Maybe Sister Jean got this career thing all wrong. Maybe instead of being a nun, the 101-year-old chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago men’s basketball team should have been a coach.
At least the prayer she delivered to the Ramblers on Sunday, before their stunningly easy 71-58 upset of Midwest Region No. 1 seed Illinois in the second round of the NCAA tournament, certainly makes it sound as if coaching could have once been a viable option for her.
Asked Jean, who was often said to be the inspiration for Loyola’s storybook run to the Final Four in 2018: “As we play the Fighting Illini, we ask for special help to overcome this team and get a great win. We hope to score early and make our opponents nervous. We have a great opportunity to convert rebounds as this team makes about 50% of layups and 30% of its 3-pointers. Our defense can take care of that.”
Look at the stat sheet, and she couldn’t have been more on target. The Illini missed several layups, hit but 28.6% of their 3-point attempts (4-of-14) and got outrebounded by the shorter, less physical Ramblers by a 30-27 total. Moreover, against the nation’s top scoring defense, the Big Ten tournament champions committed 17 turnovers to but 11 for the eighth-seeded Ramblers.
“It’s been a whole season of that,” said Loyola’s beefy third-team All-America post player Cameron Krutwig after his sensational 19-point, 12-rebound, five-assist, four-steal performance. “That’s our defense. It’s not just a 48-hour scout. I guess people kind of forgot; we were the No. 1 defense in the country this year. People chalk it up to being a mid-major.”
AP photo by Paul Sancya / Loyola Ramblers basketball coach Porter Moser celebrates after his team upset No. 1 seed Illinois 71-58 on Sunday in Indianapolis.If you’re a high-major program such as Indiana, Iowa State or Minnesota looking for a new head coach, you should chalk up this latest Loyola tourney run to the Ramblers’ Porter Moser, whose teams play with extreme poise, patience and purpose, almost never allowing their opponents to dictate tempo.
Strictly following Sister Jean’s playbook, the Missouri Valley Conference champs jumped on top early, led by nine at halftime and by double figures most of the final half.
It was this same unnerving efficiency that not only got them to the Final Four three years ago, but also had them 10 points ahead of Michigan with 14 minutes to play before running out of gas in that semifinal loss. But this time, against a slightly smaller, weaker-shooting Big Ten opponent, the Ramblers not only prevailed with relative ease, but would appear to be a very difficult out from this point forward in this fan-restricted, back home in Indiana-only tourney.
Moser has reportedly turned down some pretty appealing offers before, but if Indiana came calling with its rabid fan base, five national championship banners and an apparent desperation to return to the Final Four for the first time since 2002 and win the NCAA title for the first time since 1987, the Hoosiers might be hard to turn down, even with Sister Jean no doubt praying for Moser to remain in the Windy City.
Yet as great as the Ramblers’ upset was, it was not a bit better than Abilene Christian’s shocking win over Texas late, late Saturday night.
In fact, for pure guts under pressure, the Wildcats’ last-second 53-52 win may have been the highlight of the tournament thus far, given that Texas had drained a 3-pointer to take the lead with less than 15 seconds to play before Abilene’s Joe Pleasant – a 58.8% shooter at the foul line this season – knocked down two free throws with 1.2 seconds left to give his school, also in Texas, a monumental memory in just its second NCAA tourney ever.
“I was visualizing the free throws going in before I shot them,” Pleasant said afterward. “I was just trying to key in on the rim, just lock in and block out the noise.”
If there was a common denominator between Loyola’s win and Abilene’s upset, it was defense. While the Ramblers led the nation in scoring defense at 55 points a game, the Wildcats were seventh at 60. Against Texas, Abilene forced 23 turnovers, keeping the Longhorns frazzled most of the night.
And all this was done with one Wildcats guard, Damien Daniels, all of 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, attempting to shut down players up to 10 inches taller, and another, Reggie Miller, who’s supposedly five inches taller but only 10 pounds heavier, attempting similar defensive magic.
And, no, he’s not related to former NBA star Reggie Miller, who’s apparently camping out at Wendy’s this month in order to more easily enjoy the fast-food restaurant’s three new breakfast sandwiches.
But three days into the opening four-day weekend of March Madness, it would be tough for any basketball fan not cheering for Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio State, Tennessee or Texas to not enjoy the results thus far in what just may become the wildest, most unpredictable NCAA tourney ever. With the exception of the No. 16 seed line, every other seed, numbers 1 through 15, has won at least one game. Remarkable, as ESPN analyst Jay Bilas is prone to say.
Or as Abilene Christian coach Joe Golding noted in the wee small hours of Sunday morning after shocking the Longhorns: “We needed March Madness, man. We needed some type of normalcy to our country. We needed people to fill out brackets. We needed people to cheer for the underdog. It’s what March is all about.”
Amen.
Mark WiedmerContact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @TFPWeeds.