Loyola To the Pinnacle

(St. Louis, MO) – Loyola continues to defy all the odds and the Ramblers are headed to the Final Four. A convincing 78-62 Elite Eight victory over Kansas State has given the Missouri Valley squad a reservation for next weekend’s San Antonio championships.

Outstanding shooting, precise passing and a career high 23 points from senior Ben Richardson were key ingredients to the Ramblers’ 32^nd victory (14^th straight). The Ramblers made 57% of their shots and nine of 18 from long distance, while handing out 17 assists. Richardson became the fourth LUC player to lead the team in scoring during the four games of the NCAA Tournament.

Richardson was named the regional’s most outstanding player. Joining Richardson on the all-tournament team were Ramblers Donte Ingram and Clayton Custer, Kansas State’s Xavier Sneed and Barry Brown.

Head coach Porter Moser continues to gush about how happy he is for his players.

“I’m so happy for them,” said Moser. “To see these guys experience that is an amazing feeling as a coach, to go through, have a locker room like this. I’m just really happy for those guys. This is not something where it just started. These guys have been investing for a long time on how hard they worked, how hard they believed, and we’ve kind of had this mantra about the process.”

Richardson, who hadn’t topped 14 points all season and is the one player in the starting lineup that does not average double figures in scoring, had a special night, the best night of his college career.

“You know, that’s just one of those moments that — like I can’t even explain,” mused Richardson. “But you know, I’ve got to credit my teammates for finding me. That’s what’s so special about our team. We’ve got so many unselfish guys, and we have so many weapons. And like we’ve been saying, it can be anybody’s night. We’ve shown that so far this tournament. Each one of these guys has had a big night. I was in a rhythm and they were finding me, and so I just kept taking shots. They went down, and it was a big-time game, the biggest game of my life.”

In addition to precision offense, the Ramblers held K-State to 35% shooting and their defense has been solid all season. Custer says their defensive success comes from hard work, both from the players and the coaches.

“Coach makes sure that we’re locked in on the defensive end,” said Custer. “Our coaching staff works harder than anybody I’ve ever seen to know every single tendency of every single player, and we have a specific way of how we want to guard things. The first focus is defense for us.”

Loyola will face Michigan (31-7) a 58-54 winner over Florida State in the national semifinal.

How will the Ramblers hold up against the mighty team from the Big 10? Moser and his team believe in working hard on defense.

“Like a couple of them said, you achieve what you emphasize,” said Moser. “We’ve been focusing in on it (defense) all year. All off-season they bought in that that’s what wins, and then they bought in that it creates offense. And they know we’ve got weapons and they know the way we do things offensively. But these guys have bought into the defense from day one. Ben and Donte have been here since day one and they’ve heard me say it every single year. You look at the top three teams in the Missouri Valley Conference, every year on defense they’re the three teams that finish it. And that was kind of something that drove them from the beginning to make it contagious amongst everybody to guard from day one.”

The many mantras of Porter Moser have sunk in to his team. They believe in ‘putting wins in the bank’, that there is ‘no finish line’, ‘fast feet’ and ‘defense wins’.

They have reached one pinnacle and they have a week to prepare for the next mountain climbing expedition.

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