Loyola Marymount Lions

The Loyola Marymount Lions play in the Gersten Pavilion in Los Angeles, a West Coast Conference program forever linked to one of college basketball's most emotional stories. LMU's up-tempo, record-setting offenses of the late 1980s remain legendary, and the program's connection to Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble still resonates decades later. The Lions carry that history as a point of pride in a crowded Los Angeles sports market.

Loyola Marymount basketball, under coach Paul Westhead's frenetic offense, set an NCAA Division I record by averaging 122.4 points per game in the 1989-90 season behind stars Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble. After Gathers collapsed and died during a WCC Tournament game that March, Kimble led an emotional Elite Eight run in his memory, including an upset of defending national champion Michigan, before the Lions fell to eventual champion UNLV. LMU has been a West Coast Conference member since 1955 and remains best known for that unforgettable 1990 tournament run. The Lions have not returned to that level of national attention since, but the Gathers-Kimble era remains a defining chapter in March Madness history.