#8 seed Loyola eliminates #1 seed Illinois 71-58

[egib52]

As an Illinois fan that was an excruciating loss. As a college basketball fan, it was a wonderful performance from Loyola and was a great template how mid-majors can win tournament games. Illinois' offense is based on spacing and beating people one-on-one. Loyola took that away. The movement on offense away from the ball by the two teams was night and day. Illinois would have 3 or 4 players standing around, Loyola was constantly moving. Oh and Loyola was criminally under-seeded.

[LittleBrave]

Loved this win. Agree Moser outcoached Underwood on both ends of the floor. I'll bet the Illini thought Kofi would dominate but Kofi never met anybody with Krutwig's moves. As a big Valley fan, and as somebody who doesn't like Illinois or the Big Ten, this was sweet to watch.

Yes indeed! Love these big Valley wins when it matters most!
I don't hate Illini, but I'll root for most any MVC team over a B-10 team any day!

[LittleBrave]

Loyola nowhere near being done yet.
They are capable of beating ANY team this season, which I couldn't say 3 yrs ago.
The problem is that Oreg. St feels THEY can beat any team right now and is the hottest team in the country.

I think if LUC gets past Oreg. St., they get to the Championship game - being truthful here.
LUC is a Butler-style program now - plays very similarly but they can shoot the 3 better than those great Butler teams a few seasons ago.

[patrick_o'brian]

I would add Loyola won both its conference and conference tournament, something three of the four No. 1 seeds didn't do.

I'm waiting for someone on the TV broadcasts to question why Loyola was an 8 seed. Haven't heard it yet.

And the 1 out of 4 that won their conference tournament, Loyola beat by a Baker’s dozen.

[bigjimmy]

Moser’s resume the past 4 years -

2017-18: Conference champs, conference tournament champs, 30+ win season, NCAA final 4

2018-19: Share of conference championship, 20 win season, NIT first round loss

2019-20: 2nd place finish in conference, 20+ win season.

2020-21: Conference champs, conference tournament champs, 25+ win season, Sweet 16 appearance, and likely an E8 or even F4 appearance again imo.

so in four years, 3x 1st place conference champs, 2x conference tournament champs, 4x 20 win seasons, 2x 25+ win seasons, NCAA final 4, NCAA S16+?.

IMO Moser has the strongest mid major coach resume since Brad Stevens coming off two NCAA championship game appearances. Especially if Moser advances past the S16 next weekend, which personally I expect it to happen.

If Moser wants a nice job upgrade after this season he is going to get it no question in my opinion. Does he want it? Who knows. But a $1-$2M/yr raise would be awful hard to turn down.

It seemed pretty obvious that Porter didn't seem to have what it took to be a head coach after leading ISU Red to a 51-67 4 year record, 22-50 in the conference. He became an assistant under Rick Majerus in the 07-08 season and was the associate head coach for the next 3 seasons and seemingly learned a great deal under him about offense and defense. Now it took a little while for Porter to get it going at Loyola as his 1sat 5 years he was 71-91, 15-63 in the Valley. A lot of schools would have been looking somewhere else for a new coach but credit to them for sticking with Porter. Maybe that's why he's remained loyal to them. He clearly enjoys being a Chicago guy leading a Chicago team as his contract goes through the 25-26 season. He and his wife have an 8 bedroom, 5,438 square foot mansion in Wilmette. As far as I know he's not given any indication that he's ready to move on. Indiana could be the opening that he would consider. With where he has Loyola at every other job would be a lateral move. Except Indiana. We'll see.

[Da Coach]

Link to an interview Dan Patrick did with Loyola's Cameron Krutwig. Worth watching. He seems like a really good kid, and a credit to the MVC-

https://twitter.com/NickSchultz_7/status/1374357041079271424