If the Missouri Valley Conference doesn’t have a dominant team this year, one sure wouldn’t have known that after watching the first game of Friday’s Arch Madness quarterfinals.
Loyola Chicago may have been just a co-champion of this year’s MVC regular season, sharing the title with Drake. The Ramblers also lost six times in conference play, and their overall 19-12 record entering the tourney won’t wow anyone.
What Loyola also is, though, is the defending MVC tourney champions and a program that advanced to the NCAA Final Four last year. The Ramblers sure looked like a team drawing from a wealth of postseason experience, too, in blowing out ninth-seeded Valparaiso 67-54 Friday to advance to a semifinal matchup Saturday afternoon against the winner of the 4/5 game between Bradley and Missouri State.
The Ramblers put on a clinic in March basketball on both ends. Loyola shot 64% and held Valparaiso to 25.8% shooting in the first half in building a 40-18 halftime lead. The intensity level combined with execution on both ends was superior. The final score doesn’t indicate the level of dominance; it was 56-29 with just over 11 minutes left before the Ramblers tapped the brakes a bit while the young Crusaders scrapped to make it closer at the end.
The result itself was not surprising in that top seeds are undefeated in the quarterfinals in this tourney’s 43-year history, a perfect 41-0 now. The way it was reached was an eye-opener.
In many recent years, the No. 1 seed might show a bit of rust in its tourney debut, while the winner of the 8-vs.-9 play-in game, with a game under the belts, hangs with the top seed much of the way. Just last year, Loyola itself trailed Northern Iowa with just over eight minutes left before pulling through late.
Valparaiso also very nearly beat Loyola in their last game back in February. This one, though, was domination from the start. The Ramblers scored the game’s first seven points and were never seriously threatened by a Valpo team that just the night before had won its first-ever MVC Tournament game. Loyola led for all but 51 seconds and finished shooting 51.9%, its 19th time topping 50% this season.
“These guys have bought into, in this setting, you’ve really got to defend,” said Loyola coach Porter Moser. “I thought we did a nice job spacing and moving the ball on offense. But for me, I was so excited about how we started defensively. I thought that dictated everything. I thought it dictated our confidence on offense.”
Big man Cameron Krutwig scored 18 points inside for the Ramblers, Marques Townes also scored 15 and Lucas Williamson added 10. The production was throughout the lineup, though, with eight players scoring in the first half, all providing meaningful baskets.
Moser in particular cited his bench for their play in keeping the intensity up after Loyola’s strong start. Reserves Franklin Agunanne, Cooper Kaifes, Christian Negron and Bruno Skokna all contributed as the Ramblers built a big lead and quickly.
“I thought our bench came in, and there wasn’t any letdown on either end,” said Moser. “I thought our bench did a great job-Frank, Bruno, Cooper, Christian-those four guys did a great job off the bench elevating the play. That’s what you want from your bench, to elevate the energy. I thought they did a great job defensively and continuing to do it.”
“Obviously, we were here last year, we played in a big-time game here, a couple of big-time games,” said Krutwig. “It’s good to be familiar. We know the surroundings. We know what the arena is like. We know where the bench is going to be, things like that, just to get familiar.
“You can’t forget about last year, but you try to just kind of block it out and just focus on the game that we’re about to play. This year is a new year.”
“We have veterans and people that have been here before,” added Townes. “Me, Krut, Clay (guard Clayton Custer), Lucas, Christian, Bruno. We have a lot of guys that have been here before, and all we try to do is tell the young guys that we had come in that last year we just had such a laser-like focus on blocking out everything and focusing on what we need to do game after game, just one game at a time.”
Like most Valley teams this year, Loyola’s season has had ups and downs. Like just about all the rest of the league, Loyola missed in most of its swings against name competition in November and December.
At the same time, there have been times when it might have been hard to tell this wasn’t the same team as last year’s Ramblers, at least offensively. Loyola shot 49.7% from the field for the season coming into Arch Madness, eighth-best in the country. In 19 games when it has shot 50% or better now, it is 18-1. In their 19 wins before St. Louis, the Ramblers shot a steamy 55.4%.
As is quite easily detectable by the overall record, though, when Loyola doesn’t shoot well it hasn’t been pretty. The Ramblers scored 41 points in a loss to Maryland, 42 in defeat against Saint Joseph’s, 48 in a decisive loss at Valley 10th place team and 35 in a cover-your-eyes 70-35 loss at Missouri State. (The latter game also included the ‘distinction’ of Loyola grabbing nine rebounds-in the entire game) The collective shooting in those games: 34.6%. The record when not hitting that 50% mark: 2-11.
The inconsistency has been understandable and probably should’ve been expected to a degree. Though three starters returned from last year’s team, only five players total saw consistent action last year. Like most MVC teams this season, injury also played some role, as expected breakthrough player Williamson appeared in just 13 games in the regular season due to a pair of injuries.
It can’t be denied, though: when Loyola has been good, it’s been really good.
Of course, this was only one game, and if this year’s MVC has proven anything, it’s that consistency is not something to be counted on by any team. Still, it’s hard not to think there’s something to the Ramblers’ postseason experience, and that this team is the favorite in St. Louis again this year.
“These guys will tell you, all we’re talking about is right in front of us,” said Moser. “We don’t feel any urgency either way. We prepare every game through the whole year like the next game in front of us is the biggest game of the year.
“These guys don’t feel any different with their prep. We prep the same way every game. We don’t talk about at the end. We talk about what’s right in front of us. We did it last year. These guys love that. They bought into it.”
“We also were just talking, whether you win by 20 in a tournament setting, by two, five, eight-it doesn’t make a difference, it’s still a win,” continued Moser. “It doesn’t mean you’re great because you won by this point total. It doesn’t mean you’re not as good because you won by one. You advance and get right back to it, and we’ve got to prepare the next opponent. That will have nothing to do with our next
