Clayton Custer is one of the leaders on Loyola-Chicago and has helped prove the glass slipper fits nicely for the Ramblers.
Custer and the Ramblers are in the Elite 8 after three stunning upsets, including one on Thursday night. Custer had an assist at a crucial time on Thursday night. He passed to Marques Townes who stepped aside and shot a three to give the Ramblers a 4-point lead over the Nevada Wolf Pack with just a few seconds left. They would hold on to win 69-68.
Custer helped continue his team's run in Atlanta. When he was younger, he used to visit Atlanta while his brother was on the Emory Eagles baseball team. Brandon Custer played four seasons with the Eagles from 2004-07. His senior year, he helped lead the Eagles through the NCAA tournament.
Custer, who was 11 at that time, was a bat boy for the Eagles whenever he would come to down.
"My brother asked the coach, coach [Mike] Twardoski, can my little brother be the bat boy whenever he's in town," Custer, now 22, said on Friday. "Every time I would go down to Emory and visit him, I was the bat boy.
"It's crazy because they would treat me like one of the guys. "
Emory baseball's Twitter account posted an old video of Custer with the team. It was a satire of the movie Little Big League.
Custer played baseball, too. He played in high school at Blue Valley Northwest High School. He received offers to play college baseball. He pursued basketball, and now he's helped put Loyola-Chicago on the map as the Ramblers make one shocking upset after another.
He's the team's leading scorer averaging 13.4 points per game. He also averages more than four assists per game and shoots 46 percent outside the arc.
"It's been an awesome experience," Custer said. "I think we're all soaking it in. Having all this, I mean, it's a pretty big time thing and we're trying to soak it all in. We know that not everybody gets this experience. Every college basketball player wants to have this opportunity and we're getting to do it right now. I think that we're all just very thankful that this is happening to us."
