CHICAGO &8212; Nestled along the banks of beautiful Lake Michigan, Loyola University of Chicago offers a setting unlike just about any other college in the country.

But every day Chris Logan leaves it behind, hops on either a bus or the L train and heads south through downtown to class at the university&8217;s school of business on the Water Tower campus. He may be somewhat of an anomaly being an athlete enrolled in the school&8217;s highly established business school, but he&8217;s scheduled to graduate on time with a degree in information systems.

School is hard, he says, but he&8217;s doing just fine.

&8220;I pulled out three B&8217;s this semester,&8221; he admitted. &8220;C-pluses at this school would be B&8217;s at other schools.&8221;

Yet to know Logan and to know some of the adversity he&8217;s faced trying to make it in the world of college basketball, you wouldn&8217;t take a second glance. Here is a guy who was tabbed as a Division II player when he left junior college, nearly missed out on playing Division I basketball and could have had his entire senior season derailed due to a broken foot.

Grades had to happen, just like anything else, somehow.

&8220;Loyola is a very good school academically, and he wanted to go to the school of business,&8221; Loyola second-year head coach Jim Whitesell said. &8220;We don&8217;t have a major where we can hide a kid here. Our school of business is top-notch. He is, to me, a really true life story about a kid who would not give up. He&8217;s just a warrior. He&8217;ll make a great employee wherever he decides to go.&8221;

That&8217;s because he&8217;s become a great basketball player for the Ramblers and student at a prestigious school. Now a senior likely in his final season of organized basketball, Logan has averaged more than 10 points a game on a team that is expected to contend for the Horizon League championship next month.

And did you know he&8217;s barely 6-0 tall?

&8220;I worked hard on my game this summer,&8221; Logan said. &8220;I got in the weight room and got stronger overall. I just worked on my game and my shooting. My performance has improved a lot.&8221;

It&8217;s far from when he first started, when coaches at Loyola were taking over a program that had lost all five starters. Whitesell and his staff were trying to put together some kind of team without much knowledge of what was returning and felt like they needed another guard to add to the mix.

An assistant saw the kid out of Northeast Mississippi Community College play back on July 18, 2004. He reported back to Whitesell.

&8220;We needed a point guard, and I didn&8217;t think we had one,&8221; Whitesell said. &8220;I came up and watched him the last day, and I think he was nervous because he knew I came to see him. We finally said let&8217;s do this. The day before classes started, we got him signed.&8221;

Chicago was a long ways away from Natchez, and he was set to join a club of players from hometowns nowhere near the South. That first season was tough. He was deep on the bench for a team that went 13-17 overall and 8-8 in conference, and he scored 56 points the entire season.

That first year on campus may have been tough on him, Whitesell noted, but he had no choice but to overcome it.

&8220;A lot of it comes from being comfortable,&8221; Logan said. &8220;When I first came to Chicago, I didn&8217;t know anybody. Once I got comfortable and confident, that helped me out a lot. Once I got used to school, everything got better &8212; school and basketball.&8221;

He also found out quickly that being 6-0 tall wasn&8217;t so average anymore. So he had to adapt &8212; use his small frame to his advantage on defense, rely on his quickness and just hustle to the point where coaches had no choice but to put you on the floor.

And it&8217;s worked this season. He started the first 14 games for the Ramblers at off guard until Wednesday&8217;s loss at Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

&8220;He&8217;s undersized for our league &8212; no doubt about it,&8221; Whitesell said. &8220;Defensively (he&8217;ll go) against their top player. But if there&8217;s a ball between you and me, Chris is normally going to run it down. Bradley (University) is very, very big, and Chris had 10 rebounds in that game. He ran balls down. That makes a difference with our team.&8221;

But the former Bulldog points to time spent away from the game as the impetus for picking up his game. He broke a bone in his foot in August and stayed on crutches for a month before staying away from the game for nine weeks.

He didn&8217;t get to practice until Oct. 19, five days after the NCAA-mandated first day of practice.

&8220;I came back two weeks before the season started,&8221; Logan said. &8220;I came back a week before we played our first scrimmage game. It was tough. I think it helped me out mentally. I felt a lot smarter. I was just watching and found ways to defend players better and move without the ball. I found ways to score on other people.&8221;

That&8217;s why he&8217;s been a valuable part of the Ramblers&8217; squad this season. He&8217;s long been popular with everyone since he&8217;s the only one from the South, the team&8217;s lone senior and his energy level, and everyone is hoping to get back on track this week with a six-game homestand that starts today against city rival Illinois-Chicago.

&8220;He shows so much heart and is so determined,&8221; Whitesell said. &8220;He will never give in. Chris has just been a lot of fun to coach. He&8217;s a really tough kid and a real hard-working kid. He really believes in himself, and it would have been easy for him to give up.&8221;

That much is true. And he had plenty of chances to do so.

But he&8217;ll continue playing hard, pursuing a degree and whatever else comes along.

&8220;I&8217;ve been enjoying it, getting a chance to play against top competition,&8221; Logan said. &8220;Even when I was younger, playing high school in Natchez, a lot of people wouldn&8217;t have expected me to play at this level. It&8217;s been fun.&8221;