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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3Representatives wish to congratulate the Loyola University
4Chicago Men's Basketball team for their magnificent season this
5year; and
 
6    WHEREAS, The Ramblers compiled a record of 28 wins and 5
7loses during the regular season and advanced to the NCAA
8Basketball Tournament for the first time since 1985; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Led by Head Coach Porter Moser, the Ramblers won
10the Missouri Valley Conference by defeating Illinois State
11University in the championship game 65 to 49 on March 4; Loyola
12ended the regular season on a ten-game winning streak; and
 
13    WHEREAS, As a result of Loyola's great regular season,
14Porter Moser was voted Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the
15Year; and
 
16    WHEREAS, Loyola University Chicago has been a member of the
17Missouri Valley Conference since July 1, 2013; prior to that,
18Loyola was in the Horizon League for 34 years as a charter
19member; and
 
20    WHEREAS, Loyola University Chicago received an invitation

 

 

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1to the NCAA Tournament and was the eleventh seed in the South
2Region; in the first round, on March 15, their opponent, the
3University of Miami, Florida, was the sixth seed; it was a
4close game, with the Rambler's Donte Ingram hitting a
5three-point shot with only three-tenths of a second left,
6giving Loyola the win, 64 to 62; and
 
7    WHEREAS, In the second round (the Round of 32) on March 17,
8Loyola faced the University of Tennessee, which was the third
9seed in the South Region; in another close contest, Loyola's
10Clayton Custer hit a fifteen-foot jumper with 3.6 seconds left
11in the game to seal the victory for the Ramblers, 63 to 62;
12this would not be Custer's Last Stand; and
 
13    WHEREAS, This has been another great season for Mr. Custer;
14his honors include being named the Larry Bird Player of the
15Year in the Missouri Valley Conference, and he was also named
16as a First Team Scholar-Athlete in the Missouri Valley
17Conference; other highlights this season for Clayton include:
18Associated Press Honorable Mention All-America, CoSIDA
19Academic All-District, and the Lou Henson Award; Clayton and
20Donte Ingram were named NABC All-District 16; Cameron Krutwig
21was named MVC Freshman of the Year; Ben Richardson and Clayton
22Custer were each named as a MVC First Team Scholar-Athlete and
23Division I-AAA Scholar-Athlete; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In the third round (the Sweet Sixteen) of the NCAA
2Tournament on March 22, Loyola's opponent was the University of
3Nevada, Las Vegas, ranked as the seventh seed in the South
4Region; the Ramblers played with great enthusiasm and precision
5as time and time again they moved the ball to the basket;
6Marques Townes had an outstanding game, scoring 18 points
7including a 3-pointer with 6.3 seconds left in the game when
8Loyola was ahead by one point; with a four-point lead, the
9Ramblers held on to win 69 to 68; and
 
10    WHEREAS, In the fourth round (the Elite Eight) on March 24,
11the Ramblers played Kansas State University, ranked as the
12ninth seed in the South Region; teamwork once again was
13paramount in how Loyola played; like the three previous
14tournament games, "a star was born"; this time it was Ben
15Richardson who scored 23 points, including six of seven
16three-pointers; his superb offensive performance added to his
17already illustrious reputation; Mr. Richardson had been named
18the Missouri Valley Conference's Defensive Player of the Year;
19he was named as a First Team Scholar-Athlete in the Missouri
20Valley Conference, and he was also honored as the South
21Region's Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament; by
22virtue of its victory over Kansas State, 78 to 62, Loyola won
23the South Region and moved on to the Final Four for the first
24time since 1963 and extended its winning streak to fourteen,
25the longest of any team in the tournament; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In the fifth round (the Final Four), held on March
231, Loyola's opponent was the University of Michigan, ranked as
3the third seed in the West Region; the Ramblers played with a
4lot of heart and led at halftime 29 to 22; this was an
5incredible effort by Loyola given how powerful Michigan's
6offense had been all season; however, with about 6 minutes left
7in the game, Michigan took the lead and ended up with a
8victory; and
 
