The Ramblers celebrate their Final Four berth at a packed house back on campus and their coach says their journey is not done yet. (1:26)

ATLANTA -- It was easy to get swept up in the emotion of Loyola-Chicago's win over Kansas State on Saturday night to advance to the Final Four. There was the heartwarming national phenomenon Sister Jean in her wheelchair on the baseline. There was Porter Moser, as proud as any coach on the planet, jumping over press row to hug his family in the stands. There were even a few members of the 1963 national championship team -- the last from the small Jesuit college on the shore of Lake Michigan to make it this far in the tournament -- standing at midcourt in a daze of joy and disbelief.

They did it. Cinderella, an 11-seed afterthought from the little-known Missouri Valley Conference, was really moving on.

In the locker room, after the confetti fell and Moser accepted the South Region trophy -- "Look at this!" he shouted. "Are you kidding me?!" -- the celebration continued. Cameron Krutwig, the stocky but skilled big man, sat in the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. Loyola's first three wins in the tournament came by a combined four points, but beating K-State 78-62 was far less stressful. Krutwig joked with reporters, "My heart wasn't hurting as much."

Loyola prepped for Kansas State and knew the Wildcats' every move. Here are diagrams on the locker room walls showing Kansas State's plan of attack and how the Ramblers would counter. This takes a look at Kansas State's motion actions. Alex Scarborough/ESPN.com

To his right, on a whiteboard written in enormous red block letters, were those fateful words: "Final Four!" Around the room, players repeated the team motto: "No finish lines."

But looking past the exclamation points, past the catch phrases, past the hugs and high-fives and tears of joy, there was a team that earned its trip to the Final Four. There was K-State coach Bruce Weber, sitting at a podium inside the bowels of Philips Arena afterward, making sense of a good old-fashioned beatdown.

Weber spoke about how physical Loyola was, how the Ramblers "iced" the Wildcats' ball screens, how they switched on everything.

"We never could get in any rhythm," he explained. "And I feared it. Our staff feared it. We talked a lot yesterday about it. They were better defensively than I even thought, to be honest."

Better. Not lucky.

Something not to be taken lightly. A team to be feared.