SAN ANTONIO — Late Thursday evening in San Antonio—less than 48 hours before the Final Four—the scramble was on at Loyola of Chicago's team hotel.

Guard Marques Townes had received word that a rather notable fan in Dallas was seeking a Ramblers jersey—pronto!—with his No. 5 on the back. And now the junior guard was pestering equipment managers and marketing types to see whether they could make it happen.

"Get him a jersey as [quickly] as you can!" Townes said he told Loyola staffers. "Make one if you have to!"

The time restraints, though, were too tight, and Loyola wasn't able to fill the request. Not even for Karl-Anthony Towns.

Yes, that Karl-Anthony Towns. The Minnesota Timberwolves forward hoped to show his support for his former high school teammate by wearing his jersey during warm-ups before Friday's road tilt with the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center.

Instead, he'll have to settle for posting Twitter shoutouts to Townes during Saturday's NCAA men's tournament semifinal against Michigan. Marques ranks third on the Ramblers in scoring with 11.2 points per game.

"Marques deserves this moment," Karl-Anthony told Bleacher Report via text. "He's an amazing basketball player—one of the best teammates I ever had—and an amazing person."

Long before he was starring alongside Andrew Wiggins and Jimmy Butler in Minneapolis, Towns—the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft—was taking post feeds from Marques and current Portland Trail Blazers guard Wade Baldwin IV at St. Joseph High School in Metuchen, New Jersey.

"They had one of the most unique bonds of any group I've ever seen at that level," said Dave Turco, who coached the team. "Individually, they could've gone to lesser teams and averaged 30 or 40 points each. But they sacrificed their numbers for each other. They sacrificed because they wanted to win."

And even though Towns (who signed with Kentucky) and Baldwin (Vanderbilt) were high-major recruits, there was never a sense in the locker room that Marques was a level beneath them.

"He's just as good as us," Turco recalls Baldwin often saying.

Karl-Anthony led the 2013-14 St. Joseph squad in scoring with 20.9 points per game, while Baldwin chipped in 15.0. Sandwiched between them was Marques, a physical 6'4" guard who averaged 16.2 points and also starred on the football squad as a linebacker.

"There were a lot of games where people would try to take away Wade or Karl," Turco said, "but then they'd get burned by Marques. He performed really well in a lot of games where all of the limelight was on them."

Indeed, Townes ranks second in school history in scoring (1,863 points) behind only Jay Williams, who starred at Duke.

"Marques was an incredible scorer," Baldwin told Bleacher Report in a phone interview Friday. "But he was also the guy who always did the little things. Toughness, diving for loose balls, playing lockdown defense. The people that do those things...winning matters to them. And it mattered to Marques. It mattered to all of us."

While Towns and Baldwin long seemed destined for the NBA, Marques knew his athletic career would take a different path. He tinkered with playing Division I football—Syracuse, Ball State and Akron were among the schools that offered scholarships—but his passion for basketball led him to sign with Fairleigh Dickinson. Townes averaged 11.5 points per game as a sophomore and led the team to the NCAA tournament, where it lost in the First Four to Florida Gulf Coast.

Confident in his abilities to excel in a higher-level conference, he transferred to Loyola in the fall of 2016 and sat one season under NCAA transfer rules.

"He thought that with the way he was progressing, he could play at a higher level," Turco said. "He told me, 'I don't want to have any what-ifs.' So he gave it a chance, and it all worked out."

Even more so than Townes could've imagined.

When the Ramblers' plane touched down in San Antonio on Wednesday, it was guided into a private hangar. A red carpet lined the path for the players to walk to their bus as a band played their fight song.

"Like Coach [Porter Moser] was saying, there is nothing normal about this," Townes said. "We're enjoying the time and enjoying the moment, but when it comes to locking in on practices and the film we have in hotels, we do a good job of having a laser-like focus during those times."

Even though Towns and Baldwin are not here to witness Townes' big moment in person, they feel like they're experiencing it with him. They're part of a 10-person texting group that fires messages back and forth throughout Loyola's games. Turco is in the group too.

"My phone is buzzing the entire game," Turco said. "Sometimes it's, 'Did you see that defensive stop?!' and other times it's, 'He should've taken that shot!' We're just all so happy for Marques."

Not just because they like him but also because they respect what he's done to get here.

"He's [gone] through a lot of trials and tribulations," Karl-Anthony Towns wrote in his text. "People don't care about the labor pains. They only care about the baby. People don't see what Marques had to go through to get to this point."

The Ramblers are thankful he persevered.

Townes has played a huge role in Loyola's Final Four run, having assisted on the winning shot against Miami in the round of 64 before connecting on his own game-winner a week later against Nevada.

"I'm happy for Marques," Baldwin said, "but I'll be honest: I'm not surprised. This is what I expect from him. This is what he does. He's a winner. This is what he should be doing. He's just as worthy of being on that stage as anyone else."

Townes believes that too. Still, as confident as he is in his abilities, he's not above asking his friends for pointers and advice. That's why he spent a little extra time speaking with Towns on Thursday night once the jersey idea fell through.

In 2015, Towns' Kentucky Wildcats entered the Final Four with an undefeated record, but their championship hopes were crushed with a loss to Wisconsin in the semifinal.

"We got to the Final Four but couldn't finish it," Karl-Anthony told Townes. "You better finish it for me."

Townes laughed.

"I just told him: 'I got you. We're going to try our best.'"