Loyola-Chicago's biggest fan is the team chaplain who prays with the players before games and gives them scouting reports the next day.
So 98-year-old Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was more thankful than shocked when Donte Ingram hit a last-second three-pointer Thursday to beat Miami in the Ramblers' first NCAA Tournament game in 33 years.
Loyola-Chicago is coached by former University of Arkansas at Little Rock head coach Porter Moser.
"After the game, she sends a general email to the team," Ingram said after the 64-62 first-round win Thursday. "And then at the end of the email, it'll be individualized. 'Hey, Donte, you did this, you rebounded well tonight. Even though they were out there to get you, you still came through for the team.'"
The postgame feedback in those emails isn't always positive, according to Schmidt. It's individualized "on how they did, and whether it was good or whether they have to improve in certain parts," she said.
Schmidt will lead the pregame prayer again today when 11th-seeded Loyola plays No. 3 seed Tennessee looking for a repeat of its last NCAA trip. The Ramblers reached the Sweet 16 in 1985 before losing to Patrick Ewing and Georgetown.
Schmidt has been the team chaplain since the early 1990s.
"When we have home games, I say a prayer with all the fans, too, and pray for the opponents, too, that none of us get hurt and that the referees do a good job and all that kind of stuff," Schmidt said.
Schmidt gets around in a wheelchair these days because of a broken hip that caused her to miss games this season -- a rarity over nearly 25 years. She still found a way to follow the Ramblers.
"Where I was for rehab, I couldn't get the picture so I watched play-by-play for every game I missed," she said.
Ingram's shot wasn't exactly a Hail Mary, but it was from the March Madness logo several feet behind the three-point line. The Ramblers will choose to believe Schmidt had something to do with it going in.
"For her to be doing what she's doing at her age, it's amazing, and it's inspiring," guard Clayton Custer said. "And I think, I mean, I think her prayers definitely mean a little bit extra when she prays for us."
Bees 2, Foyt 0
Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner A.J. Foyt was briefly hospitalized after an attack of Africanized killer bees he encountered while working on his ranch.
Wednesday's attack was the second time the 83-year-old has disturbed beehives while working on his bulldozer. He sustained over 200 stings to his head alone in a 2005 bee attack.
A.J. Foyt Racing said in a statement that Foyt was released from a Texas hospital once he was stabilized. The team said this second bee attack was more serious than the first because the first encounter made Foyt more sensitive to bee stings.
Foyt will miss this weekend's Twelve Hours of Sebring. He was scheduled to be inducted into Sebring's Hall of Fame on Friday night and was the scheduled grand marshal for today's race.
"I look like I had a fight with Mike Tyson and lost," Foyt said. "Right now I'm on so much medication that I'm not feeling that great, so I'll take the doctors' advice to rest for the next couple days."
Sports on 03/17/2018