Fifteen seconds remained when Princeton took the timeout, and it was once again cutting and passing and picking and probing mighty Georgetown with its patient offense. They had done so all through this March afternoon in Providence, R.I., and now, trailing by a point, they were looking to make history. They were looking to become the first 16th seed to topple a top seed in the NCAA tournament.
Alonzo Mourning was the star of the 1989 Hoyas, leading a team that had looked invincible while romping to the Big East tournament title. Its average margin of victory had been 20.7 points, and it had been expected to ravage lowly Princeton, which had not won its Ivy League title and automatic bid until the final game of the regular season. “It was, literally, first and last,” recalled Northwestern coach Bill Carmody, a Tigers assistant that afternoon.
Kit Mueller, a graduate of Downers Grove South, was the sophomore center on that Tigers team.
“I remember that Big East tournament,” he said. “The Selection Show came on right after Georgetown blew out Syracuse in the final, and the first thing they went to was the East.”
That’s when Princeton saw itself matched against the Hoyas.
“I was having a party at my home,” Mueller said, “and everyone left it depressed. We thought it was all over. Everyone thought we’d be blown out. We thought we’d be blown out.”
Three times in NCAA tournament history a 15th seed has upset a No. 2 seed (1991: Richmond def. Syracuse; 1992: East Tennessee State def. Arizona; 1997: Coppin State def. South Carolina) in the opening round, but a No. 1 seed has never fallen in its first game. That’s the streak Illinois, Michigan State, Duke and Stanford will look to extend on Thursday and Friday, the streak that has come perilously close to ending on only a few memorable occasions.
Indeed, just the day before the Georgetown-Princeton matchup, No.16 East Tennessee State almost pulled the upset of No. 1 seed Oklahoma, but the Sooners prevailed 72-71.
In 1990 Michigan State traveled to Knoxville, Tenn., as a top seed to face Murray State and escaped in overtime by four. “Toward the end of that game you start wondering what’s going to happen,” recalled Jud Heathcote, coach of that Spartans team. “Then when it ends, it’s like you just escaped Alcatraz. A sense of relief. Here you are a No. 1 seed, you almost got beat–it’s not supposed to happen.”
Six years later Purdue traveled to Albuquerque as a top seed to face Western Carolina, and escaped by two. “Uh-oh,” Boilermakers coach Gene Keady remembered thinking in the middle of that game.
“I could see we were in trouble, in for the fight of our lives,” Keady said. “But that was an unusual situation. Our kids won the Big Ten title and thought they were great. They weren’t really that good, and I think they were satisfied with their season. You didn’t know that at the time. They were super kids. They overachieved, did a great job winning the Big Ten. But they thought the Big Ten champion wins automatically. That doesn’t happen. We were lucky they missed a three-pointer at the end.”
Yet those escapes and all others pale when compared to the one Georgetown managed against Princeton, which went into that game as a 21 1/2-point underdog. Cornell had been the 16th-seeded Ivy League champion a year earlier and had lost to Arizona by 40, and even Mueller’s parents anticipated a similar fate for their son and his team.
“We checked on airfares to New York and then driving to Providence,” said Jim Mueller, Kit’s father. “But it was very unrealistic getting an [economical] air fare within seven days, so we said, `Hey, it’ll be a waste of money.’ Then we watched on TV and went nuts.”
Georgetown’s press had simply smothered opponents all season, but Princeton moved through it from the very start. Then the Tigers set up in their halfcourt offense, an offense well-suited to burning aggressive defenders, and this is when madness set in and nuttiness descended on Mueller’s parents and countless others.
“We got a lot of easy shots, a lot of layups, a number of back-door things,” Carmody recalled. “Things seemed to fall into place, and we got the feeling early that we’d be in this game.”
And Princeton, despite its earlier foreboding, wasn’t surprised to be in it.
“The way we played, if we got good shots we really could play with anyone,” Mueller said. “We had great shooters, so if we were getting our shots, we’d make a good percentage of them. The way the game progressed in the first half, it became clear pretty quick that we’d be in the game. We never let them get on a run so they got away from us.”
With the clock under 10 seconds, the Tigers were just a point behind the Hoyas. Mueller set a high screen for forward Bob Scrabis, who dribbled behind it and launched a shot from the top of the key. Suddenly, from behind Mueller, Mourning appeared like some wraith, rising and getting a hand on Scrabis’ shot.
