A Season Inside (26 page)

Evans does not like Digger Phelps. While Evans was at Navy, the two had clashed over scheduling. Notre Dame wanted to continue playing Navy, but only at Notre Dame. Evans wanted to play home-and-home. The series ended up being canceled.

Phelps visited the Towers before Evans did. After the visit, Evans heard from Tower’s coach, William Sacco, that during the visit the Towers had asked Phelps if he would schedule any games in Pittsburgh if Keith ended up at Notre Dame. According to Sacco, Phelps had said, “Absolutely. We’ll play anyone but Pitt. I’d like to play them but Paul Evans has said some negative things about our players and so I won’t play Pitt as long as he’s the coach.”

Evans was enraged when he heard this. When it was his turn to visit, he asked Jula to bring the subject up to give him a chance to rebut what Phelps had said. Jula did just that, saying, “I was really kind of surprised to hear Digger say that. I can’t remember hearing you say anything bad about any of his kids over the years.”

“I never have,” Evans answered, on cue. “That’s just typical Digger. He doesn’t want to play us so he makes an excuse like that. Then he’ll schedule Robert Morris when he comes to Pittsburgh rather than play
us. Look at his schedule now. He plays half the ECC (East Coast Conference) and half the Ivy League.”

Tower’s mother, Sandra, who was the family spokesperson during most of Evans’s visit, said, “I take it you aren’t crazy about Digger.”

“No, I’m not,” Evans said. “I just think he’s very arrogant.”

Driving away after the lengthy (two-hour) visit was over, Evans shook his head. “I hope we get the kid. But if we don’t get him I just hope like hell we don’t lose him to Notre Dame.”

Five weeks later, Tower signed … with Notre Dame.

In all, it was not a good recruiting fall for Evans. Pitt, which had done superbly in recruiting the year before, signing four excellent freshmen, lost out on all the top players it wanted. The only blue-chip recruit left was Don McLean, the center from California. But Evans knew the only way Pitt would have a shot at McLean was if Hazzard kept the UCLA job—and as the season wore on it became more and more apparent that probably wasn’t going to happen.

Still, the Panthers were winning. They survived terrible foul trouble to win a tough game at West Virginia and came from 11 points down to avoid a shocking upset at Akron. The freshmen were holding up well under a lot of early pressure, especially point guard Sean Miller, thrown into the breach because of Goodson’s absence.

The record was 8–0 when Evans got more bad news: Sophomore Rod Brookin, the team’s second-leading scorer, had joined Goodson as an academic casualty. Evans had been on him for three semesters to go to class but he hadn’t listened. Now he was gone. “This is why we have to recruit good students,” Evans said. “You can’t build a program around kids who are going to flunk out.”

Nonetheless, in their first game without Brookin, the Panthers blew out Florida, 80–68 on national TV. It was a good victory but Evans knew the No. 2 ranking would not last long once Big East play began. He came to Georgetown desperately wanting a victory. The Hoyas had beaten Pitt twice the previous season, and even though they weren’t nearly as strong without Reggie Williams, they were still dangerous. Evans knew that.

“I think we’re ready to play,” he said, smacking the gum. “The officiating worries me, though. John [Thompson] intimidates them.”

It is not the officials who cost Pitt this game, however. It is a brawl almost from the start. Less than nine minutes into the game, Pitt’s Nathan Bailey and Georgetown’s Mark Tillmon tie each other up
going for a rebound. As they come apart, Tillmon throws an elbow at Bailey’s back. Jerome Lane sees this and comes flying at Tillmon. The benches empty.

Miraculously, the officials keep a total riot from ensuing. The only player ejected is Tillmon. But the tone is set. The game will become a wrestling match with forty-four fouls called. Pitt’s freshman guards can’t deal with the Georgetown pressure during several key junctures.

With one minute to go, Georgetown leads 58–56. The Hoyas’ Charles Smith misses a shot as the forty-five-second clock runs out, but Jaren Jackson rebounds and throws the ball out to center court to Bobby Winston. Evans sees a walk. Referee Jim Burr does not. Evans goes nuts. He draws a technical from Burr. Then he gets one from Jody Silvester. He is about to get No. 3 from Larry Lembo when Lane intervenes, grabbing Lembo’s hands just as he is about to make the “T” signal and pleading for mercy. Lembo decides two is enough. It is the first intercepted technical in modern basketball history.

