As I sat courtside at Gentile Arena Nov. 9 taking pictures of the Loyola men’s basketball team’s 60-58 loss against Furman, I took a few minutes to walk around the arena to get some shots of the crowd just before halftime. It was an electric atmosphere I’d only seen once, when Loyola took on Illinois State Feb. 24.
Then, when redshirt senior guard Clayton Custer’s half-court shot bounced off the rim, Gentile was as quiet as it was my first year at Loyola when hardly any students showed up to games. I walked over to the press table afterward and turned to Jordan Bernfield and Jeff Dickerson, who were the play-by-play announcers that night.