“I was surprised to see Mourning,” Scrabis acknowledged ruefully. “Centers don’t usually hedge on a screen like that, but suddenly I saw his arm. I tried to get it over him. He just made a great defensive play.”
Even now, Mueller wrestles with what might have been.
“I was our best screener, so it made sense at the time to have me pick for Bobby,” he said. “But in retrospect, that was the wrong call. It allowed Mourning to be in the play. When he came over the screen he made a great block. I still remember the collision. He tipped Bobby’s shot, there was a free-for-all for the ball, I dove for it head-first, the ball squirted out of bounds and somehow we got it.”
The Tigers got the ball with a mere second remaining. Coming out of their last timeout, Mueller set up high with Mourning in front of him and no one between him and the basket. He would break for the basket and get a lob on the inbounds play. That was the plan, but it was inadvertently foiled.
“They delayed giving us the ball–I think it was for TV,” Mueller said. “I can still hear [Georgetown coach] John Thompson screaming for someone to get back behind me. That killed that idea.”
The ball still went to Mueller on the inbounds pass, but he was far from the basket and only had time to take a rushed jumper with Mourning flying at him. It was an airball, and the Hoyas hung on, 50-49.
“It’s hard to say whether he fouled me,” Mueller said. “I thought maybe he hit my hand, but . . . “
“That’s not what he told me,” interrupted his coach, Pete Carril. “That last play, we’ll have to take that up with God when we get there. I guess it will always be a matter of conjecture.”
In retrospect, “I thought it was a good call–a good no-call,” Mueller says now. “I’m really not sure. I know it was an extremely tough call, it was so close. But I’ll tell you one thing–I’m glad I didn’t go to the line and go 0-for-2. I would have been scarred for life.”
Mueller was laughing as he said this over the phone from Bermuda, where he has lived for the last 6 1/2 years. He is married and has a young son and trades for a hedge fund, but this one game that thrust him onto center stage is now on ESPN Classic and part of him still. He was that close to being part of basketball folklore, to being part of an extraordinary upset, and the memories of that remarkable afternoon are clear to him even now.
“Right now when you think about it, you think of that last shot,” Carmody said. “But in the long run, looking back 12 years, I think it was more historic.
“There was real serious consideration then for getting rid of a lot of the smaller conferences [by revoking their automatic bids]–eight or 10, if I remember correctly. But that idea was dropped because of that game. It was a pretty significant thing.
“But no one felt good afterwards. I didn’t watch the tape for at least a year, probably two summers later. It was very hard for all the guys. We did get the ball to our two best guys for the shots . . . But no one took solace from coming close. We were competitors. One or 64, we knew we could win that game. So no one felt good about it.”
Mueller would make two more NCAA tournament appearances and Princeton would lose two more close games, by four points to Arkansas in his junior year and by two points to Villanova in his senior year, both in the opening round.
“I don’t remember them as fondly,” he said. “But the mood after [Georgetown] wasn’t bad. We were going for a fun trip, really. Realistically, we weren’t expecting much, but it put us on the map. There was talk about eliminating the smaller conferences, the Ivy League among them, and we turned that around. So definitely it’s a good memory. Kind of a fun memory.
“But I have trouble watching the tape, too. My wife’s never seen it and she’s asked to see it. I can’t do it. It gets me too worked up. I turn the game on and my adrenaline gets going again.”
FIRST-ROUND PERFECTION
No. 1 seeds are 64-0 against No. 16 seeds since the tournament format went into effect in 1985. But not all of those victories have been easy. Here are five games that went down to the wire-plus some others that were a little less taxing on the top seeds:
%% Closest contests
MARGIN YEAR TEAMS, SCORE
1 1989 Georgetown 50
Princeton 49
1 1989 Oklahoma 72
E. Tenn. St. 71
2 1996 Purdue 73
W. Carolina 71
4 1985 Michigan 59
F. Dickinson 55
4 1990 Michigan St. 75
(OT) Murray State 71
Biggest blowouts
MARGIN YEAR TEAMS, SCORE
58 1998 Kansas 110
Prairie View 52
46 1995 Kentucky 113
Mt. St. Mary’s 67
44 1993 Kentucky 96
Rider 52
43 1993 Indiana 97
Wright State 54
41 1991 Arkansas 117
Georgia State 76
41 1999 Duke 99
Florida A & M 58
Source: NCAA.
Chicago Tribune.
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