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1996 UMass basketball

1996 Final Four: Showdown At The Meadowlands

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The Meadowlands in New Jersey had hosted many an East Regional final, but 1996 was the first year the NCAA Tournament brought the Final Four here. The 1996 Final Four saw the two best teams in the country, including a top-heavy favorite in Kentucky and a rising midmajor in UMass. There were two relative dark horses joining them, as traditional power Syracuse and Mississippi State both played beyond their seeds in the regional runs.

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Kentucky and UMass were not only ranked 1-2 in the country, but either one or the other had been ranked #1 in the country for all but three weeks in December and they held the top two spots from Christmas forward.

Ironically, given his future in Lexington, it was John Calipari who was coaching UMass as they were in their fifth year of national prominence.

UMass was led by Marcus Camby at center, and they rolled through the regional, including a surprisingly easy blowout of Allan Iverson’s Georgetown team in the final. Kentucky rolled through its own regional unchallenged.

Rick Pitino’s Wildcats took out Utah, the first of three straight seasons that Kentucky would eliminate the Utes, culminating in the 1998 national championship game. Then Kentucky blew out Tim Duncan’s Wake Forest team.

Syracuse was the #4 seed in the West, and they got an early break when top-seeded Purdue was knocked out by Georgia in the second round. The Orange then beat the Bulldogs 83-81 on an overtime three-pointer by John Wallace. This game has lived in NCAA lore by the site of CBS analyst Al McGuire dancing with the Syracuse players in the postgame interview, a scene part of highlight montages every March. The Orange then won a tough 60-57 game over 2-seed Kansas to get Jim Boeheim his first trip to the Final Four since the 1987 NCAA final when he lost a heartbreaker to Indiana.

If Kentucky and UMass were the nation’s best, and Syracuse a program everyone was familiar with, then Mississippi State was the team that came from off the grid. But the Bulldogs’ March run was the most impressive of them all. They got it started in the SEC Tournament, when 6’8″ forward Dontae Jones led the way to an upset of Kentucky for the title. After being seeded 5th in the Southeast Regional, Jones then had 36 points and 23 rebounds in successive wins over the region’s top two seeds in UConn and Cincinnati that put Mississippi State in the Meadowlands.

In 1996 the bracket’s #1 seeds weren’t positioned the way they are today, to ensure the nation’s two best would avoid each other until Monday night. Consequently, Saturday’s national semifinals had a clear undercard/marquee matchup quality to them. Syracuse-Mississippi State tipped it off to start the day, followed by the anticipated Kentucky-UMass battle.

The Orange and Bulldogs were tied 36-36 at half, and over the course of the game, Mississippi State hit its three-point shots and hit the boards. But Syracuse took better care of the basketball and they got to the free throw line repeatedly. Wallace went 8-for-10 on the stripe, while Mississippi State’s entire team went just 6-for-6. Syracuse ended up 20/24 on the line, Wallace finished with 21 points and Boeheim’s team advanced to Monday night by pulling away to a 77-61 win.

Rick Pitino’s coaching legend was built in large part by introducing an offense that repeatedly shot the three. It might come as a surprise to know the Kentucky-UMass game was not impacted by the three-ball, as each team went just 3-for-9 from behind the arc. The teams were relatively even in rebounding. This game was swung the old-fashioned way–just a little bit better execution by Kentucky, who shot 51 percent from the floor to UMass’s 45 percent.

UMass got 25 from Camby, but Kentucky guard Tony Delk scored 20 and forward Walter McCarty had 10 rebounds, to lead the 81-74 win.

Kentucky had opened the season as the favorites to win the national championship and even allowing UMass’s presence with them at the top of the polls, the Wildcats were the ones who faced enormous pressure all season. Now Pitino had to take the final step against Boeheim, who was getting a lot of casual fans rallying around him as he sought his own first championship.

Monday night saw Kentucky return to Pitino’s favored style and attack from the three-point line. Delk banged home seven treys en route to 24 points, while Ron Mercer hit three on a night he scored 20. Wallace had a big night, with 29 points/10 rebounds, but there was not nearly enough depth in the Syracuse lineup. Even though the Wildcats shot just 38 percent from the floor, the three were too much, and they built a nine-point halftime lead and won by that same margin, 76-67. Delk would be named the Most Outstanding Player of the 1996 Final Four.

Pitino would only stay at Kentucky one more year before going to the NBA and eventually returning to coach archrival Louisville. The Wildcats would make each of the next two NCAA finals, including a 1998 title under Tubby Smith. Caliper would also go on to the NBA before making his own college revival at Kentucky in their 2012 title run. And Boeheim? He’s just kept on rolling on at Syracuse, winning the 2003 national championship and making the Final Four again in 2013. They were all on center stage in the Meadowlands at the 1996 Final Four.

