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March 17, 2000 By Dennis Dodd SportsLine.com Senior Writer |
Video: NCAA Tournament highlights NCAA Tournament schedule and resultsComplete East coverage
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In basketball terms, the small, urban university in South
Orange, N.J. has been around only 11 years.
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Most of the nation didn't know Seton Hall from Monte Hall until the Pirates made their run to the 1989 championship game against Michigan. In that game Michigan's Rumeal Robinson made two free throws near the end to win the national championship.
"I don't think I knew where Seton Hall was," said Pirates guard Darius Lane, who was a 10-year-old in Minnesota back then. "I was rooting for Michigan."
The Hall woke up the echoes and a sleepy NCAA Tournament Friday with a 72-71 overtime victory over Oregon. Call it an upset if you want -- a No. 10 seed beating a seventh seed -- but it was justice for the gritty kids from Jersey.
Senior point guard Shaheen Holloway ended a length-of-the-court rush by kissing the game-winning layup off the glass with 1.9 seconds left. The reward is a second-round game Sunday against Temple.
Right now, though, it's all about history. History that P.J. Carlesimo's team made and that the program left mostly dormant until Friday.
"I've watched the (championship) game on tape," Holloway said. "You could remember the Rumeal Robinson free throws. You could remember it was a bad (foul) call against Seton Hall but I won't get into that. You remember those guys fighting their hearts out. They had no superstar, just everybody playing together."
If 11 years have taught us anything it's that, in some ways, not much has changed in South Orange. P.J. went away to be choked in the NBA. Holloway still plays pickup games with some of the old '89 Pirates. But Seton Hall still plays as if escaping from the prison of stifling Jersey.
"It's not like the Big East where teams have good scouting reports on us," Holloway said Friday after scoring 27 points. "I knew there were going to be opportunities for us to get easy baskets."
Getting back in the tournament was like a release from a cell. After all, it has been six years. The team practiced Thursday at the HSBC Arena with Holloway leading cheers with schoolchildren in the stands.
"They were rooting for me because I'm small," he said. "They're small so I just waved and they went crazy."
Over the summer, Holloway went to Bloomington, Ind., for 1½ months to work on his game. He lived with relatives, relishing the relative quiet of the Midwest while soaking up the basketball atmosphere. And no, he didn't run into this region's Knight of darkness.
"I tried to stay away from him," Holloway said of Indiana coach Bob Knight.
Seton Hall will have to keep up the resourcefulness if it hopes to beat Temple. Against Oregon, the Pirates blew a 10-point second-half lead. Guard Rimas Kaukenas had to hit a running layup with 3.5 seconds left to send the game into overtime.
Oregon got its last lead when Frederick Jones sank two free throws with 8.7 seconds left. Holloway then rushed up court and took the game into his hands.
"Why not?" said Lane, the team's leading scorer. "He's the point guard. If it was me I probably would have shot it too in my senior year."
This team is a lot like '89's in more than style of play. Andrew Gaze was an Australian import who led the Pirates that year. This year it's Kaukenas, a Lithuanian who is a Dolph Lundgren look-alike. Back then, the Pirates had Puerto Rican Ramon Ramos up front. This year, it's Haitian shot blocker Samuel Dalembert.
The only foreign aspect to Seton Hall, though, has been the tournament. The Pirates last made the NCAAs in 1994. They last won a tournament game in 1993. This year held little promise considering Seton Hall was a bubble team that barely made it in. It finished tied for fourth in the Big East, losing five of its last seven games.
Since that March and April 11 years ago, Seton Hall has been as far as the Sweet 16 only once, in 1991. When Holloway made his game-winning shot he drew upon the only history he could: UCLA's Tyus Edney made a similar court-length rush in 1995 to beat Missouri.
"I watched him do that," Holloway said. "He's my size (5-10). It's fitting that it was a shot like that helped us advance. I think that's the year they won so ... "
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| Shaheen Holloway makes the most of Seton Hall's first appearance in the tourney in six years. (AP) |
Let's not go overboard. Seton Hall (21-9) is a nice team but doesn't have the look of a champion yet. It's just nice to have something positive to talk about on campus. Three students died and 50 were injured on Jan. 19 in a dormitory fire. Professors have been stopping players on campus lately thanking them for giving the university an efficacious outlook.
"When I was a little kid I'd watch the NCAA Tournament and see people doing stuff like this," Holloway said. "You say to yourself, 'One day I want to be part of it.' I'm about due because I missed two of them this year. "
Holloway was talking about a couple of layups that could have made things a lot easier for the Pirates. He missed a running bank shot at the end of regulation at Georgetown in January. Seton Hall came back to win 65-62 in overtime for its first victory at Georgetown in 13 years.
Now it is mostly a crusade for the seniors. Until now, guys like Holloway had only a couple of NITs to remember. Third-year coach Tommy Amaker has given them something more.
He has won in Syracuse for three consecutive years, including in February when the Pirates handed the Orangemen their first loss of the season. Until Friday, the Pirates have never quite captured the magic of that night or of 11 years ago.
"That team played with tremendous heart," Holloway said of 1989. "I think we have that now too."
The Temple of doom
It has to go down as one of the weirdest lines in NCAA Tournament history -- no points, 15 assists, five rebounds.
That was Temple guard Pepe Sanchez's production during a 73-47 first-round victory over Lafayette. It also suited demanding coach John Chaney.
"I was very pleased with him in a quiet way. We certainly need to do much better against a team like Seton Hall where the guards are really, really strong city guards."
It's the third consecutive game that Sanchez, a third-team All-American, hasn't scored a field goal. He missed all three of his shots on Friday making him zero for nine since a March 9 Atlantic 10 Tournament game against Virginia Tech.
Who cares? Chaney values the basketball more than food. As long as the offense gets run right, Chaney is happy. The Owls improved to 27-5 as Sanchez established a new career high for assists. Friday's total was one off the East Region record.
"If I can play the whole game without scoring," Sanchez said, "and see a smile on coach's face that's perfect."