Pitt still loses, 62–57. Evans is outraged. He rips the officials: “They’re getting paid $650 a night [including expenses]. For that much you’d think the guy could see a travel when a guy takes four steps. He told me he was looking at the [halfcourt] line for a backcourt call. If he can’t do more than that, he shouldn’t officiate in the league.”

He also rips Georgetown: “They let John Thompson run everything at the school. He’s more powerful than the athletic director and the president. The athletic director says he wants to play Maryland and Thompson says no, so they don’t play. It’s unbelievable.”

In the meantime, Thompson is trying to downplay the fight. “I didn’t really see what happened,” he says. “It’s not a big deal, though. I’ve never seen anybody hurt in a basketball fight. If those kids saw each other on the street tomorrow they’d stop and talk like nothing happened.”

Apparently Thompson has never heard of Rudy Tomjanovich, who almost lost his face in a basketball fight once. But that is his way: Insist that others are making too big a deal out of the fights his team gets into and challenge anyone to challenge him on it. Certainly Big East Commissioner Dave Gavitt isn’t going to challenge the biggest star in his league.

“It’s just good, hard-nosed basketball,” Gavitt insists two days later. “We probably won’t have another fight in the league for two years.”

Gavitt is close. Georgetown’s next fight doesn’t come until ten days
later. And the Hoyas’ next fight with Pitt doesn’t come until the next time the teams play.

Evans has only played one league game. He is 0–1 and has lost two starters, survived an earthquake and a lost airplane engine. He has taken on John Thompson, the referees in his league, and Digger Phelps. What he doesn’t know is this: The season is just beginning to warm up for him.

The month of December had not been a sanguine one at Purdue either. After opening the season with an easy first-round NIT victory over Arkansas—Little Rock, the Boilermakers had been upset in the quarterfinals by Iowa State.

This had not pleased Gene Keady—to say the least. He had sent the team home for Thanksgiving but not without telling the three seniors one more time that they weren’t doing much of a job as leaders.

Mitchell, Lewis, and Stephens were baffled. Also angry. They felt that Keady had given Jeff Arnold and Dave Stack much too much rope, especially after their arrests in October. “Coach’s problem is that he’s just a softie underneath it all,” Stephens said. “He said Arnold and Stack were going to run every day for the rest of the season and he didn’t even keep them running for two weeks.”

The first two games after Thanksgiving would be on the road against Illinois State and Wichita State. Neither was a great team but both were capable of winning at home. Keady had the team practicing twice a day after Thanksgiving. He was honestly beginning to wonder if this team was going to jell.

“I was so frustrated I started thinking about next year,” he said later. “I just didn’t know if this team had the toughness you need to be great.”

The tension between Keady and the seniors almost went past the breaking point on the day of the Illinois State game. First, Stephens was two minutes late for the team bus. His car battery had gone dead en route to campus and he had hitched, in the snow, to get there.

Keady was tired of excuses. “Everette,” he said, “you aren’t starting.” The trip was off to a bad start.

Then, Lewis was late for pregame meal. The clock in his hotel room
was five minutes slow and he showed up five minutes late. Keady went with him to his room to confirm the slow clock story, but even when he did, he felt he had no choice. Lewis didn’t start either.

“Now, he’s decided to make examples of Everette and me,” Lewis said. “Neither one of us has been in any trouble for four years and we get benched for stuff like this. Where’s the fairness in it? If we had lost that game, things might have gotten really bad.”

Purdue didn’t lose. Stephens and Lewis both came off the bench to play well and the Boilermakers came from behind to win, 68–61. The next day, Lewis went in to talk to Keady. If it had been the day after a loss, who knows what might have happened. Instead, the two talked out their frustrations and a truce was called. But the three seniors still felt as if they were dealing with a very uptight coaching staff.

Keady was doing his best not to be tight. He felt he had been too tight the year before and that had been reflected in the team’s postseason play. But Keady’s nature just isn’t laid-back. He is as capable of being low-key as he is of not caring about how his team plays.

