Last season it was Northwestern University. This season it’s Loyola with a berth in the men’s basketball 68-team National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament. Last year Northwestern qualified for the first time in the tournament.
Thanks to a 64-49 victory over Illinois State in the championship game of the Missouri Valley Conference tournament Sunday in St. Louis, the 28-5 Ramblers, led by head coach Porter Moser, will be in the tournament and end a 33-year absence.
Moser, a Naperville product who played at Benet Academy before going to Creighton University, is a study in coaching persistence. This season marks Moser’s 14th as a Division I head coach. Moser was head coach at Arkansas–Little Rock, and Illinois State, before landing on Chicago’s North Side where he is in his seventh season.
Beating Illinois State for the championship in the conference tournament had to be good for Moser. He was head coach at Illinois State from 2003-2004 through 2006-2007. Moser struggled with victories during his time in Normal and finished with a 51-67 overall record.
• No tournament bid was at stake Friday night in DeKalb when Northern Illinois was host to Ball State in the final regular-season Mid-American Conference game for both teams. The Huskies finished strong with a 66-65 victory.
Trailing 65-59, with little more than a minute to go, Northern Illinois University, 13-18 and 6-12 in the MAC, rallied to beat Ball State. A jump shot with 12.4 seconds remaining by Northern Illinois’ Eugene German, who led all scorers with 25 points, made the difference. German, a sophomore guard, was named to the second team all-MAC honor team.
The Huskies were involved in another close game Monday night, however, Northern Illinois ended up on the short end and lost, 61-59, to Kent State in the opening round of the MAC tournament. The defeat left Northern Illinois with a final season record of 13-19. Kent State’s Kevin Zabo ended the Huskies’ season when he converted a layup when time had expired to break the tie at 59. Junior Levi Bradley led the Huskies in scoring with 18 points. German added 12 points.