Sports Then and Now

Duke turned the basketball world upside down by shocking the Runnin' Rebels.

Today, it is hard to believe any victory by the Duke basketball team as a monster upset, but 20 years ago, the Blue Devils pulled off one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history when they knocked the unbeaten and defending national champion UNLV Runnin’ Rebels in the Final Four.

The Blue Devils entered that Final Four not as the team everybody loved to hate, but rather as a program that could not seal the deal when it came to winning the NCAA tournament.

Under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke had made four trips to the Final Four in the previous five years, but came away with no national championships, as they lost their trips to the title game in 1986 to Louisville and in 1990 by 30 points to UNLV.

The 103-73 victory in the 1990 championship game was the first national championship for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and first for head coach Jerry Tarkanian, famous for his towel-chewing in the middle of games

Tarkanian had built UNLV into a national power with his up-tempo offensive style that had led the Rebels to two other Final Four appearances prior to their national title in 1990.

But under Tarkanian’s leadership, the program had built the reputation as one that did not play by the rules as “Tark the Shark” was often at odds with the NCAA.

Three months after they won the national title, UNLV was put on prohibition and banned from postseason play for the 1991 season, meaning they could not defend their championship.

But after discussions with the NCAA, the ban was lifted and UNLV would be allowed to play in the 1991 NCAA tournament.

With that featured national player of the year Larry Johnson and first-round NBA picks Stacy Augmon and Greg Anthony, the Rebels breezed through the 1991 season as they entered the Final Four with 34-0 record and a #1 ranking the team had held all year. Read the rest of this entry →

Will VCU end up wearing the glass slipper at the 2011 NCAA Championships?

Bear with me. I’m mixing three metaphors but it all works out in the end.

We call it the Big Dance. We refer to the party crashers as Cinderella. No team is more of a Cinderella in this year’s March Madness than Virginia Commonwealth. And the pundits and purists who expressed their loathing of the Rams making the tournament at all, are the ugly stepsisters.

You can’t blame them. Like the stepsisters of the fairy tale, those who scorn the likes of VCU crashing the party are those who stand on convention. They are traditionalists. They perpetuate arranged marriage. If a prince seeks a bride, then she must have a pedigree. When the Fairy Godmother smiles on the upstart, they are beside themselves.

VCU has garnered more scorn than any team making the cut in recent memory. Thus they are the quintessential Cinderella. Metaphor number one.

Enter Kansas Jayhawks. A sign in the crowd at the Kansas/VCU game read, “You’re not in Kansas anymore.” That was obvious. Marv Albert said the Jayhawks looked “shell shocked” late in the first half. “Did you see the look in their eyes?” He exclaimed.

The only remaining number one seed was definitely not in Kansas any more, Call them shell shocked. Call them Dorothy in Munchkin Land. Definitely not in Kansas. Metaphor number two.

Except this Dorothy has no ruby slippers. And I guess you would call VCU the Munchkins. And they have the glass slipper. The only question remaining is will the slipper fit in the end. Read the rest of this entry →

Head Coach Brad Stevens and the Butler Bulldogs are heading back to the Final Four.

Since the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, a school has reached the Final Four in consecutive years a total of 13 times. The list includes many of the usual suspects, Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina (twice), Michigan State (twice), Florida and UCLA among others. After their overtime victory Saturday night against Florida, the list now also includes the Butler Bulldogs.

As a private liberal arts school near Indianapolis with roughly 4,500 students (undergrad and graduate), Butler would seem to be an unlikely candidate to be known as a basketball powerhouse.

Yet, Butler is now clearly the poster child for a new era in college basketball where the gap in talent and ability between schools from the “power” conferences and the rest of college basketball is quickly shrinking.

Unlike the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels, which was the first non-power conference school to reach consecutive Final Fours from 1990-1991, Butler is not creating success by separating the two words student and athlete.

Instead, Butler has created a culture of success on the court while maintaining a high level of academic success. Read the rest of this entry →

The VCU Rams have shown that they belong in the NCAA Tournament with a pair of victories against power conference schools.

When the bids for the NCAA Tournament were announced last Sunday, much venom was dispersed by self-proclaimed tournament “experts” about how the committee had made a huge mistake in selecting a pair of non-power conference teams (VCU and UAB) over supposedly more deserving schools from major conferences.

The under-pinning message in their comments was that it was okay for teams with 14 losses from major conferences to receive at-large bids for the NCAA Tournament, but heaven forbid the committee award schools from conferences with less national prominence for their solid seasons.

Their argument seemed to be justified after UAB sleep-walked through an opening round loss to Clemson.

However, since that game, schools from conferences outside the so-called “Power 6” (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10 and SEC) have more than held their own against schools from the power conferences.

It started with a victory by VCU over USC in the second of the opening round games between at-large tournament teams.

In the second round of the tournament, there were 12 games in which power and non-power conferences met in games between teams seeded from 4th through 13th.

Of those 12 games, the power conferences claimed six victories and the non-power conferences claimed six victories with the non-power conferences winning two of the three games in which both teams were at-large tournament selections. Eight of the 12 games were decided by five points or less with the two largest margins of victory being posted by non-power schools (VCU defeating Georgetown by 18 and Gonzaga crushing St. John’s by 15).

