THE BRONCOS’ WILD RIDE
No. 15 seed SCU shocked No. 2 Arizona, NCAA tourney in ’93
SALT LAKE CITY >>
Sometimes, the good guys win. If you didn’t believe that before, you can believe it now. Thursday night, Santa Clara University’s basketball team scored the most improbable upset of this year’s NCAA tournament with a 64-61 victory over Arizona’s Wildcats, the nation’s sixth- ranked team.
And then the Santa Clara players, a group of scrappy gym rats who were grunge before grunge was cool, did exactly what you would expect. They stood around and wondered how they’d ever done it.
“I still don’t think it’s sunk in,” said Bronco guard Steve Nash, who thought the Wildcats probably underestimated Santa Clara.
“But if I was in their shoes,” admitted SCU teammate John Woolery, “I would have done the same thing.”
Who wouldn’t? Santa Clara entered the game with a modest 18-11 record and mouthing all the right cliches about feeling fortunate just to be there. The Wildcats, meanwhile, had a 24-3 record and legitimate hopes of winning the national championship. They weren’t bad guys, exactly. But they were definitely the big-time cocky guys, led by their seven (count ‘em, seven) student managers and lofty white-haired coach Lute Olson.
Arizona even appeared to try the old fake-injury trick in the last 20 seconds of the game. Reserve guard Reggie Geary was fouled and then grabbed his arm as if he’d been shot before hobbling to the bench. Geary happens to be a rotten free throw shooter (46%), and he was replaced by an 80% shooter, Dylan Rigdon — who promptly missed one of his two attempts. Justice.
Sometimes, the good guys win. When a final 3-point attempt by Arizona bounced off the basket rim, ensuring the Santa Clara upset, the Huntsman Center on the University of Utah campus almost lifted off its foundation.
The 11,739 spectators, most of them Utah citizens, quickly jumped on the underdog Broncos’ bandwagon, gave them a long standing ovation. The Santa Clara players screamed and hugged. The Santa Clara cheerleaders practically swallowed their pompons. The Santa Clara student pep band was blaring and . . .
Uh, wait a minute. Santa Clara doesn’t have a student pep band.
“I know,” explained director Dwayne Sagen. “We’re the Vanderbilt University band. Our team played this afternoon. So Santa Clara gave us some of their teeshirts and asked us to play. Now, we’re taking credit for the victory.”
He was kidding. But you’d have to say that something beyond basketball was at work here. Because when you looked at the statistics sheet, nothing looked right. Santa Clara missed all 11 of its 3-point field goal attempts in the second half. Santa Clara was outscored 25-0 in one stretch of the game. Santa Clara missed its last four free-throw attempts of the game. Santa Clara still won.
“We don’t have anybody who is seven-foot tall and 250 pounds (like Arizona),” said Pete Eisenrich, the Broncos’ leading scorer with 19 points. “But it has something to do with heart, too.”
On a night like this one, even cliches like that one were acceptable. Years from now when the Broncos view the videotape from this game, there will be several unforgettable highlights.
There was head coach Dick Davey, ripping off his jacket and coaching in shirtsleeves as usual, wildly waving his arms and calling out plays. Everything went smoothly as Santa Clara took a 33-21 lead. But then the Broncos went flatter than a . . . well, a salt flat. They went scoreless for the next nine minutes and 36 seconds. Arizona pulled ahead by 13 points.
“Our guys didn’t panic, though,” said Davey. “I did. But they didn’t.”
Woolery deserves to take a bow for that. The junior point guard stayed cool against Arizona’s pressing defense, holding things together until the Broncos’ shots finally started falling.
Combined with Arizona’s mistakes — a missed dunk, bad free throw shooting — the result was a three-point Santa Clara lead with two minutes left. And when Santa Clara spread its offense, Woolery time after time beat Arizona’s defenders one-on-one to the basket.
“That’s the kind of game I like to play, you know, shake and bake like I did growing up in Los Angeles,” said Woolery.
That brings us to Eisenrich, who grew up on the mean streets of Boise, Idaho. He had eight defensive rebounds Thursday, keeping Arizona away from second chances. He also didn’t flinch when his jump shots were batted away by Arizona’s big men.
“It didn’t matter,” said Eisenrich. “I’ve had a lot of shots swatted in my career. I just keep shooting.”
And finally, there was Nash, the 19-year-old freshman from Canada who must have had glacier water running through his veins. Playing before a crowd twice the size of any he’d ever seen, Nash hit six straight pressure free throws in the final 31 seconds. He missed his last two with seven seconds remaining, but by then, he’d done enough damage.
“It’s funny,” he said. “The first NCAA game I ever remember watching was in the seventh grade. I turned on the television and the exact second I did, Keith Smart of Indiana was making that jump shot to win the Final Four. Ever since that moment, this has been a dream for me to play in the NCAA.”
So what happened on those final two missed foul shots?
“I choked,” Nash said with a grin.
Sometimes, the good guys win.
EPILOGUE: Santa Clara lost 68-57to Temple in the second round.