Everybody loves an underdog. Add to that a lovable 98-year old nun as your unofficial mascot and you have America’s new basketball darling. But not even Sister Jean could save the Loyola Ramblers from arguably the hottest team in the country.
Michigan headed to the locker room at halftime trailing Loyola 29-22, but stepped up their defensive intensity in the 2nd – limiting a good 3-point shooting team behind the arc and outscoring the Ramblers 47-28 in the half to move on to Monday’s National Championship game.
“We made a concerted effort to take away the 3,” Coach Beilein noted. “They make seven a game, we limited them to one.”
And while some may consider Michigan the evil step mother to Loyola’s Cinderella story, players said with as good as the Ramblers have played, their tourney success should hardly be considered fairy tale-like.
“I don’t really like the saying “Cinderella story,” because it always includes somehow that they’re not supposed to be there,” said Michigan’s Moe Wagner. “And the way they’re playing it’s incredible…The whole villain thing, you guys love to write about it, talk about it, but at the end of the day it’s just basketball.”
Charles Matthews issued the same sentiments. “We never looked at the team as a Cinderella team. It’s like 300-something Division I teams and they’re one of the last four standing. That’s no Cinderella story. We respected them and we knew we had to come out and execute against them.”
Michigan will face Villanova at 9:20 EST in Monday’s NCAA Tournament Championship game.
Notes:
- Michigan improves to 33-7 and advances to the National Championship game for the 7th time in program history and the 1st time since 2013.
- Loyola sees the longest active winning streak in NCAA basketball snapped at 14 games.
- Michigan was held to 22 points in the first half, which was its lowest first-half total since it scored 21 in a 58-47 win over Northwestern.
- Loyola suffered their first defeat this season when leading their opponent at halftime.