Let there be no shame in Loyola’s game after 69-57 Final Four loss to Michigan

SAN ANTONIO — They walked off the court as they came into this sport: inexorably linked.

Ben Richardson’s left arm was slung over Clayton Custer’s shoulders. Custer’s right arm hugged the middle of Richardson’s back. Richardson, a senior, fought the tears that wouldn’t stop flowing. Custer, a junior, held them back to be strong for the friend who has been at his side since boyhood.

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“He’s my best friend,” Custer said a short time later in a losing locker room filled with winners. “I’m just so sad that we’re not going to be playing together anymore.”

For game after magical game, Loyola showed us how winning is done. Saturday night in a game as big for the Ramblers as all of Texas, they showed us how to lose. They played hard. They cried hard. They loved and leaned on one another.

Let there be no shame in the Ramblers’ game after a 69-57 loss to Michigan in the Final Four.

You know, there’s a reason No. 11 seeds are 0-4 in national semifinals. The reason is they never were supposed to get to those games in the first place. Seventeen times, an 11 has toppled a 3 like the Wolverines — and all 17 times, it happened in the Round of 32.

These Ramblers maxed out, went as far as they could, went further than almost anyone could’ve dreamed.

“I couldn’t be more proud,” coach Porter Moser said. “Or [more] saddened that this is over.”

It was far from a perfect effort from Moser’s team. There were too many turnovers committed, too many offensive rebounds allowed and a devastating absence of three-point shots made.

But the Ramblers came back from an early 12-4 deficit with a 15-3 run that gave everyone supporting them — from here to Rogers Park and beyond — hope. They took a double-digit second-half lead with their trademark grit and toughness. Marques Townes and Aundre Jackson carried the flag for a while. Then unflappable freshman Cameron Krutwig took it. Then Custer, the team’s most decorated player, took it.

All of them, they didn’t go down without a fight. They went down with pieces of the Wolverines under their fingernails.

“We’re a true team,” Custer said.

Toward the end, all they had left was a prayer and one another. Soon it came time for Moser to begin subbing out his seniors and other leading players, that moment when the finality of it all begins to hit home and the tears begin to flow. Richardson’s jersey went over his eyes. Townes’ eyes stayed hidden under a towel.

Graduate senior Carson Shanks, the 7-footer who leads the team in smiles but rarely plays, got into the game and cried right out there on the floor. Seated at his locker, he doubled over, his back heaving with sobs.

“These guys are like my brothers, you know?” Shanks said. “I love these guys so much. We never wanted it to end.”

With about two minutes to play, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was wheeled off the main floor of the Alamodome — but not without smiling at a section of Michigan fans in warm congratulations. Then she dutifully took her spot in the tunnel, where she would greet the Ramblers, one by one, with congratulations and encouragement.

In those first moments in the locker room, the emotion at its rawest, Moser reminded his players that it wasn’t a one-year or a two-year or a four-year commitment each of them had made to Loyola.

“You made a lifetime commitment,” he said. “We’re connected for life.”

Just think of all the Ramblers accomplished in the school’s 100th season of men’s basketball. They were so tough, so together, so good that — yes — it absolutely seemed well into the second half that they could win again and play for the national title Monday. If Jerry Harkness, Les Hunter, Vic Rouse and company could topple a Cincinnati powerhouse going for its third consecutive title in 1963, why couldn’t Loyola take down the Big Ten champs?

It turned out the Ramblers couldn’t, but such a glorious ride it was.

“The memories will outweigh the pain,” Krutwig said.

And such friends they’ve all become.

“I’ll never forget this run and the guys that were a part of it,” senior Donte Ingram said. “We’re a family.”

No shame, no blame. The Ramblers held their own at the Final Four because that’s just what they’re made of. It was more than good enough.