NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : Lions Refuse to Let Ship Be Grounded

He comes to America from an empire far, far away--OK, Sweden--bearing a name that definitely belongs inside a spaceship alongside Luke Skywalker and Han Solo and Princess Leia, yet it was an utter coincidence that Per Stumer picked a particular film to identify with after Loyola Marymount’s spine-tingling escape Friday night, after overthrowing the Men of Wimp.

“It’s like ‘Star Wars,’ ” Stumer said. “It’s like there’s some Force out there, looking out for us.”

Well, yes, it is. Somebody obviously has sprinkled a little stardust on these Loyolans, giving them some dumb luck to go along with the hustle and bravery and skill that already had carried them this far. Because, as anyone who saw this NCAA West Regional game could plainly see, Wimp Sanderson’s Alabama slama-jamas did everything a basketball team could do to stop Loyola Marymount--and still couldn’t stop it.

The score was 62-60, Lions over Crimson Tide, in a game played at what the winners considered to be warped-speed. Slow. Much too slow. So slow, Stumer said, “It was like learning how to walk.” So slow, that for the Lions to score as many points as they did five days before against Michigan, they probably would have had to play another 40 minutes.

At halftime, with a measly 22 points on the scoreboard, with Alabama’s defenders having plastered themselves so close to the Lions that they appeared to be dirty-dancing, Paul Westhead looked his Loyola players in the eye and sent them back out with a rallying cry that is not destined to go down with the great pep talks of the ages.

“OK, guys,” Westhead said, “we only need 104 more points to get our average.”

Funny team, this Loyola.

So funny, it might just laugh all the way to the NCAA Final Four in Denver next week--you know, explore the Final Four frontier, go where no Westchester team has gone before. We don’t know why any team would dare run with them ever again after seeing what happened here Friday, nor do we know how the high altitude of Colorado might affect the way they play, but we do know that the Lions have seen the future, and they are still in it.

FULFILL THE DREAM, someone scribbled on the locker-room blackboard before the game.

Within five minutes of the end of the game, a Loyola man had picked up a piece of chalk and altered the message. Now it read:

FULFILL ING THE DREAM.

Furthermore, leave it to a Loyola player to say that he would prefer to play Nevada Las Vegas, a school that has turned out dozens of NBA stars, than play Ball State, a school that has turned out David Letterman and the guy who draws the comic strip of Garfield the cat.

“I don’t want to play Ball State,” Jeff Fryer said. “Let’s play Vegas. I don’t ever want to play another game like this one.”

What Alabama did took nerve. Nobody wants to slow things down to defeat a regional tournament’s 11th seed. No major university wants to kowtow to the style of some little Catholic academy with 3,500 students. Nobody in the Final Four is likely to alter its style once it has gotten so far.

In other words, Loyola will be off and running again against UNLV come Sunday. No more of these 60-point things. Off they go, back into the 100s.

And there are no more truly intimidating, skyscraper centers left in the NCAA tournament, no Alonzo Mourning or Derrick Coleman to soar above the little-bitty Lions under the basket. Sometimes it seems as though Per Stumer is the only guy Loyola has who isn’t built like a pencil.

The junior packs 210 pounds on a 6-7 frame, and throws it around pretty good. He was actually laughing-- laughing --in the face of Alabama’s 6-8 Melvin Cheatum, daring him to shoot, trying to needle him into doing something foolish with the basketball, after Cheatum had been instructed by Sanderson to hold it as long as possible.

Stumer has this great, ear-to-ear smile, and a retainer that he pops in and out of his mouth from minute to minute. It is his responsibility to haul down some of the rebounds that Hank Gathers used to get, even though he is clearly a forward, not a center.

Friday night, he did exactly that. Stumer got 12 rebounds, more than anybody on the floor. Six of them were on offense. And one of them came in the final minute, an absolute season-saver. When Fryer missed, Stumer lassoed the ball and fed it right back to Fryer, whose three-pointer put Loyola ahead, 60-58. Hey, when the Force is with you, the Force is with you. “We’re getting to be a pretty fantastic story,” Stumer said. “Don’t you think?”

Science fiction, kid. Science fiction.