INDIANAPOLIS — Over the last year, there has been a greater appreciation for so many of life’s routine pleasures, particularly communal experiences — dinner with friends, a night at the movies, a day at the ballpark, holidays with family. For Cameron Krutwig, and so many other college basketball players, it was for an elemental joy that they have treasured more than ever: the bounce of a ball on hardwood and the sweat equity built only through competition.
Krutwig had already been a member of an N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament darling as a freshman center riding with his Loyola University Chicago teammates to the Final Four in 2018, capturing hearts with their spirit and the presence of their irrepressible team chaplain, Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt.