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Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
Sport
Shannon Ryan

Clayton Custer hits game-winner in final seconds to beat Tennessee, send Loyola to Sweet 16

DALLAS _ Different day. Different hero.

Loyola did it again Saturday and is headed to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 1985.

Clayton Custer hit a jump shot with 3.6 seconds left, falling to the ground on the defended shot for a 63-62 victory over No. 3 seed Tennessee.

As has become tradition, Loyola players rushed to the edge of the court to hug Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt in her wheelchair. Coach Porter Moser screamed in front of his section, told his family he loved them and came back for a second hug with Sister Jean, the team's 98-year-old chaplain who watches the game in her wheelchair.

Just two days earlier on the same court, Loyola won on Donte Ingram's 3-point buzzer-beater to top sixth-seeded Miami.

After the second-round victory, the No. 11-seeded Ramblers will head to Atlanta to play either Cincinnati or Nevada.

Aundre Jackson led Loyola with a game-high 16 points on 5-of-7 shooting Saturday at American Airlines Center near his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. Custer added 10 as the only other Rambler in double figures.

Loyola led 61-59 with 27.7 seconds after a Jackson turnover. Grant Williams provided Tennessee a 62-61 lead with 20.1 seconds left after Jackson fouled him under the basket. Williams hit the basket and the free throw.

The Ramblers had controlled all but the first five minutes and last five minutes of the game as it seemed like the game was slipping away.

They trailed by nine points in the first half after Tennessee's Admiral Schofield, a product of Zion-Benton High School in Zion, Ill., appeared headed for a dominant night.

Schofield scored his first basket since the opening five minutes when he hit a 3-pointer with 3:53 left. His dunk gave him 11 points before Loyola could blink and he hollered tauntingly at the Loyola fan section.

He finished with a team-high 14 points, but only two rebounds.

The undersized Ramblers outrebounded Tennessee 27-24.

Tennessee was without 6-foot-11 starter Kyle Alexander (hip) whose absence was announced only shortly before tipoff.

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