This illustrates that when playing on a neutral site, there isn’t significant difference between the so-called “big boys” and their lesser funded “country cousins.” Read the rest of this entry →

The N.C. State Wolfpack made an amazing run through the 1983 NCAA Tournament.

Welcome to the third and final part of the 50 most memorable NCAA tournament runs since 1979.

Today, we look at the best of the best, the 10 greatest tournament runs since the NCAA began to use seeding back in 1979.

10. 1987 Providence
Before the 1986-87 season, the NCAA adopted a three-point line for division I basketball.

The three-pointer became the focal point of Providence’s Final Four run, the first team Rick Pitino took the Final Four.

The sixth-seeded Friars knocked off UAB in the first round, then held off #14 seed Austin Peay with an overtime victory in the second round to advance to the Sweet 16, where the team drained 14 off 22 three-pointers to upset second-seeded Alabama 103-82 to reach the Southeast Regional Final and a date with top-seed and conference rival, Georgetown.

Expecting a barrage of three-pointers, the Hoyas were stunned when Providence went to an inside game and shot only eight three-pointers as the Friars surprised Georgetown 88-73 to make it to the Final Four for the first time since 1973.

However, the Friars could not overcome another Big East team in their national semifinal, as they were defeated by the Syracuse Orangemen, 77-63.

9. 1989 Michigan
Although there were ranked 3rd in the preseason poll and were ranked throughout the season, the Michigan Wolverines’ championship run in 1989 was unexpected because of their coaching situation.

On March 15th, just two days before Michigan’s first tournament game, head coach Bill Frieder announced that he would leave after the tournament was over to become the new head coach at Arizona State.

But athletic director Bo Schembechler relieved Frieder of his duties immediately, saying “A Michigan man will coach Michigan” and promoted assistant head coach Steve Fisher to interim head coach.

All the Wolverines did under Fisher was win all six games and the school’s first national championship in basketball, thanks to the three-point shooting of Glen Rice and point guard Rumeal Robinson.

Rice averaged 30.7 points per game as 3rd seeded Michigan knocked off Xavier, South Alabama, North Carolina, and Virginia to win the Southeast regional and make the trip to the Final Four.

Then, Michigan knocked off Illinois 83-81 in their national semifinal when Sean Higgins rebounded  a missed shot and puts it back in for the game-winning basket with two seconds to go, sending the Wolverines to the title game to face Seton Hall.

Robinson made the game-winning free throws with three seconds left in overtime to give Michigan an 80-79 victory, the national title, and the head coaching job for Fisher, who stayed as the Michigan head coach until 1997. Read the rest of this entry →

The 1979 Penn Quakers defeated North Carolina and Duke to reach the Final Four.

Welcome to Part 2 of the 50 most memorable NCAA tournament runs since 1979.

This installment features tournament runs 25 through 11 since the tournament began to seed teams back in 1979.

We start with #25:

25. 2002 Kent State
The Golden Flashes entered the 2002 tournament with the longest winning streak in the country, at 18 games, but were given only a #10 seed in the South Regional.

Led by future San Diego Chargers tight end Antonio Gates, Kent State knocked off Oklahoma State in the first round, then easily defeated SEC champion Alabama in the second round to make it out of the first weekend.

In the Sweet 16, the Flashes pulled off a 76-73 overtime victory over #3 seed Pittsburgh to become the first Mid-American Conference team to reach the Elite Eight since Ohio back in 1964.

However, Kent could not get past Indiana in the regional final as they lost 81-69, denying the Flashes a trip to the Final Four.

24.  1979 St. John’s
St. John’s was the 40th and last team to make it to the 1979 NCAA tournament, by winning nine of its last 11 games in the regular season.

The Redmen continued their hot streak into the tournament as they defeated Temple in the first round, then stunned 2nd seeded Duke 80-78 as part of “Black Sunday”, where the Blue Devils and North Carolina both lost their games in the state of North Carolina.

St. John’s held off Rutgers 67-65 in their Sweet 16 match-up to advance to the East Regional Final, where they faced off Pennsylvania, the team who knocked off North Carolina.

The Redmen’s memorable run ended just short off the Final Four as they lost to Penn 64-62.

23. 1987 LSU
One year after making the Final Four as a #11 seed, the Tigers almost pulled off another Final Four run as a double digit seed.

LSU actually had a worse record in 1987 than they did the previous season as they finished the season with a 21-14 record, 8-10 in the SEC, but earned berth as a #10 seed.

The Tigers defeated Georgia Tech in the first round, followed by a win over second-seeded Temple in the second round to move onto to the second weekend of the tournament where they defeated #3 seed DePaul to face where they faced top seed Indiana in the Midwest Regional Final.

LSU was on the brink of a second consecutive Final Four as they lead the Hoosiers 75-66 with 4:38 left in the second half, but Indiana outscored the Tigers 12-1 with forward Rick Calloway scoring the winning basket with seven seconds remaining to give Indiana a 77-76 win and denying the Tigers a return trip to the Final Four. Read the rest of this entry →