When Loyola Chicago reached the Final Four in 2018, Sister Jean never thought she’d see another run through March.
The Ramblers are now just two wins away.
“I’ll be jumping around, literally, not figuratively, I’ll be jumping around as much as they are,” said Sister Jean, who is confined to a wheelchair, during a video conference with reporters Thursday. “It will just be a great thrill if they get to the Final Four again, or even go up a couple steps more. I will hardly believe that it happened. Last time, I thought to myself, ‘I will never see anything like this again.'”
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, Loyola’s 101-year-old team chaplain, attended the Ramblers’ victories against Georgia Tech and Illinois in the NCAA Tournament. She will travel from Chicago to Indianapolis on Friday to prepare for Saturday’s Sweet Sixteen matchup between Loyola, the No. 8 seed in the Midwest region, and No. 12 seed Oregon State.
The tournament games marked the first Sister Jean has seen in person since the coronavirus pandemic began. In 2018, she traveled to Dallas, Atlanta and then to San Antonio for the Final Four, where Loyola faced Michigan in the national semifinal.
“I waited since 1963, because I saw that game, too,” said Sister Jean, referring to Loyola Chicago’s national championship win against Cincinnati. “If we got this, it would be perfect. They’re working toward it, and I believe they still can do it. One never knows what’s going to happen in a basketball game on the floor that night.”
If Sister Jean knows what will happen for Loyola against Oregon State, she isn’t telling.
“I’m not going to share individual numbers because Oregon State might be listening to us,” she said when asked for a scouting report on the Beavers.
Sister Jean’s highlight from her first weekend in Indianapolis was seeing Loyola players celebrate Sunday’s 71-58 win against top-seed Illinois at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. The Ramblers never trailed and held Illinois to its lowest points total of the season.
The team remained on the court long after the game and waved to Sister Jean and other fans.
“I told someone today that our team was just like little boys with ice cream cones jumping up and down,” Sister Jean said. “They were so excited, and that’s the excitement that they’ve had all through here.”
Before the tournament began, Sister Jean pegged Loyola Chicago to reach the Elite Eight, an upgrade from her pre-2018 tournament prediction of the Sweet Sixteen.
“When they went on to the Elite Eight, [then-Loyola guard Clayton Custer] said to me, ‘Sister Jean, we broke your bracket,'” Sister Jean said. “I said, ‘Well, keep breaking it. That’s fine with me.’ This time, I thought I’d have them go to the Elite Eight, and then maybe they’ll push a little harder and maybe we’ll get up to the very top.”
Sister Jean’s dream championship matchup is Loyola Chicago against Gonzaga, an undefeated team and the No. 1 overall seed.
“We’d be two Jesuit schools playing each other,” Sister Jean said. “There weren’t many Jesuit schools in the tournament this year, just like I missed a lot of other wonderful teams. I missed Kentucky. It’s just different this year.”
Sister Jean wasn’t thrilled with Loyola’s seed for the tournament and questioned the selection process, specifically “an imbalance” around conferences. She noted that the Big Ten, which played a nation-leading nine teams in the tournament, has only one left (No. 1 seed Michigan).
“There’s still something missing in the selection process,” Sister Jean said. “The Bracketologists watch the games endlessly and they watch the plays, but they don’t really know the team. I said, ‘I know my team.’ That’s why I put such faith and trust in them, in what they’re capable of doing.
“I don’t want to be a Bracketologist, either, so don’t worry.”
Sister Jean also addressed her third bobblehead, announced last week by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, which is set to be released this summer. She reviewed proofs of the design for approval and told the museum to include a basketball with her and her wheelchair.
Her last bobblehead, following the 2018 tournament, was the museum’s No. 1 seller before being surpassed last year by a bobblehead of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases specialist.
“I know that Dr. Fauci, he sold 60,000,” said Sister Jean, who will donate some of the proceeds from the bobblehead sales to charity. “My last was 20,000, but we did communicate and we got permission from his bobblehead company to put his picture and my picture of bobbleheads on the email I sent back to him. That was real fun, too. Who would want to be in better company than Dr. Fauci, who has done so much for the world in this whole pandemic.”