Loyola Chicago is the only Illinois program to win an NCAA men’s basketball national championship. That fact — the 1963 title, sealed by Vic Rouse’s buzzer-beating tip-in against Cincinnati in overtime — is the program’s north star, but it’s not even its most famous story. That would be the Game of Change: the 1963 regional semifinal against an all-white Mississippi State team, played in the shadow of segregation, that broke barriers in college athletics. Loyola was an integrated team in an unintegrated era, and the Ramblers’ 61-51 win in East Lansing remains one of the most important games ever played. History lives in the walls at Loyola in a way few programs can match.
The modern magic arrived 55 years later. The 2017-18 Ramblers, a No. 11 seed coached by Porter Moser and blessed by their 98-year-old chaplain Sister Jean, became the darlings of March: a Cinderella run to the Final Four that produced an entire season of buzzer-beaters, bracket chaos, and national love. The Ramblers did it again in 2021, reaching the Sweet 16. Moser’s departure for Oklahoma in the spring of 2021 felt like the end of an era — but his top assistant, Drew Valentine, was ready. At 30, Valentine became one of the youngest head coaches in Division I, and he steadied the program through the jump from the Missouri Valley to the Atlantic 10, winning an A-10 regular-season title and keeping the Ramblers relevant in a tougher league.
Then came 2025-26, a season that tested everything. The Ramblers went 9-24 overall and 4-14 in the Atlantic 10, averaging just 66.8 points per game while opponents hung 75.8 on them. The turnovers were brutal (13.1 per game against a negative-4.5 margin), the three-point shooting dried up, and close games kept slipping away. The season ended in heartbreak at the A-10 Tournament: an overtime loss to Davidson, 64-59, in which Kayde Dotson’s Hail Mary three forced the extra period before the Wildcats pulled away. Center Miles Rubin’s 20 points and nine boards weren’t enough. Valentine didn’t duck the disappointment: “With the adversity that we dealt with this year, it says a lot about the character of the individuals in the locker room with the way that those guys competed,” he said. “I’m proud of my group. We made some memories and definitely will have a lot to improve on going into the next season.”
The response was the most aggressive roster rebuild of Valentine’s tenure. For 2026-27, Loyola added eleven transfers — a nearly complete reconstruction — alongside three-star freshman center Ryan Kreager (Faribault, Minnesota), who signed in November. The only returners: guard Nic Anderson and forward Xavier Amos, the latter back for a fifth year after a stint at Wisconsin. It is, by design, a veteran portal class built to win immediately.
The headliners are proven commodities. Donald Hand Jr., a 6-5 guard who came over from Boston College, has started at the high-major level. Ryan Agarwal, a 6-6 guard from Coppell, Texas, brings Stanford seasoning and five years of collegiate experience. Amos, the Chicago native who played at Whitney Young, gives Valentine a fifth-year forward who knows the program. Elias Rapieque, a 6-9 German forward via ALBA Berlin and Kansas State, adds size and Euro-basketball savvy. Jason Schofield (6-10, Marist), Eddie Ricks III (James Madison), and Malick Diallo (6-9, TCU) stock the frontcourt; Dayan Nessah (6-8, Cleveland State) adds wing versatility.
The backcourt will be the experiment’s hinge. Guillaume Grotzinger, a 6-1 French guard, arrives from Champagne in France’s Elite 2, where he averaged 14.5 points, 4.0 assists, and shot 37 percent from three across 32 games last season — a poised, mature playmaker Valentine chased all the way to France. Chris Jeffrey, a 6-3 Brooklyn guard via Villanova and Mount Zion Prep, brings Big East experience. Sterling Knox (Las Vegas, via Independence CC) and Dayton Williams (Louisville, via Vincennes) round out a guard room that is deeper, more experienced, and more athletic than last year’s group.
The home is the Joseph J. Gentile Arena on the Lake Shore Campus, where the ghosts of Sister Jean — who passed in 2025 at age 105, forever the program’s soul — still seem to bless the building. Gentile holds around 4,400, and when the Ramblers are winning, it is one of the great intimate environments in the midwest: the student section on top of the action, the banners from 1963 and 2018 hanging as proof of what’s possible.
The Atlantic 10 won’t make the comeback easy. Saint Louis and VCU set a brutal standard at the top of the league in 2025-26, and programs like Dayton, George Mason, and Saint Joseph’s are built to contend every year. But the A-10 has always rewarded programs that defend, rebound, and have veteran guards — exactly the profile Valentine targeted in the portal. The margin for error after a 9-24 season is thin; the upside of a veteran, remade roster is real.
What defines Loyola Chicago in 2026-27 is the oldest story in sports: the comeback. Valentine’s program fell from A-10 title contention to the league’s cellar in a single season, and he responded by turning over almost the entire roster, betting that experience beats continuity in the portal era. The 1963 banner reminds everyone what Loyola can be at its best. Nobody’s predicting a Final Four in October — but in Rogers Park, they’ve seen miracles before, and they know exactly how they start.