.
Early in the first half, Loyola focused on working the ball inside to their 6-foot-9, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION 260-pound big man, Cameron Krutwig. The Ramblers found themselves in a predicament as head coach Porter Moser had to decide between exploiting his mismatch on the inside on offense with his big man, or leaving him as a liability on defense. The Wolf Pack would go on to use a 16-4 run to go up big early, as they pushed the tempo and found easy buckets in transition.
Moser essentially decided to go with a smaller lineup to match up with Nevada, and it paid off as the Ramblers started to chip away at the lead.
“We really tried to start small. We started Aundre the second half, and defensively Krut was — it was a tough match-up for him,” Moser said.
“So I thought we’d go small, and really push the tempo. It was a great suggestion by my assistant Bryan Mullins. He was there. We haven’t done that all year. We started Krut the second half, and Bryan said what about starting Aundre because they’re going to go right at — Krut had two fouls, and they were going to go right at him to start the half because they had the ball.”
“So, we went with it, and it really paid off in terms of the tempo that we created getting stops. Our defense created the offense for sure.”
Townes led Loyola with 18 points, while Aundre Jackson and Clayton Custer each scored 15.
The Martin twins — Caleb and Cody — combined to score 37 for Nevada, while Jordan Caroline added 19, and Josh Hall chipped in with 10.
“We played our hearts out, came up a basket short or a point short,” said Nevada coach Eric Musselman.
“It’s obviously tough for our locker room right now to know that our season is over. You know, we get a stop on that three ball that they hit at the buzzer and maybe we’re sitting up here with a win.”
“But again, we didn’t, and so we’ve got to tip our hat off to Loyola for sure.”
The 11th-seeded Ramblers have now collected their third upset win of the tournament and have won the three games by a combined total of four points.
Loyola has won 13 straight games and 20 of its last 21.