Loyola-Chicago takes its place among March Madness’ greatest Cinderellas

If it hadn’t already, Loyola-Chicago etched its permanent place in NCAA tournament lore on Saturday with a 78-62 win over Kansas State in the South Regional Final.

With the win, the 11th-seeded Ramblers have matched the record for the worst-seeded team to crash the Final Four. The 1986 LSU Tigers, 2006 George Mason Patriots, and 2011 VCU Rams are the only other squads in history to accomplish the feat.

Those previous three ultimate underdogs weren’t able to win one more game and advance to play for the national title. No double-digit seed has. There’s reason to believe Loyola-Chicago can be the first.

That 1986 LSU team eked out a 59-57 win over Kentucky to claim its regional final. George Mason stunned Connecticut by two in overtime. Two years ago, 10th-seeded Syracuse needed a miracle flurry in the final minutes to nip top-seeded Virginia by six.

Loyola, meanwhile, punched its ticket to the national semifinals with a dominant performance where they appeared to be in control from start to finish. Sure, Kansas State was an overachieving No. 9 seed, but this is still a team that entered Saturday as one of the best defensive teams in the country. The Wildcats currently rank 14th in Ken Pom’s adjusted defensive efficiency rankings and were allowing opponents to score an average of just 66.7 points per game heading into Saturday night.

The evisceration of that defense was a welcome change for a Loyola team that had captured the nation’s attention by winning its first three games in the Big Dance by a total of four points. Only the 1980-81 Saint Joseph’s Hawks won their first three tournament games by that slim a margin.

The best thing about Loyola for the portion of the American public that plans on now watching them in the Final Four is that they give the viewer the best of both worlds.

On one hand, the Ramblers check every box when it comes to fitting the profile of the classic March Madness Cinderella.

Loyola spends its January and February playing in the Missouri Valley Conference, a decidedly mid-major league. The Ramblers don’t have any former five-star recruits, they only have one player taller than 6’7 who plays major minutes, and this is their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1985. Their head coach, Porter Moser, was fired by another school from their same conference and their same state (Illinois State) after a less than stellar four-year stint that spanned from 2003-07.

On the other hand, if you didn’t know any better, Loyola would never make you feel like you were watching an unmistakable underdog.

The Ramblers defend straight up as well as any team in the country. On their way to the Final Four, they’ve held four teams blessed with next-level talent — Miami, Tennessee, Nevada and Kansas State — to under 70 points. Their season of average of allowing just 62.4 points per game is the fourth-best in the country.

But this isn’t a team that can only win rock fights. In fact, the Ramblers might have the best half-court offense of any team still standing besides Villanova. They shot 57.4 percent from the field against Kansas State on Sunday, the 24th time they’ve shot at least 50 percent from the field in a game this season. No team in the country can claim more. All five starters average double-figures in scoring, and four of those five are shooting better than 50 percent from the field for the season.

It’d be naive to say that an 11 seed playing its way to the Final Four for just the fourth time ever isn’t surprising, but it’s not a stretch to say that what the Ramblers have done these last three weeks hasn’t been shocking. Or at least that it shouldn’t have been.

Loyola gave us a glimpse of things to come when it won at then-No. 5 Florida on Dec. 6. After losing two of its first three games in the always fierce MVC, the Ramblers rolled to a 15-3 league mark and then captured the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament with three straight wins in Saint Louis. Sunday’s win improved Moser’s team’s overall record to a sparkling 32-5.

Loyola’s paper resume heading into Selection Sunday showed the world it could play. But there’s a difference between staring at results and witnessing the actual process that produced them. Watching the Ramblers play for the last two weeks has left no doubt: They can hang with anyone else who’s heading to San Antonio.

Between Sister Jean, the wins in the final seconds and the double-digit number next to its name, Loyola was always going to be remembered fondly by many for a long time. Two more wins and the Ramblers will be remembered forever by everyone.