Happily Ever After not reality for Sister Jean and Loyola
SAN ANTONIO — The darkness couldn’t conceal his tears, and it’s not as if Carson Shanks cared, the senior forward’s eyes and those of several teammates beginning to well as the first notes of the national anthem began inside the Alamodome on Saturday.
“To be on that stage, at the Final Four, 70,000 people there, I just couldn’t believe it,” Shanks said. “At that moment, it was pretty powerful and special and surreal, something we worked for our entire lives.
“We were the team that wasn’t supposed to hang around very long, the double-digit seed that would lose early, the team during the whole tournament people were going to knock out.”
So they wept before the biggest game most of them will play, and they wept after.
Life isn’t always about Happily Ever After.
Fairy tales might come true on the big screen and in books, but they can be brutal otherwise, and the feel-good script that Loyola-Chicago wrote in this NCAA Tournament never found its perfect ending.
Michigan played the villain to the underdog narrative, using a huge second-half effort to beat the Ramblers 69-57 in the national semifinals.
The Wolverines will meet Villanova in Monday night’s final. The Wildcats blew out Kansas 95-79 in the other semifinal.
A few minutes remained in what would be the final game for an 11 seed that made its way through the South Regional when its team chaplain and nun who became so incredibly famous overnight was wheeled from the arena to a back area, where she would meet the Ramblers as they exited the floor.
Sister Jean at 98 years old gave this event the sort of sidebar story it has known few times, and a nation responded to her.
She forever will be synonymous with March and has the Bobblehead and socks with her face on them to prove it.
She even drew the respect of opponents, much like when Michigan guard Jordan Poole stopped to speak with her afterward.
“I told her I was a big fan,” Poole said. “To build a fan base how she did, and being able to have Loyola have so many fans out here, I just thought the entire concept and everything that she brought to the table was amazing.”
The story ended because Michigan had the game’s best player in junior Moe Wagner, a 6-foot-11-inch forward who went for 24 points and 15 rebounds. Because the Wolverines scored 47 second-half points after trailing by seven at intermission. Because you can’t allow Michigan 11 offensive rebounds and 19 second-chance points and expect to win. Because no matter how much Loyola wanted to advance, even a little divine intervention wasn’t going to overcome the fact that Michigan shot 57 percent in the final 20 minutes.
“I don’t know if they had magic on their side (this tournament),” Michigan coach John Beilein said. “They’re good. They wouldn’t be here if they were not good. People don’t know how good they are until you see them out there. They stopped being a Cinderella when they got to the Sweet 16, to me, as an 11 seed.”
But even the kind and gentle stepsister got sloppy at the worst possible time.
During one second-half stretch, when the Wolverines were in the midst of a 17-2 run, Loyola turned the ball over on five straight possessions.
Points off turnovers: Michigan 22, Loyola 7.
“This is something that’s been developing over the past couple of years, the culture of things, the little things that separate us,” Loyola coach Porter Moser said. “We don’t have to be the most talented team, but I think we’re together. I told these guys that we’re going to be connected for life.
“They changed the perception of a program. They impacted so many lives, starting with our campus and then it just spread. I’m saddened that this is over with these kids.”
It’s life. The slipper doesn’t always fit, Sleeping Beauty doesn’t always wake up and the mermaid doesn’t always defeat the sea witch.
Jimmy Chitwood doesn’t even always make the shot, though the thought of that borders on sacrilegious.
None of it, however, takes away what Loyola gave college basketball in this tournament, what the story of Sister Jean meant to so many.
The sad truth: Happily Ever After is much easier to find on the big screen and in books.
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.