Purdue survived another scare at Wichita State, going into overtime to win 80–78, and then came home to play five straight games. All were easy victories, including a 101–72 romp over Kansas State. The only tense moment during this period came when Keady told Stephens at halftime of the Kansas State game that he was playing poorly because his mind was on his girlfriend and not on basketball.

Mitchell, the most sensitive of the three seniors, took offense to the comment. “First of all, the way he was playing had nothing to do with his girlfriend. Second, if it did, where does he come off talking about it in the locker room in front of the whole team?”

This was not the first time Mitchell had taken offense to something Keady had said in a heated moment. It would not be the last time either. Throughout the season, Keady kept telling the seniors to focus on this season and not worry about their possible pro careers. He felt their minds wandered sometimes. Mitchell did not. “Goddamn, what does he think, we’re stupid? We know what we’ve got to do right here and now. Next year is next year.”

December ended with Christmas tournament victories over Wake Forest and Miami. That made the record going into Big Ten play 10–1. The opener was at Illinois. If Keady had any doubts about his team’s desire to do well in 1988, they were wiped out that evening. The Boilermakers took command early in the second half and beat a very good team playing on its home floor, 81–68.

That victory brought Ohio State into Mackey Arena. For the Buckeyes, this was the conference opener. They had gone 7–3 in preseason and Gary Williams was genuinely worried about their ability to compete in the Big Ten. He was so concerned about the talent gap that he considered dropping his trademark press against Purdue to avoid a run-it-up game.

“I wish this was next year,” he said the afternoon of the Purdue game. “Then, I would feel completely different. I would feel like I had eight or nine guys and I could really go out and attack. That’s the way I like to play. Now, I feel like I’m on the defensive in every game. If this team finishes the season over .500 it just might be my best coaching job.”

Williams decides to stay with his press but in order to show Purdue something different, he puts in a triangle-and-two halfcourt defense, guarding Lewis and Mitchell man-to-man. The defense confuses Purdue so much that at one point in the first half Stephens calls out a zone offense just as Mitchell is calling out a man-to-man offense. Angry, the two of them yell at each other. “That’s the first time in four years that we’ve ever done that,” Stephens says later.

Williams keeps his team in the game. It isn’t easy, though. Early in the first half he gets nailed for a technical by referee Jim Bain while arguing a call that Bain has clearly botched. This is a Bain tradition. When he blows a call and a coach argues, he often reinforces his error by calling a technical. No one in basketball is quite sure how Bain keeps getting top assignments, but he does. He will work a regional final in the NCAA Tournament in March.

Through everything, Ohio State stays in the game all night. Down 11, the Buckeyes fight back to within 3 at 77–74. But Tony White misses a short jumper with 2:23 left and a minute later, down 78–74, Curtis Wilson makes only one of two free throws. That makes it 78–75. Lewis hits a baseline jumper with just five seconds on the shot clock and, after Wilson walks, Melvin McCants hits two foul shots to wrap it up. The final is 84–77.

“If we were any good we would have won the game,” Williams said. “The effort was there. And they were ripe to be picked.”

Indeed. With the students still on break, Mackey Arena did not have its usual electricity. A high school band just wasn’t the same as the Purdue band. And the Boiler Babes had been nowhere in sight. The crowd, usually the most vocal in the Big Ten, had been quiet almost the entire night. Purdue was lucky to escape with a victory.

Keady knew this and told his team so. Angrily, he accused Mitchell—who had been just three-of-nine from the floor—of taking bad shots from the outside because his father had been telling him to shoot more.

“That is bullshit,” Mitchell said later that evening. “And anyway, what goes on between my dad and me is none of his business.”

They hadn’t played well, but they had won. They were 2–0 in the Big Ten. Iowa was coming in for an important game Saturday and Arnold was due to rejoin the team on Monday. He had made it through the first semester. Stack had not. He was off the team. Arnold had shown up for the game that night in a tuxedo, complete with red bow tie and cummerbund, living up to his flaky California image.

Later that evening Arnold called Mitchell to make sure he wasn’t too upset about what Keady had said about his father. “Jeff’s a flake, but he’s really a pretty good guy,” Mitchell said. “Getting him back should really help us.”

Arnold never made it back though. Two days before he was supposed to return, Keady announced that he had not met all the requisites attached to his reinstatement and had been permanently dropped from the team. He was vague and evasive when pressed on why Arnold was gone.