{"id":1433,"date":"2008-11-12T14:42:34","date_gmt":"2008-11-12T19:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:19:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:19:06","slug":"hoop-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2008\/11\/hoop-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoop Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

It can\u2019t be 20 years since Seton Hall made it to the Final Four, can it?<\/p>\n

Twenty years since the Pirates played in the national championship game and lost 80-79 in overtime to Michigan? Since P.J. Carlesimo, the coach with the beard, led the team from the basement to the penthouse, capturing the hearts of New Jersey and the fancy of the college basketball world?<\/p>\n

Yes, it has been 20 years. Some of today\u2019s students weren\u2019t even born when the greatest basketball season in Seton Hall history was played. But a lot of Pirate fans remember, and were part of the frenzy. Here is how it happened.<\/p>\n

A season of optimism<\/h3>\n
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As an assistant athletic director and the team\u2019s media liaison, I was fortunate enough to be an insider. The three-week ride in the NCAA Tournament was the craziest time of my professional life, and the most fun.
\nThe Final Four season was so amazing on many levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeton Hall\u2019s magic run in 1989 was like an ongoing fairy tale,\u201d said Michael Tranghese, who was the associate commissioner for the BIG EAST Conference at the time.<\/p>\n

(He became commissioner a year later.) \u201cEvery time they won, you kept thinking back to where they had been just a few years earlier. It remains as one of the great stories in BIG EAST history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporters who witnessed the team\u2019s good nights after what seemed like an endless string of bad nights also were pulled in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still the most fun I\u2019ve had professionally covering a team,\u201d said Tom Luicci, who reported on the Pirates for The Star-Ledger in Newark. \u201cYou didn\u2019t want it to end. And for a team that had not had a lot of success, they handled it really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The season started with some optimism, but not a barrelful. The Pirates were coming off a 22-13 year and their first NCAA bid in school history. It was quite an accomplishment for a team that finally had started to climb after seasons of mediocrity.<\/p>\n

Still, most college basketball observers were ready to dismiss the team. Preseason prognosticators had the Pirates in the lower half of the BIG EAST standings, and conference coaches ranked Seton Hall seventh out of nine teams.<\/p>\n

But Seton Hall\u2019s coaches and players felt differently.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the guys spent that summer doing the extra work, the extra training,\u201d said John Morton, the team\u2019s standout guard. \u201cWe were excited that we made the NCAAs and we wanted it to continue. I never played on a team with so much good chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tough competition<\/h3>\n
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The season opened in November at the Great Alaska Shootout. The Pirates won their opener over Utah, then knocked off Kentucky and defending NCAA champion Kansas to win the Shootout title.<\/p>\n

\u201cWalking away from Alaska, I thought, wow, we\u2019re going to be good,\u201d said Bruce Hamburger, an assistant coach.<\/p>\n

In December, the Pirates went to New Orleans and won the Sugar Bowl Classic, defeating Virginia and DePaul with relative ease.<\/p>\n

The Hall was 12-0, and becoming a hot story. On Jan. 3, Pirate fans filled the Meadowlands arena to capacity for the first time as Seton Hall hosted Georgetown. The team responded with a 94-86 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelling out the Meadowlands was something that a lot of people said we could never do,\u201d said Larry Keating, the athletic director.<\/p>\n

The Pirates handled the regular BIG EAST season with talent and maturity, finishing in second place with an 11-5 record. Carlesimo was named BIG EAST Coach of the Year for a second straight season, and center Ramon Ramos was named All-BIG EAST First Team and won the conference scholar-athlete award.<\/p>\n

Seton Hall advanced to the conference semifinals before losing to Syracuse 81-78, then awaited their second NCAA invitation. The Pirates were 26-6 and ranked 11th in the nation at the time.<\/p>\n

The NCAA Tournament odyssey began in Tucson, Ariz., where the Pirates defeated Southwest Missouri State 60-51 and Evansville 87-73. Everyone notices when you win NCAA games, but Seton Hall was still floating under the national radar.
\nThe next stop was Denver for the West Regionals to face Indiana and legendary coach Bobby Knight. Undaunted, the Pirates won 78-65 in convincing fashion.<\/p>\n

Next up were the UNLV Runnin\u2019 Rebels and Coach Jerry Tarkanian, who had the best career coaching record in the nation. Seton Hall held only a four-point lead at halftime, but pulled away in the second half for an 84-61 triumph.
\nThe Pirates had just handed Indiana and UNLV their worst NCAA Tournament losses ever, and incredibly, were headed to Seattle for the Final Four.<\/p>\n

National attention<\/h3>\n
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Seton Hall was due in Seattle just four days later, so it was decided the team would spend a couple of days in Santa Monica, Calif., instead of trekking back to New Jersey. The team decided to let its regular beat reporters know where they would be staying, if the writers agreed not to divulge which hotel.<\/p>\n

It was a nice plan, but the news was out, and the national media latched on to the Pirates story. The phone in my hotel room rang off the hook for three days.<\/p>\n

A hotel operator actually called to say he was happy I was checking out.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery step along the way, the players were so poised and not fazed by what was happening around them,\u201d said Joe Quinlan, who was an assistant Seton Hall athletic director at the time. (He now has the top post.) \u201cWe had our academic advisers with us. We had the media attention and, of course, the games. The kids just did what they needed to do.\u201d
\nSo much had happened in just a few weeks. Now, the Final Four was here, and there were the Pirates taking the floor in the spacious Kingdome to meet Duke on college basketball\u2019s biggest stage.<\/p>\n

The first several minutes of the game were a nightmare, as Duke exploded to a 26-8 lead. After all the Pirates had accomplished, was it really going to end like this?<\/p>\n

The answer was a resounding \u201cno.\u201d During a timeout, Carlesimo told his team to forget about the score and just keep playing. It seemed like an impossible charge, but it worked. Led by guard Gerald Greene, the Pirates would not die. They chipped away and cut the deficit to 38-33 by halftime.<\/p>\n

In many ways, Greene epitomized Seton Hall\u2019s rise to prominence. As a freshman and sophomore, he and his teammates absorbed the body blows of BIG EAST competition on a regular basis. Greene, who grew up in Brooklyn, helped the team to a National Invitation Tournament bid as a sophomore, and to the school\u2019s first NCAA bid as a junior. Now, he was keeping the Pirates afloat with his talent and his spirit.<\/p>\n

Seton Hall wore down the Blue Devils in the second half, scoring an amazing 62 points and pulling away for a comfortable 95-78 win. Forwards Andrew Gaze, the Australian Olympian, and Daryll Walker, the steady New York City native, led the way with 20 and 19 points, respectively.<\/p>\n

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The Starting Five<\/h3>\n

Andrew Gaze<\/strong>
\nposition: Forward\/Guard
\nheight: 6\u20197\u201d
\nclass: Junior
\nhometown: Melbourne, Australia<\/p>\n