Final Four Fact February: The 1996 Big Dance Goes HAM

To get in the proper frame of mind for March Madness — and in an effort to provide daily content here at The Press Break — let’s dive into some Final Four history each day in February.

We start with 1996, for no other reason than this particular Final Four came to mind as I thought idly about past venues for college basketball’s championship. I posited the question to Twitter, when and where was the last Final Four held in a basketball arena?

Shoutout’s in order for @CamBNewton who not only knew it was 1996 at the Meadowlands, but had the windbreaker to prove it.

Indeed, the 1996 NCAA Tournament is particularly noteworthy as the last held in a venue designed for, uh, basketball. It also marked the end of a near half-century absence of college hoops’ national championship from the metro that was most responsible for launching the game’s national popularity in the mid-20th Century.

Now, some of that popularity was rooted in gambling, and Madison Square Garden became notorious as a cesspool for illegal wagering in the post-World War II years. MSG hosted the 1950 championship, won by a CCNY team later heavily implicated in a far-reaching point-shaving scandal.

I cannot recommend Matthew Goodman’s book on the scandal The City Game highly enough.

Part of the fallout included a moratorium on NCAA postseason events in and around New York City, which is relevant this season thanks to the first-ever West Regional played in Las Vegas coming in March.

The 1996 Final Four wasn’t the first time the NCAA Tournament came to the NY metro, but it did mark the championship round’s return. An interest fact about March Madness games played in northern New Jersey?

Richard Nixon was a big Duke basketball fan

Although the jokes write themselves, this isn’t a bit. When Duke advanced to the 1989 Final Four — its third national semifinal in four seasons, and the second in what became a remarkable run of five straight through ‘92 — the former President was in attendance at the Meadowlands.

Per the Los Angeles Times, Nixon even gave Christian Laettner a pep talk after Duke dropped a game in New Jersey earlier that season to Arizona.

Of course, the 37th President had died almost two years prior to the 1996 Final Four and wasn’t in attendance. Neither was Duke.

Duke’s loss to Eastern Michigan was its first-ever Round of 64 exit

Mike Krzyzewski became Duke’s head coach in 1980, and after enduring a few lean years initially, began a decade-long of Tournament berths by 1984.

The ‘84 NCAA Tournament was the last before expansion to 64 teams, and the Blue Devils’ stay in it was short-lived with a loss to Washington. That also marked the final time a Duke team went without at least one postseason win until 1995.

The Blue Devils finished below .500 in 1995 and out of the picture, with Coach K sidelined by back issues. He returned for the ‘95-’96 campaign, and Duke returned to the NCAA Tournament — albeit briefly.

An 18-win Duke garnered an 8-seed in the Southeast and drew Mid-American Conference champion Eastern Michigan.

Ben Braun had a wildly successful tenure at EMU that included a trip to the Sweet 16. He parlayed his stint with the Eagles into the Cal job, but not before leading them to a 1st Round win over Duke.

Generously listed at 5-foot-7, Earl Boykins outplayed Chris Collins and Jeff Capel en route to 23 points. Eastern Michigan won, 75-60, and Boykins cemented himself as Eastern Michigan’s greatest player since George Gervin.

As for Duke, the Blue Devils didn’t lose in the Round of 64 again until bowing out to VCU in 2007.

Princeton sent Pete Carril out a winner

The last game of Pete Carril’s illustrious coaching career was a 22-point loss to Mississippi State. But does anyone who has followed college basketball for the past 27 years really remember that?

Of course not.

The enduring memory of Carril in his final days as Princeton head coach are of Steve Goodrich finding Gabe Lewullis on one of those Carril-signature backdoor cuts that are so synonymous with the venerable coach, they’re called “Princeton cuts.”

Carril announced his retirement prior to the 1996 NCAA Tournament, making the Tigers’ 43-41 win over defending national champion UCLA that much more historic.

Princeton’s victory remains one of the most enduring images of March Madness almost 30 years later, and serves as a bit of karmic retribution for Carril’s legacy.

Seven years prior, Carril very nearly scored the single-most landmark upset in Tournament history with his slow-down style nearly upending top-seeded Georgetown. The 50-49 final was without equal in the pantheon of 1 vs. 16 showdowns — until 1996, anyway.

Western Carolina almost became the first 16 to beat a 1

Playing in its first and still only NCAA Tournament, Western Carolina nearly became synonymous with March Madness.

The SoCon champion Catamounts won just 17 games heading into the Big Dance, having nabbed the league’s automatic bid thanks to a conference tournament run that included a 40-point game from Anquell McCollum.

