Chicago-style March Madness has finally returned
Most Chicago sports fans probably do a Cubs-Sox, day-night, Red Line doubleheader at some point in their lives.
There was an opportunity Saturday for an extremely rare March Madness twinbill. Loyola played at home in the afternoon, Northwestern at night for the final game of their regular seasons.
Both schools are hoping to make the NCAA Tournament. Both rebuilt their arenas with the intention of creating a more frenzied basketball atmosphere. Heading into Saturday, both teams were 14-2 at home this season.
How unique is this scenario? Well, there's a chance three state schools could make the tournament this year. Illinois is definitely in, Northwestern is probably in. Loyola has a decent chance, but probably needs to win the Atlantic-10 tournament next week.
The last time three state schools made the NCAA tournament was 2006 (Illinois, Bradley, SIU). It's only happened eight times ever, and half of those in the ‘80s.
There haven't been four Illinois schools in the tournament since 2004 (Illinois, DePaul, UIC, SIU), which was also the last time DePaul made it in.
A week before Selection Sunday, here's what was happening with the Sheridan Road non-rivals:
Stop 1: Devon Ave
Full disclosure, the CTA was not utilized for this particular trip, though it would have been convenient. The Loyola-LaSalle game was a sellout, but at tipoff Gentile Arena looked a bit like a Miami Heat home game, with a fair share of empty seats. Anyone who's attempted to get into the Loyola parking garage knows how that goes.
Anyway, Loyola won 64-54 to wrap up the No. 2 seed in the A-10 tourney, which means the next game will be Thursday at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The Ramblers finished tied for first place with Richmond, but lost the lone head-to-head meeting on Jan. 9.
After the game coach Drew Valentine talked about how rewarding it was to go from 10 wins last year in the school's A-10 debut to 23 and counting this season.
“Nobody thought we would be here except for us,” Valentine said. “It's a true testament to a team.”
Loyola cut down both nets after the game. Valentine took an extra snip and handed the piece of the net to Sister Jean, still a fan at 104.
How did the Ramblers improve so dramatically? Well, the first-year struggles had little to do with the league change. Pretty much everyone on the Loyola roster besides center Cam Krutwig decided to run it back in 2021-22.The Ramblers won the Missouri Valley one last time, returned to the NCAA Tournament and lost to Ohio State.
A step down was inevitable since Loyola lost five of its top seven scorers. This season they added a few quality transfers, mainly guard Des Watson from Davidson and 6-8 forward Dame Adelekun from Dartmouth.
On Saturday, Loyola played inside-out, letting Adelekun pound away on the inside, with 3-point shooters waiting on the perimeter. If he were 6-foot-4 instead of 6 feet, grad student Braden Norris (43.8% from 3-point range) would probably be a lock to land an NBA two-way contract.
Loyola fans got particularly loud when Naperville North grad Tom Welch, who played in his 146th career game, knocked down a 3-pointer. Welch couldn't help but smile on his way back downcourt.
Everything is going well except the team's NET Rating. As of Saturday afternoon, Loyola ranked 87th, sixth-best among Atlantic-10 teams. Valentine was asked if he could make sense of situation.
“Yeah, I would talk about our non-con schedule,” he said. “We didn't blow people out enough, the Quad 4s that we played. You've got to win those by 10-15 plus. Then our league games have all been pretty tight. We had a bad home loss and a bad road loss that really hurt us.
“If you come and watch us in person, there's no way you can't say that we're not a Top 50 team in the country. If the NCAA Tournament committee really want the 68 best teams in it, then we'll be in it.”
Stop 2: Central Ave
Northwestern coach Chris Collins played and coached at Duke, so it makes sense that he'd want to create a hyped-up student section.
The Welsh-Ryan rebuild happened during the 2017-18 season. Words can't describe how much more comfortable the arena has become, and with team success, the students have responded. Both baselines were filled long before tip-off against Minnesota on Saturday.
“I think it's been huge,” Collins said of the student enthusiasm. “We're 8-1 in conference here. I feel like three or four of those wins were games that our crowd really helped us through. The energy of the crowd, the energy of the building gave our guys the life they needed to kind of get it over the hump.
“When we built this building, that's everything we dreamed of. We wanted to create an atmosphere that would be very tough place for teams to play and I think that's played out this year.”
Saturday was senior night, which meant a farewell to guard Boo Buie, one of the best players in program history. It was also a sign of the time for this injury-plagued Wildcats team. Center Matt Nicholson walked out on crutches and guard Ty Berry limped onto the court with his season-ending leg injury.
Northwestern's NET rating was 52 heading into Saturday's game, a 90-66 victory, which is a little dicey. But a win against the Gophers, plus a loss by either Wisconsin or Nebraska on Sunday, would give the Wildcats a top-four seed and double bye in the Big Ten tournament. So they're probably in good shape as long as a low-seeded team doesn't win the conference tourney.
If NU gets the NCAA bid, it will be third of Collins' tenure and third in school history.
“This group has had a toughness and a resiliency to say, 'This is who we are now,'” Collins said. “We've worked very hard to become a winning program. This is what the culture of Northwestern basketball is.
“I don't know that I've ever coached a tougher team. It's been a really special group to coach and we hope to be playing for a while.”
Twitter: @McGrawDHSports