9    WHEREAS, Throughout Loyola's NCAA Tournament run, Sister
10Jean Dolores Schmidt was a delight and an inspiration to the
11team; as Team Chaplain, "Sister Jean" (as she is affectionately
12known) inspired and motivated the Loyola Ramblers in
13immeasurable ways; she has been a Sister in the religious order
14of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin (BVM) since
151937 and has been Team Chaplain since 1996; now at the age of
1698, she cemented the team ethos with her signature phrase:
17"Worship, Work and Win"; in addition to her other honors,
18Sister Jean had bestowed upon her one of the greatest of sports
19honors, a bobblehead doll from the National Bobblehead Hall of
20Fame and Museum; pre-orders have already surpassed the 15,000
21mark, making her Bobblehead the biggest seller of all time by
22far; by the end of the tournament it was safe to say that
23Sister Jean was not just Loyola's treasure, but the nation's as
24well; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Other Loyola University highlights for the season
2include: a school record 32 wins, finishing the season ranked
3No. 7 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, first outright
4regular-season conference championship since 1985, first NCAA
5Tournament appearance since 1985, first NCAA Final Four
6appearance since 1963, and only the fourth No. 11 seed in NCAA
7Tournament history to reach the Final Four; during the season
8they defeated four nationally ranked teams: Florida, Miami,
9Tennessee, and Nevada; Loyola Athletics ranked No. 1 in the
10NCAA for the second straight year with a 99% graduation success
11rate; and
 
12    WHEREAS, Loyola University Chicago has a long and storied
13history in basketball; in 1963, Loyola broke with college
14basketball's unwritten rule that no team should have more than
15two black players on the court at any given time; in so doing,
16they created a national conversation on race which led to the
17elimination of the limit on black players' court time; on March
1815, 1963, in the NCAA Tournament, Loyola played Mississippi
19State University; the governor of Mississippi had instructed
20the all-white Mississippi State team not to play against an
21integrated team; their coach and players refused to follow the
22instruction, and the game became known as the Game of Change;
23Loyola would go on to defeat the two-time defending champion,
24the University of Cincinnati Bearcats (ranked number one in the

 

 

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1nation), to win the national championship; Loyola remains the
2only Illinois school to ever win the NCAA Basketball Title; and
 
3    WHEREAS, Loyola University Chicago is a Jesuit school
4founded in 1870; its main campus, known as the Lake Shore
5Campus, is in the Rogers Park neighborhood on the northeast
6side, while its downtown campus, known as the Water Tower
7Campus, is next to Chicago's famed Magnificent Mile; Loyola has
8an enrollment of more than 16,000 students and boasts 150,000
9alumni, 85,000 of whom are in the Chicago area; team members
10volunteer at Misericordia Heart of Mercy; and
 
11    WHEREAS, As a Jesuit school, Loyola takes seriously its
12role in shaping students' lives; this is especially true of
13student-athletes, many of whom will never play professional
14sports; the degree they earn at Loyola is meaningful because of
15the school's commitment to their education, which takes the
16form of mentoring and tutoring to help guide them through a
17rigorous academic and athletic schedule; student-athletes at
18Loyola have a graduation rate of 99%; only five other schools
19in Division I sports have a graduation rate that high, four of
20them in the Ivy League; and
 
21    WHEREAS, All of Illinois is grateful and honored for the
22positive national attention brought to Loyola University and
23the City of Chicago; the Loyola University Men's Basketball

 

 

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1team had a thrilling season made noteworthy by its first
2appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1985 and by making it
3to the Final Four for the first time since 1963; Head Coach
4Porter Moser and the entire group of players: Adarius Avery,
5Jake Baughman, Dylan Boehm, Clayton Custer, Nick Dinardi, Donte
6Ingram, Aundre Jackson, Cameron Krutwig, Christian Negron, Ben
7Richardson, Cameron Satterwhite, Carson Shanks, Bruno Skokna,
8Marques Townes, Aher Uguak, and Lucas Williamson are rightly
9proud of their season and accomplishments; therefore, be it
 
10    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
11HUNDREDTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we
12congratulate the Loyola University Chicago Men's basketball
13team for its great season and its tremendous success in the
14NCAA Tournament; and be it further
 
15    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
16presented to Coach Porter Moser as a token of our esteem and
17good wishes.