Big Dance: Loyola-Chicago Rambles Right in to the Elite Eight

The Nevada Wolf Pack is far from the only team that's powered by graduate transfers.

Chicago-Loyola's offensive engine room relies on a pair of them, too:

• Clayton Custer, coming from Iowa State, and
• Marques Townes, late of Fairleigh Dickinson.

They're both redshirt juniors and, combined with their supporting cast of frosh and seniors, led the Ramblers to a real-deal 29-5 record coming into March Madness.

 

Underscoring that sentiment, they're now 31-5.

Suffice to say they're a hardened squad when the rubber meets the road. Dudes got this far by:

• Squeaking out a 64-62 upset of Miami,
• Holding on for a 63-62 edge of Tennessee, and now
• Claiming a razor-thin 69-68 win over Nevada:

 

Townes was quite candid afterward, saying this crew expected to be here.

Not sure their team chaplain was that confident, but after 98 years, Sister Jean Darling figured she had the gravitas of experience and pulled out the God card:

 

Given their opponent was from a state where the wages of sin are wildly profitable, maybe she can be absolved for who the Big Dude likes best.

Seems like she's been swept away by the Madness, too.