Tales such as Sister Jean, Cinderella fading from March Madness
SAN ANTONIO, Texas
The room was filled to capacity some 20 minutes before a scheduled news conference Friday, several television cameras lining the back wall and bodies crammed against each other, others spilling into an overflow area outside, reporters furiously holding smartphones aloft while preparing to stream the madness.
Bless me Father, for I have sinned, I purposefully whacked the guy next to me in the head so as to secure the perfect angle for Facebook Live because, as the moderator just said: “Sister Jean is in the building.”
A colleague once told me that if I stayed in this business long enough, there is nothing I wouldn’t see.
A jam packed Final Four press conference … Jay Wright? Bill Self? Hall of Fame players? No.
Just announced: “Sister Jean is in the building.” #rjnow pic.twitter.com/9TmJRifRd3— Ed Graney (@edgraney) March 30, 2018
I hate when that guy is right.
I’m not sure Easter Weekend at any point was meant to be highlighted by Fatheads of a 98-year-old nun, but college basketball’s biggest party is overcome with fascination about the team chaplain for Cinderella, also known as the No. 11 seed Loyola-Chicago.
“It looked like Tom Brady at the Super Bowl,” Loyola-Chicago coach Porter Moser said of Friday’s media availability with his team’s spiritual leader.
Sister Jean has become the face of this NCAA Tournament and will again offer her personal scouting report to the Ramblers on Saturday prior to their Final Four game against a No. 3 seed in Michigan at the Alamodome — probably something along the lines of “They can shoot” — an opening semifinal that will be followed by a pair of 1s meeting in Villanova and Kansas.
No matter which side of the aisle you sit when it comes to Sister Jean Mania, those who can’t get enough of the affable and amusing religious figure from her wheelchair after breaking her hip in November and decked in the team’s yellow and maroon colors or those who would prefer a penance of sitting in a corner for two consecutive weeks over hearing another word from or about her, she and the Ramblers represent a rapidly fading entity:
The mid-major is becoming less and less of a presence in the 68-team bracket.
And that’s a shame.
Loyola-Chicago wouldn’t be here, a run that includes wins against Power 5 programs in Miami and Tennessee and Kansas State, had it not won the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.
Do you remember past Final Four magic spun by the likes of at-large teams George Mason in 2006 and Virginia Commonwealth in 2011?
Those teams would never sniff a berth in 2018.
It’s an important image, the NCAA being so engaged and excited about the interest in a Sister Jean gathering such as the one Friday, and yet at the same time obviously setting a trend where its selection committee is favoring teams from power conferences over potentially captivating mid-majors when awarding at-large spots.
College basketball hasn’t totally become like college football , but it’s closer than ever.
“I hope our run sparks some conversation on trying to continue to find the best way to get (more mid-majors in),” Moser said. “I think we need to continue to find the best way because, according to everybody, we weren’t going to get in.
“I mean, you could get a tweaked ankle in practice to a star player for us, and lose by one in the conference tournament and we’re not here. The one thing that bothers me, and it bothers a lot of other coaches in the country with the scheduling at our level, is they, like, blame us for our schedule. Like, well, he scheduled really weak. That is not the case.
“I have — we have a list of like 100 calls — for home-and-homes against (major programs). (The answer is) no. We want a hard schedule. We’re trying. I had a Power 5 school buy out of a game this year just not to play us. And I can tell you right now, with the last three weeks, it’s (going to get) even harder.”
This team almost wasn’t here: The one with no local radio deal, no fancy practice facility, with the only consistent media at games being a school newspaper that publishes on Wednesdays, with two kids on its roster who have played together since the third grade.
The one with the rock star of a nun as its most famous member.
“I like to pray for both teams, but only partly, because at the end of the prayer, I always ask God to be sure that the scoreboard indicates the Ramblers have the big ‘W’,” said Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt. “We have a little slogan: Worship, Work, Win. God always hears, but maybe sometimes he thinks it’s better for us to have the ‘L’ than the ‘W’, and we have to accept that.”
This is — or at least should be — the essence of March, and yet it’s getting tougher and tougher for Cinderella to score an invite.
And that’s a shame.
Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.
