Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt was on hand Thursday as her beloved Loyola-Chicago men’s basketball team upset Miami in the school’s first NCAA Tournament game in 33 years.

Schmidt, 98, is the team chaplain who prays with players before games and gives them scouting reports the next day. She got to see Donte Ingram hit a last-second three-point shot to win.

“Thank God,” she said in an interview after the game. “Thank God you did it because we knew we would do it. And when we were in the locker room ahead of the game, we just knew that we would do this. Our team is so great, and they don’t care who makes the points, as long as we win the game. And I said, ‘We’re gonna get the big W up there,’ and we did.”  

Donte Ingram drilled a 3 with less than a second left to secure the 64-62 win, she was  the happiest Loyola fan as the Ramblers beat the Hurricanes in a thrilling nail-biter.  

At 98 years old, Sr. Jean Dolores-Schmidt is Loyola-Chicago’s biggest fan.
She couldn’t be happier after. She was interviewed after the game. She was ecstatic. 

In her words to the team before this first-round matchup – Loyola will face No. 3 seed Tennessee in the second round – she said:

“We asked God to help us. And I told God that we would do our part if he would do his part, and I hoped the referees would call the right kind of a game, that nobody would get injured, that we play with confidence and we know we’d win the game. And then at the end when the buzzer rang, we wanted to be sure the score said we had the big W.”

March Madness is the best, fact. Go Ramblers, let’s see how far Jean Dolores-Schmidt can take them.