INDIANAPOLIS — Ayo Dosunmu made a beeline for Andre Curbelo in the corner of the court as the final horn sounded Sunday afternoon at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Curbelo had his head down.
Hands on his knees.
Disappointment radiating off his 6-foot-1 frame after sailing a pass out of bounds with 29 seconds to play — Illinois’ 17th turnover of the game — the final moment for his team. Loyola Chicago could just run out the clock on its 71-58 upset victory.
So Dosunmu wrapped up his freshman teammate. Arm around Curbelo’s shoulder the entire time, whispering words of encouragement, Dosunmu walked him the full length of the court back to the Illinois bench.
Brad Underwood expected nothing less from Dosunmu. The junior guard is unquestionably this team’s leader.
“Ayo will go take that next step, and deservedly so,” the Illinois coach said. “But Ayo has done more for this program and these young guys, Andre and Ace (Adam Miller) and Coleman Hawkins and Brandon Lieb and all these guys that are going to continue to build this. “My hats off to Ayo. He does a great, great job of leading and has been instrumental in this. His jersey will hang in our rafters some day. But in a day that’s really tough for — was tough for him — to show that continued leadership speaks volumes to who he is as a young man.”
Dosunmu certainly had his own disappointments. Plenty of them, actually, after scoring just nine points and putting together a rough defensive showing. But his first thought was to console his teammates.
“I’m disappointed in myself and disappointed in the way I played,” Dosunmu said. “I don’t think I played to my standards. I don’t think I played nowhere near to how I wanted to play to help my team win.
“I understand that. Life comes with diversity. It’s not what you do when it happens. It’s what you do after it happens. I told my team to keep their heads high. You’ve got to take your medicine. We didn’t win. We wanted to win this game. We didn’t get it done, but at the end of the day you’ve got to take your medicine. That’s what I’m doing now, I’m taking my medicine.”
Loyola Chicago (26-4) delivered a big dose Sunday afternoon in Indianapolis.
That Illinois (24-7) bowed out in the second round of the NCAA tournament wasn’t a surprise. March Madness means anything can — and often does — happen. How the Illini went down was where the surprise happened.
Loyola Chicago set the tone from the opening tip. Illinois, in fact, never led. Start to finish, the Ramblers dictated how the game would go.
“The first 10 minutes of that game they got us on our heels,” Underwood said. “We never really recovered. We had stretches, but they just rocked us.”
Illinois put together multiple comeback attempts. Five straight points from Kofi Cockburn to end the first half cut the Illini’s deficit to single digits. But any second half Illinois run had a Loyola Chicago answer.
“They’re not going to quit and not come back,” Ramblers’ coach Porter Moser said about the Illini. “They kept on trying to come back. But we’ve been there before. We’ve been there before, and you’ve just got to stay with it, next possession. Kofi had a dunk, next possession. You’ve got to have that mentality, especially at this stage, because everyone is so good at this level.”
Loyola Chicago pulled away with a 6-0 run in the final 90 seconds for the double-digit win. It left Illinois trying to balance the good of the 2020-21 season with the unexpected, ultimate let down of an ending.
“It’s one of the great things about March Madness is you have an off-day and you lose,” Underwood said. “I don’t even know what our record was. You can’t lose sight of that. You can’t lose sight of the Big Ten championship. You can’t lose sight of the 19 games we won against Big Ten opponents. You can’t lose sight of the growth that this team made through the season. I’ll remember this very, very fondly, this group, as a team that really continued to take the next step in our progress of building.”
Sunday’s loss meant Dosunmu is still left with some unfinished business. He had his sights set on a national championship. It was one of the reasons he decided to return for the 2020-21 season.
But Dosunmu was able to still think about the big picture. Where Illinois stood as a program when he arrived on campus is not where the Illini stand now. Even with Sunday’s loss leaving the bitter taste of disappointment.
“My main goal was to help get this program back on the map, help get this program back as one of the national powerhouses,” Dosunmu said. “We didn’t get it done today, but at the end of the day this group of guys, there’s no one on the team I want to go to war with. All season long, COVID protocols, able to play every game, not having any positive tests. I just think we sacrificed so much to get in this position, and I’m extremely proud of the guys.”
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