Big Ten champion Purdue, meanwhile, was 25-3 heading into the Tournament and had designs on reaching its first Final Four of Gene Keady’s career. The Boilermakers instead nearly ended up on a different side of history, escaping 73-71.

And escape is the right way to describe it. Western Carolina had free throws down the stretch to take the lead but missed; on the go-ahead basket for Purdue, the Boiler who made the critical assist appeared to step out-of-bounds; and WCU missed both a close 3-pointer and had rim in-and-out the would-be, overtime-forcing follow as time expired.

Steve Nash made March magic once last time

Steve Nash’s Santa Clara career is most closely associated with helping the Broncos to a 15-over-2 upset of Arizona his freshman year. However, the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player closed his college run with another bit of March magic, leading a 91-79 defeat of Maryland in 1996.

The Broncos were seeded 10th and came in 6.5-point underdogs against the Terrapins, but Nash’s 28 points and 12 assists sent Maryland packing in the 1st Round. Yet another March embarrassment for the Big Ten Conference, am I right?

The 1996 NBA draft class shined in the NCAA Tournament

1996 rivals 1984 as the best NBA draft of all-time, producing MVPs Nash, Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson; fellow Hall of Fame talents Ray Allen and Jermaine O’Neal; and key contributors to championship teams, like Derek Fisher.

It should come as no surprise that the ‘96 draft class made a huge impression on the 1996 NCAA Tournament, eventually leading to the Final Four.

Some standouts:

• Malik Rose, who parlayed his second-round selection to a 13-season NBA career and two championships, led 12-seed Drexel to the 2nd Round with a 21-point, 15-rebound against Memphis. The Dragons bowed out in a 2nd Round loss to Syracuse, but Rose posted another double-double with 11 points and 15 boards.

• Ray Allen shot 13-of-28 from 3-point range and scored an average of 23.7 points per game in UConn’s three Tournament outings. He played all 40 minutes in the 1st Round win over 1997 lottery pick Adonal Foyel and Colgate, and in the Huskies’ Sweet 16 loss to BIG EAST counterpart Syracuse.

• Allen Iverson went 12-of-28 from beyond the arc, broke 30 points twice, and averaged 27.8 points per game leading Georgetown to the Elite Eight.

• Stephon Marbury scored 61 points in Georgia Tech’s three Tournament games, including a 29-point effort in the Round of 32 against Boston College in which he also dished nine assists and snagged four steals.

Seven Final Four participants went in the 1st Round of the ‘96 draft

Along with the above-named standouts, the Final Four was rife with NBA draft prospects. National champion Kentucky produced three first-rounders that summer on its own, the most by a team coming off winning a title since the undefeated Indiana Hoosiers of 1976 (Scott May, Quinn Buckner, Bob Wilkerson).

Kentucky sent off Walter McCarty, Antoine Walker and Tournament Most Outstanding Player Tony Delk that year. It’s fair to suggest Walker’s surge to No. 6 in the ‘96 draft is a direct result of his NCAA Tournament, as he scored in double-figures in five of the Wildcats’ six wins, grabbed eight-plus rebounds four times, flirted with a triple-double in a Sweet 16 win against ‘97 lottery pick Keith Van Horn, and put on a defensive masterclass during the Final Four.

Marcus Camby, who plenty argued was the best college basketball player in the country that season, scored 25 points in UMass’ semifinal loss to Kentucky. Walker did his part to ensure Camby had to work for every bit of that.

Another lottery-round big man from that draft class to reach the semifinal, Erick Dampier, helped Mississippi State to its first and still only Final Four appearance with a lockdown defensive effort in the Sweet 16 against UConn.

Fellow 1st Round pick Dontae Jones solidified himself as a pro prospect with three double-doubles over the course of Mississippi State’s Final Four run, including a 23-point, 13-rebound effort in the Elite Eight against Cincinnati.

The 1996 1st Rounder I most closely associate with this Final Four, however, is Syracuse’s John Wallace.

Wallace averaged a hair below 22 points per game for the Tournament, grabbed eight rebounds per game, and ranks up there with Dwyane Wade in 2003 and Steph Curry in 2008 for players coming the closest to willing their teams to national titles.

Wallace capped his unforgettable postseason with 29 points and 10 rebounds in the national title game, which Kentucky won, 76-67.

Syracuse reaching the championship contest as a No. 4 seed was noteworthy on its own, as no 4-seed had ever won a national championship — for another year, anyway.

The 1996 Tournament produced the greatest SI cover ever

Darvin Ham’s backboard-shattering dunk highlighted Texas Tech’s win over North Carolina, and provided the single coolest Sports Illustrated cover in the publication’s history.