After their fantastic Final 4 run last March, the Ramblers followed that up with a 20-win season before a 2-PT loss to Bradley in the MVC tourney semifinals last Saturday. Their postseason is expected to continue in the NIT next week, but even though their regular season has come to a close the awards keep rolling in. On Monday SR G Clayton Custer was named an Academic All-American. On the court he averaged 40.7 3P% for his career: off the court he averaged a 3.75 GPA while getting his MBA. Earlier this week HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Clayton about reaching the Final 4 and his advice for teams who want to follow in his footsteps next week.
You began your career at Iowa State: why did you decide to transfer, and what made you choose the Ramblers? 1st, I am happy I went to Iowa State and I had a good experience there: it just ended up being a different situation than I was expecting. 1 reason is that we had a PG a year older than me: I thought we might end up playing together. His name is Monte Morris (who is now is 1 of the best backup PGs in the NBA!) so it did not look like I would get to play a lot until my junior or senior year. Loyola was the 1st school to call me after I got my transfer release, which meant a lot to me that they were the 1st ones to reach out. Ben Richardson was 1 of my best friends growing up in Kansas City (we went to high school together), so the comfort level of having 1 of my best friends here made it an easy decision for me.
You play for Coach Porter Moser: what makes him such a good coach, and what is the most important thing that you have learned from him? His energy/passion, which never waver. He is always 100% all-in every single day: even when he is sick he still brings the passion at every single practice. He expects the best out of us, which is 1 of the things that I have learned from him. If you are going to do something you might as well be all-in and have 100% passion to be good at it.
Last you you were named MVC POY and won the Lou Henson Award as the top mid-major player in the nation: what did it mean to you to receive such outstanding honors? It was an honor to receive those awards but I think that they were team awards that would not have come unless we had a really good team that went very far. We won the MVC, which went a long way toward me winning POY. I honestly had not heard of the Lou Henson Award until I won it, but I did some research and saw some of the past winners: I am happy to have my name on that list.
Take me through the 2018 NCAA tourney:
In the 2nd round you scored 10 PTS including the game-winner with 3.6 seconds left in a 1-PT upset of Tennessee: did you think the shot was going in, and how did that game change your life (if at all)? It was amazing: it is a dream come true to make a game-winning shot in the NCAA tourney. I do not know if it really changed my life a lot, but obviously I will be remembered by Loyola alumni/fans forever because of that shot and our run…so I guess it did change my life in that way. We are a team that nobody will ever forget: whenever I tell people in the future that my team went to the Final 4 they will recognize that as being a pretty cool achievement.
In the Final 4 you scored 15 PTS in a loss to Michigan: what is your favorite memory from that magical March? It was probably when we won the Elite 8 in Atlanta and were celebrating out on the court together. We were so happy and had invested so much and worked so hard: to be cutting down the nets after clinching a spot in the Final 4 was the coolest part.
In January you scored a career-high 26 PTS/6-8 3PM in a win at Drake: was it just 1 of those scenarios where every shot you put up seemed to go in because you were “in the zone”? I think so. I could tell that it was really 1 of those days after there was 1 shot I made in the 2nd half. I was going to do a touch-pass and make a little lob to Cameron Krutwig but the defender guarding me hit my arm and redirected my “pass”. It ended up going in and I got 2 PTS for that, which was a sign that it was my day.
You played several NCAA tourney-caliber teams this year in non-conference play (including Furman/Maryland/Nevada): which of them impressed you the most, and why? Nevada was the most impressive: they are all so big with every starter over 6’5” and their best players can really guard. It was hard to score against them and obviously really hard to stop them. They have so many weapons that I could see them making a super-deep run in March.
As a player who has had prior postseason success, what advice do you have for other potential Cinderellas next week? The belief has to be there: you have to go into the game genuinely believing that you can win it. In the 1st round some people did actually pick us to win but we did not just say it out loud: we literally believed that we could beat Miami in the 1st round. Once we got that 1 win our confidence just grew and grew.
Earlier this week you were named 3rd-team Academic All-American: how do you balance your work on the court with your work in the classroom? It is just something that I have learned over the course of my life as a student-athlete. In high school you have to do your homework at night before going to sleep and it is even harder to balance it all in college. You need to have the discipline to keep up with your assignments by checking the syllabi and then making sure you get your work done. It is not too complicated: you just have to do the work you are supposed to do.
You have a 3.52 GPA as an undergrad student majoring in Finance and a 3.75 GPA as a grad student pursuing your MBA: how did you get onto the business track, and what do you hope to do with all of your degrees? I did not really know what I wanted to do coming into college. I knew I would do business and knew I did not want to go the medical route: that is what my brother/dad both did and I saw what my brother had to go through during med school. They both help people get healthy, but if I am a financial adviser I can help people feel more secure with their lives financially. I like building relationships with people and want to help them in that way.
I know that your season is not quite finished and that the 1963 Loyola team has a national title on its resume, but how do you think that people will look back on the legacy that you and your fellow SR Marques Townes have left on the program? It is a tough question for me to answer but I think that people will remember us forever. For us to be back-to-back conference POYs, key pieces that helped our team make the Final 4 by making huge shots in the NCAA tourney during that run, I hope that people remember us as 2 of the best players to ever come through Loyola. We put a lot of work in, cared about the school, and have changed the culture here.