Everyone loves a good underdog story. The team that gets picked last in the preseason, surprises the world, and finishes in first — it’s a tale as old as time, but what does it take to actually accomplish this feat? Just ask Loyola Marymount University. The Lions were picked ninth in the WCC preseason poll coming into the season. However, despite the low expectations, the Lions didn’t care. They did the unexpected, winning the WCC regular season, thanks to a team willing to do whatever it took.
“Being capable versus willing,” LMU head coach Aarika Hughes told the IX Sports in an interview. “I think we’ve always had capable rosters here at LMU, but we finally had a capable group that was willing to do what was needed. And when you merge those two, willing, for us, means willing to do the dirty work, willing to listen to the call. Sticking with the game plan even in the moment, because you want to win so bad that maybe it doesn’t work … I think we saw that continue to evolve over the season with this group, which was really, really fun to watch.”
Entering this season, LMU as a program had won more than 20 games in a season only twice in its 40-year history. They hadn’t been to the postseason since 2019 and have never won a postseason game. During Coach Hughes’s tenure, they had never finished a season above .500. However, to this year’s team, none of that mattered; they just wanted to win.
The year didn’t start well for LMU. Two of their incoming transfers, Ivana Krajina and Andjela Matic, couldn’t come to campus during the summer. Both were stuck in their respective countries as the US government had added increased restrictions on what was required to get a student visa. The staff at LMU kept in constant contact with both of them, trying to help keep them calm as they figured it out.
“They were on multiple calls with our assistants and myself talking with families,” said Hughes on helping their international players. “We told both of them just to stay calm. Tried to keep them calm. How can you look at this in a positive way … a lot of just uncontrollables that really set us back. And I think that they handled it as well as you would expect…they both made the best of a really, really stressful situation.”
Both Krajina and Matic eventually obtained their visas, but they didn’t join the team on campus until the week before school started in the fall. They would become part of the Lions’ starting backcourt, but their delay put them behind on the court, as they hadn’t been able to work with their teammates and learn the team’s offensive and defensive philosophies.
This, along with some early-season injuries, hurt the Lions throughout non-conference play. They started the year 6-5, but there were some positives: every loss was by 8 points or less. They started conference play with a loss to WCC powerhouse Gonzaga. However, the loss came in double overtime, giving the Lions confidence that they were close.
“I think the biggest thing was just kind of that belief and that faith in ourselves, that we’re meant to be there,” junior forward Maya Hernandez told the IX Sports in an interview. “That it wasn’t a fluke, or, Oh, you just got up to play Gonzaga, but to continue the next however many games, believing that we’re the team that we are. Just knowing how good we are definitely is what helped propel us. But that loss sucked, however we learned so much from it, especially for end-of-game situations.”
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Being close to the WCC’s perennial power was all the Lions needed to flip a switch. They went on a run, winning 10 of their next 12 games. This set up a rematch with the Bulldogs on Feb. 14 with first place in the WCC on the line. At home, the Lions felt confident, and it led to something they hadn’t done in the past 35 tries: they beat Gonzaga. The Lions followed that up with two more wins to set up a do-or-die game on the final day of the regular season at Oregon State.
Going into the final Saturday of WCC play, the Lions were tied with Gonzaga for first place, with the Beavers just one game back of both teams. LMU knew they had to win the game to garner at least a share of the regular-season crown. Going into the fourth quarter, the Lions trailed by eight points, but they rallied to take a four-point lead with forty seconds left. Oregon State was able to get back-to-back buckets and force overtime.
In overtime, the teams traded baskets with Oregon State, who held a one-point lead and the ball with 11 seconds left. However, the Lions weren’t going down easily. They forced a turnover and called a timeout. Coach Hughes and her staff felt they weren’t going to be able to score inside on the length of the Beavers, so they decided to look for a three-pointer. They drew up the play for Matic, and with two seconds left, she hit the conference championship clincher.
“The way that you watched Angela shoot the ball,” Hughes said of Matic’s shot. “When I saw her catch it before she even got the ball to her shooting pocket, I knew she was going to make it and the feeling was out of body. After that, erupting and almost feeling in disbelief and in shock. Immediately hugging my assistants and shaking Scott [Rueck’s] hand and having a moment with him. You can’t replicate the feelings and the emotions that we had. I keep telling people, I think the best part for me was standing back and watching all of our kids jump on our assistants and all of our assistants hugging each other.”
