Loyola guard Lucas Williamson knows the drill.
This will be the third NCAA Tournament appearance for the Ramblers guard and the third time he and his teammates have been in the shadow of their famous team chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt.
What was once a local story at the start of Loyola’s Final Four run in 2018 has become a March Madness standard.
“I’m still the same Sister Jean I was before all this popped up,” she said Wednesday during a teleconference from her Pittsburgh hotel.
But she obviously is much more well known than four years ago. Jimmy Fallon mentioned the 102-year-old nun in a joke on his “Tonight Show” monologue Tuesday, pretending she was talking trash like a Gen Z kid. A gambling website also has a prop bet on whether the total of the lowest scoring game of the tournament will be less than Schmidt’s age.
And you know if the Ramblers advance she’ll be in dozens of cutaways during the telecasts.
Do Loyola players mind being upstaged during the biggest moment of their college careers?
“I like that Sister Jean aspect,” Williamson said. “I like what it adds to Loyola. She’s such a huge part of what we do here, so the fact she gets recognition, it doesn’t take away from anything we do here.
“She’s been a part of Loyola forever. It’s been nice. I can’t wait to see what her brackets look like.”
Well, the wait is over.
Schmidt picked the Ramblers to make it to the Sweet 16, which would mean a win over No. 7 seed Ohio State on Friday (11:15 a.m., CBS-2) and probably over second-seeded Villanova on Sunday.
It’s not quite as audacious a pick as last year, when she predicted an upset over top-seeded Illinois in the second round, then watched it happen in Indianapolis.
Loyola is favored by most oddsmakers in its opener against the Buckeyes.
Schmidt pondered picking them to go to Elite Eight, though she hasn’t finished her scouting report on Ohio State, which she plans to give to the players after a team prayer before the game.
“We’ll have to see how Friday turns out,” she said.
The Buckeyes are led by big man E.J. Liddell and freshman Malaki Branham, but the availability of two other injured regulars, Kyle Young and Zed Key, is unknown. Either way, the Buckeyes are not overlooking the Ramblers.
“Everybody’s aware of Loyola and Sister Jean from their Final Four run and well aware of how good they are,” Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann said Sunday. “They just beat the No. 1 seed in our league last year.”
You can’t please everyone. There always will be Twitter trolls upset over the attention the media bestows on someone who is not even a player, whether it’s an actress such as Ashley Judd or a celebrity nun.
That’s just the way it is in the modern age, and you can’t stop haters from hating.
While Schmidtnever asked for the media attention, she also hasn’t shied away from it.
“People said to me, ‘Is this going to your head?’ ” she said. “No, it’s not going to my head. I just try all the time to make people happy, to be happy myself. And if I make people happy and it’s good for my congregation what I do, and good for Loyola what I do, I’ll do it. I have a lot of fun doing what I do, and that makes me happy.
“I’ve changed in that I have a lot more to do. I have to be responsible to say the things I do say on television or whatever. And when people write to me or call me, I try to answer their questions and do the things they ask me to do — to say a prayer for them, to bless them, to consider going to their school to do something for them, to respond to reporter. I never say no.”
Schmidt added she knows when people come to say hello with their phones pulled out, they really want to take a selfie with her.
“I go down Michigan Avenue with a friend and people stop me and say, Are you … are you … ?’ ” she said. “‘Yes, I am Sister Jean.’ They stutter first, and then they melt. I have a lot of fun.”
If you’re 102 and still having fun, you know you’re doing something right.