How Loyola-Chicago built a March Madness dark horse out of thin air

In Loyola-Chicago coach Porter Moser’s office, a single picture hangs behind his desk — the Ramblers’ 1962-63 national title photo. The picture represents the only time an Illinois program has advanced all the way through the NCAA Tournament.

Fast forward 55 years and Loyola is still the best the state of Illinois has to offer. The Ramblers are champions of the Missouri Valley at 25-5 overall. Loyola has beaten a top-five team on the road (Florida), owned its conference with a 15-3 mark, and currently sits at No. 31 in the RPI.

Loyola hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 1985. The team finished just 18-14 a year ago. Now, the Ramblers look like a real March dark horse. This is how Moser has done it.

The Ramblers rank sixth in college basketball in effective field goal percentage (58.5 percent), and their potency derives from an abundance of ball-handling floor spacers. It’s what Moser and his staff have been working to develop since his arrival in 2011.

“Anytime you face a team where three, four, five guys can break you down off the dribble, it makes it really hard to scout, and it really puts a defense at a disadvantage,” Loyola assistant coach Bryan Mullins said.

Mullins helped orchestrate Southern Illinois’ run to the Sweet 16 in the 2006-07 campaign as its point guard — the same position as the Ramblers’ Clayton Custer, who has manufactured team highs in scoring (14.2 ppg) and assists per game (4.2). Following his freshman season at Iowa State under now-Chicago Bulls’ coach Fred Hoiberg, Custer departed for the Windy City in order to earn more playing time.

Although Mullins admitted the redshirt junior possesses a superior touch from the field, notching the Missouri Valley’s highest and the nation’s 23rd-best effective field goal percentage (65.4 percent), he said the standard Custer holds himself and the team to are similar to his playing days.

On top of that, fellow assistant Drew Valentine — a former assistant at Oakland and graduate assistant at Michigan State — carried over the point-five offense. Its personnel has a half-second to dribble, pass, shoot, or cut.

“If we’re on the road, and we’re not moving it well enough, they’ll stress point five, point five, point five, get the ball moving,” Custer said. “I don’t think it was a big adjustment really, it’s always a reminder that the coaches give us.”

In the backcourt, guards Marques Townes (11.3 ppg) and Ben Richardson (6.5 ppg) provide the floor general with consistent threats from behind the arc, shooting 44.6 and 38.2 percent on threes, respectively.

Richardson and Custer have played on almost every team together since third grade, as they lived 15 houses away from one another growing up. The two combined to lead Blue Valley Northwest High School to back-to-back Kansas state titles in 2013 and 2014.

“He (Richardson) obviously tried to get more to come on a visit here, and I did and had a great time,” Custer said. “I spent a lot of time with Coach Moser, and I just bought into everything he was saying. I thought it was a perfect fit to come play for Coach Moser and Ben.”

Meanwhile, freshman Cameron Krutwig operates as a point-forward from the low- and high-post. The 6’9, 260-pound center exhibits an uncanny ability to take defenders off the dribble, averaging 10.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game while shooting 60.3 percent from the field. The Algonquin, Illinois native boasts KenPom’s highest offensive rating in conference play, too.

“I don’t ever want to take away his passing cause it’s a unique thing when you have a five-man that can pass like him,” Moser said. “I’m really liking his mentality of trying to score more and get deeper position.”

Similar to Krutwig, wing Donte Ingram (11.5 ppg) and forward Aundre Jackson (11.2 ppg), who has generated a team-high 27.6 percent usage rate, are matchup nightmares. Mullins cited how the two focus on ball-handling and game-speed shots in practice, like the guards. He also noted how they stayed on campus over the summer to improve their respective skill sets. Ingram even handles point guard duties occasionally.

Jackson, Krutwig, and Ingram combined for 48 points via a 62.5 percent clip from the field in Loyola’s 65-59 win over then-ranked No. 5 Florida on Dec. 6 — the school’s first top-five victory since 1984.

On Feb. 21, the 6’1, 185-pound Custer totaled 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting in Loyola’s 75-56 win at Southern Illinois, clinching the program’s first-ever Missouri Valley regular-season title. In fact, that achievement marked the first time a Chicago school won an outright conference championship since 1984-85 — when the Ramblers won the Midwestern City Conference (the then-Horizon League) with the great Alfredrick Hughes.

Overall, they’ve won 14 of their last 15 games, knocking off opponents by an average of 12.6 points. Loyola ranks 23rd in the nation with an average scoring margin of 10.3 points.

Custer racked up a season-high five steals in the victory over the Salukis, which highlights the Ramblers’ intimate on- and off-ball defense. The group is tied for the 11th-lowest defensive efficiency (0.93 opponents’ points per possession), and Krutwig credited that towards “pressuring the pickup dribble,” as Loyola smothers opponents with their hands to rack up turnovers.

“When you get that deflection him, the next time he throws that pass, it might not be on target, or it might be a little more lofted cause he thinks we’re gonna get deflections,” Krutwig said. “Just to let him know, ‘I’m here, and you just can’t throw bullets right by me.’”

Despite the monumental upset over the Gators, the Ramblers’ hopes of advancing to the Big Dance without winning Arch Madness are slim, owning a 5.6 percent chance at an at-large bid on T-Rank. Loyola’s unit is confident its efficiency can help generate the school’s first trip to March Madness since the 1984-85 campaign, though.

“In the summertime, I think we wrote down what our major goals were for the year, and I think everyone wrote down, ‘Getting to the NCAA Tournament,’” Townes said. “Clay(ton Custer) went there at Iowa State, and I went there at my other school (Fairleigh Dickinson). We have a really good shot at doing it (here).”