It was a moment that the Lions players and coaches will never forget. Later that day, thanks to a Portland upset of Gonzaga, they became the outright regular-season champions of the West Coast Conference. However, the championship didn’t happen overnight; rather, it was a process for a very diverse roster, involving a mix of players who had developed in the Lions system and some key additions from the transfer portal.
One of those key transfers was graduate point guard Jess Lawson. Lawson has played at every level, starting her career at the Junior College level before transferring to Division II University of Illinois Springfield and then to Central Michigan. Thanks to the NCAA’s decision allowing junior college players to receive one more year of eligibility, Lawson decided to transfer to LMU for her final season, and she took advantage of it.
Lawson led the Lions in multiple categories this season. She averaged 15 points per game, which ranked sixth in the WCC. She was also second in the league in steals per game. However, the most impressive thing about Lawson’s game is her rebounding. Despite standing just 5’7, Lawson led the Lions in rebounds and was third in the WCC, averaging 8.4 boards per game. In the conference clinching victory over Oregon State, Lawson had 21 rebounds. Lawson feels she has a great motor, and for her, rebounding is just about effort.
“I’ve always had a motor, and I just use it to my ability,” Lawson said postgame. “I think rebounding is all effort, no matter how tall I am, I just go. I can go, track the ball, and go right up and get it. So just being able to put it all out there on the court, and as I said, rebounding is all effort.”
Another one of the Lions’ key contributors this season was junior forward Hernandez, one of two LMU players who have been with the program for at least three seasons. In her freshman year, she didn’t play a lot, averaging just 10 minutes per game. Despite the low playing time, Hernandez kept working, and it paid off. In her sophomore year, she started all but two games and increased her scoring average by over 10 points per game.
Hernandez continued that trend this season, increasing her averages in almost every category. She was not only the key anchor to the Lions’ front court, but she was also one of the leaders of this team. It was an area she really worked on improving between her sophomore and junior years, and the development showed.
“I think leadership was definitely something I focused on this season,” Hernandez said. “Just being able to help my teammates believe how capable they are was something that I focused on, and also trusting in each other. Everybody on this team wants to win, so we kind of try to do anything we can, but we’re most successful when the ball is moving around and just helping everybody see that. Making sure everybody knows that we’re here for each other and we’re not playing for the score.”
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Despite regular-season success and a No. 1 seed in the conference tournament, the Lions struggled to find the same mojo in the postseason. Facing the same Oregon State team they had just beaten to clinch the regular-season title, the Lions fell to the Beavers in the WCC tournament semifinals, losing by just six points. Coach Hughes felt the team was in unfamiliar waters, having so much time between games since the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament doesn’t play for over a week after the regular season ends, which led to some of the struggles.
However, despite the loss in the conference tournament, the season wasn’t over for LMU. By winning the conference regular season title, they were guaranteed a spot in the WBIT. They faced another perennial powerhouse, Stanford, on Thursday night. In looking for their first postseason win ever, the Lions knew it would be a tall task.
The game went back and forth early before Stanford went on a run to take a double-digit lead into the half. However, the Lions wouldn’t go down without a fight, cutting the lead to just two going into the fourth quarter. They got the lead down to one and cut it down again to three with just over two minutes left, but could never surpass the Cardinal on Thursday night. The dream of that first postseason win would have to wait for another year for the Lions. Despite the loss, the team knows they left a legacy.
“I think I would be most proud of just kind of proving everybody wrong,” Hernandez said. “They saw us one way, and we were able to come out on top and be so much better than what everybody else predicted us to be, and also make history at LMU. I think this team’s biggest thing was leaving a legacy. Something I wanted to do was just make a mark at my school that I’ve been at and just kind of continue to help build a culture that people want to be in and be a part of.”
Even with the postseason struggles, this Lions team did something that hasn’t been done at LMU in over 20 years. They did what no one thought they could when the season started by winning the regular season title, breaking records along the way. They won the most conference games in school history. They had two all-conference first team selections for the first time since 2004. Their 21 wins were tied for the second most in program history. It was a team full of players who were bought into the mission, and the result is leaving a legacy that will last at LMU forever.
“This is a player’s team,” Coach Hughes said in a press conference. “This is their legacy. I just happen to be the head coach of it, and that says a lot about who these individuals are, especially at a time when it could be about personal gain or your points. It doesn’t matter if they play, it doesn’t matter if that’s their game or not their game. That has a lot to say again, about these young women, and their willingness, their connectivity, who they are as people first. I think they are an unbelievable group.”
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