ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

SLU trailed by as many as 14 points and cut its deficit to two points with 7:53 to play and three with 3:45 to go, but on both occasions gave up a basket on its next possession and never had a chance to take the lead.

Isaiah Swope, in what might have been his final collegiate game, couldn’t do it by himself. He scored 30 points and hit six 3-pointers, but his other high-scoring teammates, Gibson Jimerson and Robbie Avila, struggled.

Jimerson didn’t make a 3-pointer for just the second time this season, going 0 for 5 in what also might have been his final collegiate game, and finished with four points. Avila had 12, though he didn’t make his first field goal until midway through the second half.

Coach Josh Schertz subbed out Jimerson and Swope with 7.7 seconds left to give them a farewell.

SLU couldn’t keep Loyola away from the basket and was playing catchup almost the entire game. SLU is 19-14, which might not be enough to get an invitation to one of the smaller postseason tournaments.

SLU had a chance to close Loyola’s lead to two points early in the second half but Avila missed a 3-pointer, which led to six unanswered points for Loyola and an 11-point lead. SLU used a 6-0 run, capped by a Dylan Warlick steal and a Swope layin, to make it 55-49 and force a Loyola timeout with 9:43 to play.

Loyola got the lead back to 12 and then Swope took over again, scoring 10 points in a 12-2 run that got SLU within a basket at 57-55. SLU came up empty on its next three possessions, with two turnovers and Avila missing the front end of a one-and-one while Loyola scored on its and pushed the lead back to eight points with 5:35 to play.

SLU cut the lead to three again at 63-60, but it could have been closer had Avila not missed the front end of another one-and-one. SLU forced a tough shot by Loyola at the end of the shot clock with Loyola up by three, but the Ramblers got the rebound and hit a second-chance 3-pointer to take the lead back to six. SLU never got closer than that the rest of the way. Its last best chance ended when SLU was down six and Warlick was called for traveling in the key with 59.6 seconds to go.

SLU trailed 38-30 at the half and had been behind by as many as 14 points. Loyola kept getting to the rim against SLU and kept scoring there, at one point making eight consecutive field goals. That led to an 18-7 run that ended with Avila having the ball stripped from him as he backed in at the low post and led to a Loyola fast break layup and a timeout from Schertz, who took Avila out of the game.

A late barrage of Loyola turnovers allowed SLU to close the lead to five on a Swope 3 with 38 seconds left in the half, but Loyola countered with a 3 of its own and Swope’s 3 at the other end missed.

Swope had 11 points in the first half, with three 3-pointers, but SLU’s only other 3 in the first half came from freshman Dylan Warlick. Kalu Anya had nine points and four rebounds but missed three of four free throws.

The schools split their regular-season series in two very different games. In the first meeting, on Valentine’s Day, SLU was up by three points with 4:02 to play when Jimerson fouled Sheldon Edwards on a 3-point try, and he made all three free throws to tie the game. That was it for SLU, as Loyola closed the game with a 16-4 run and won 78-69.

The teams met again 15 days later and that time it was all SLU, which opened an early lead and hung on to it for a 31-point win with a season-high 98 points. In that game, SLU made a school record 18 of 34 3-point shots, with Jimerson making a school record nine.

Loyola moved to the tournament semifinals, in which it will meet top-seeded Virginia Commonwealth on Saturday. VCU won the opening game of the quarterfinals, 76-59, over St. Bonaventure in a game in which the Rams never got too far ahead until very late but the Bonnies also never threatened.