1996 UMass Basketball Breaks Down The Door To The Final Four

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To say Massachusetts basketball had less than a stellar history would be to understate the case. When the school went searching for a new coach following the 1988 season, it had been 26 years since they’d even made the NCAA Tournament. The man they hired to turn it around was John Calipari and with his first opportunity at a head coaching job, Calipari did not disappoint.

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By 1992, the Minutemen were not only an NCAA Tournament team, they had dethroned Temple as the champs of the Atlantic 10 and UMass was a #3 seed in the bracket. They lost to Kentucky and Rick Pitino in the Sweet 16, one game prior to UK’s losing to Duke in one of the greatest college basketball games ever played, but Calipari had UMass pointing in the right direction. One year later, they were again a #3, although a second-round upset was a disappointment.

Calipari made the big recruiting haul for the 1994 season, bringing in highly touted center Marcus Camby and it paid off with a big year and a #2 seed in March Madness. But another second-round upset again left UMass wanting more.

The following year they were again a #2 and this time made it to the regionals. The prospect of a great battle of big men awaited in a regional final, with Camby on one side of the draw and Tim Duncan of top-seeded Wake Forest on the other.

But when Wake was ousted by Oklahoma State, the door looked wide open for UMass to reach the Final Four. It didn’t work out—the Minutemen went cold in the regional final and while it was their best season yet, they were still one step short.

1996 UMass basketball opened the season ranked #7 in the nation and had all the pieces. Surrounding Camby were three different forwards who were steady rebounders in Dana Dingle, Donta Bright and Tyrone Weeks. The backcourt was led by a pair of Puerto Ricans, 12-ppg scorer Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla. They made a big mark on the season before November was out, with a 92-82 win over top-ranked Kentucky. By Christmas, it was UMass that was atop the polls after a 75-67 win over Georgia Tech.

The regular season had few problems in terms of wins and losses—they started 26-0 and kept their #1 ranking into late February, before a loss to George Washington ended the dream of a perfect season. The scare that came on January 14 wasn’t basketball-related. In a game against St. Bonaventure, Camby lost consciousness on the floor for ten seconds. We were only six years removed from a tragedy at Loyola Marymount, when Hank Gaithers had died on the court, so it was nothing to take lightly. Calipari left the arena to accompany his player to the emergency room and Camby did not return for two weeks.

Once Camby got back in the flow, all was good and they concluded the season with a 31-1 record and were given the #1 seed in the East Regional for the NCAA Tournament. The Minutemen got a tough game from Stanford in the second round, but won 79-74. Now they were on their way to Atlanta for another crack at the regionals.

Whether or not UMass had gotten a bracket break for the Sweet 16 depends on perspective. If you look at the seeds, they were clearly fortunate to be playing #12th-seeded Arkansas. But this was a Razorback program that had been to the last two national championship games, and won the crown in 1994. The talent was a shadow of what it had been, but head coach Nolan Richardson had been down this road before.

The Minutemen brought their defense and rebounding though, holding the Hogs to 34 percent from the floor and beating them 44-34 on glass. Dingle, Bright and even Travieso from the backcourt got to the boards. Weeks scored 16 points/7 rebounds. With that kind of support for Camby, you weren’t going to beat UMass and the star center delivered a 15/7 night of his own. Massachusetts led 40-24 at half and coasted to a 79-63 win.

A future NBA star was staring across the floor from Massachusetts for the regional final. Allan Iverson was the point guard for Georgetown and the Hoyas were the #2 seed in the East bracket. A good game was anticipated and for a half it was all that, as the Minutemen took a 38-34 lead into intermission.

But Massachusetts took over in the second half. Camby had a big day, racking up a 22/7 and Travieso also knocked down 20 points. Iverson scored 23, but only had one assist, as UMass kept the creative point guard from getting anyone else involved in the offense. At long last, Calipari was taking his program to the Final Four.

Kentucky had played with immense pressure to win the national championship all year long, and they were the opponent for the national semifinal in East Rutherford. The Wildcats had too much talent for the Minutemen—truth be told, Kentucky had too much talent for everyone in the country. Even though Camby played well, with 25 points/8 rebounds and UMass didn’t quite—cutting a 15-point lead to three in the second half, Kentucky was able to reassert control and win 81-74. Two nights later they won it all.

1996 UMass basketball saw its legacy take a hit when recruiting violations pertaining to Camby were uncovered. Officially, the school has been forced to vacate the wins in the NCAA Tournament, the usual sham job the NCAA does, wherein some of us are supposed to pretend we didn’t see UMass take apart Iverson’s Georgetown team (I had the Hoyas in the Final Four in my bracket that year—do I get retroactive credit now that the wins are vacated?). On the basketball floor, there’s no doubt what happened—1996 UMass basketball finally got over the hump and made the Final Four.