The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
’86 Indiana upset was to every Viking’s liking
Kevin Mackey and his Cleveland State Vikings were virtual strangers to the college basketball world at large when they arrived in Syracuse, N.Y., on March 12, 1986.
That was soon to change. Making its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament as the No. 14 seed in the East Region, CSU would face No. 3 seed Indiana two days later in a first-round game at the cavernous Carrier Dome.
The Vikings came to Syracuse with a 27-3 record and riding a 12-game game winning streak. They had captured the Association of MidContinent Universities regularseason and tournament titles.
Because the AMCU was in the final year of conditional status as a Division I conference with the NCAA, the tournament winner did not receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Vikings had to wait until near the end of the nationally televised Selection Sunday show to learn they were in the 64-team field and playing the Bobby Knight-coached Hoosiers.
Then in his 15th season at Indiana, Knight had guided his teams to 10 appearances in the NCAA Tournament and national titles in 1976 and 1981. The Hoosiers were 21-7 and had finished second in the Big Ten, behind Michigan.
“The pubic and the national media didn’t think we had a chance,” Mackey said recently during a telephone interview from his home in Indianapolis. He is in his 17th year as a college scout for the Pacers.
Mackey’s recounting of how that CSU team was perceived squares with the recollections of Clinton Smith.
Now 56 and running a youth basketball program in Geauga County, Smith then was a rangy 6-foot-5 power forward for CSU out of John Adams High School averaging a team-high 16.2 points per game.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people out there believed we’d lose to Indiana and iconic Bobby Knight,” Smith said. “We were in the one percent that believed we would beat them. Mack (Mackey) had us believing.”
Preparing for the big test
In his third season at CSU, Mackey had assembled a deep, athletic team that featured a high-powered offense averaging 90.2 points per game and relentless pressure defense that limited opponents to 66.9 points.
Smith got plenty of help on the offensive end from junior shooting forward Clinton Ransey (14.5 points), redshirt freshman guard Ken “Mouse” McFadden (13.7 points) and junior center Eric Mudd (12-2 points).
Mackey also got consistent production from the point guard duo of juniors Ed Bryant and Shawn Hood. His rotation of reserves
included senior center Bob Crawford, senior guard Steve Corbin, sophomore power forward Paul Stewart and junior forward Ray Salters.
Indiana did not have CSU’s depth, but the Hoosiers were strong at the top of their rotation with All-America junior guard Steve Alford (22.4 points), junior center Darryl Thomas (14.6 points) and freshman shooting forward Rick Calloway (14.0 points).
It meant nothing to McFadden and his teammates that the Hoosiers were heavily favored on national betting lines.
“When they called Cleveland State’s name on Selection Sunday, it didn’t matter to us who we were playing,” said McFadden, now 54 and working for Cuyahoga County.
“We have news for you: You lost,” McFadden added, chuckling. “We had some hungry dogs. All we wanted was a little respect. Let us in the game. We’ll shock the world. We were good. We were ready.”
Mackey used the practices between Selection Sunday and tipoff at the Carrier Dome to reinforce belief among his players they were good enough to hang with one of college basketball’s power programs.
“I watched 15 Indiana game tapes and believed in my heart we could beat them,” Mackey said. “I saw their strengths and weaknesses. Our system wasn’t
anything like they’d played against before, especially the pressure defense.
“Bobby Knight and his coaches knew how good we were, too. We had tremendous quickness and athleticism. Our guys never took a step back. They were programmed to attack.”
His players bought into the mindset Mackey was selling.
“We had an aura,” said Mudd, now 54 and working for Daimler AG in Charlotte, N.C. “There was no doubt we were going to beat Indiana and make a statement.”
Making steals, baskets and history
Pat Vuyancih is 56 now and an administrator at Cleveland State. In March 1986, he was a Euclid High School product making the CSU men’s basketball team as a walk-on along with fellow walk-on Marty Sweeney from St. Ignatius.
“Marty and me were as much a part of that team as anybody,” Vuyancih said. “That was a close-knit group. We enjoyed each other’s company.”
As if they happened yesterday, Vuyancih remembers two events that unfolded in Syracuse prior to the game against Indiana.
The first came the night before, at a players-only meeting called by Corbin in his hotel room.
“Everybody got a chance to say what the game and this moment meant to them,” Vuyancih said. “We left that room with a sense
of unity. We were locked in and ready to do what it took to beat them.”
The second came on game day, during the warmup. Vuyancih remembers he and his teammates charged onto the Carrier Dome floor as soon as allowed.
“We’d already been on the floor for 10 minutes, going hard on everything, when Indiana finally came out,” Vuyancih said. “It looked to us like they were just going through the motions. They weren’t sweating or breathing hard. Either they underestimated us or were just tired of all the noise.”
Smith remembered he and his teammates using that warmup to settle nerves and get past the last traces of wonderment over playing in a venue that seated 50,000 for football and 35,000 for basketball.
“We were used to playing at little Woodling Gym with maybe 4,000 fans jammed in there,” Smith said. “That dome place was huge, intimidating. Once we got on the floor, the butterflies were gone.”
The game tipped off at 2:37 p.m. By 2:45 p.m., Knight was screaming at his players and calling a timeout after CSU’s pressure defense forced three turnovers in the opening seconds to stake the Vikings to a 6-2 lead.
Paced by Ransey, who played the game of his life and scored 27 points, the Vikings took a 45-41 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“Five minutes into the
first half, we knew we had a chance to beat them. By halftime, our confidence was out the roof of that dome,” Smith said.
“They were scared, man. You could see it on their faces,” Mudd added.
Smith and Ransey later collaborated on the game’s signature play. Dribbling the ball on the baseline in front of the CSU bench, Smith made eye contact with Ransey at the the top of the key.
As Ransey made a hard cut and drove toward the basket, Smith fired a behind-the-back pass that Ransey caught and turned into a layup.
“Ransey had such a feel for the game and great hands,” Smith said. “I knew if I got the ball to him, he’d make the play.”
Every time Alford and the Hoosiers made a run at the Vikings in the second half, Ransey or a teammate made a timely basket to maintain the lead.
When the final buzzer sounded, CSU had an 8379 victory and the first win by a No. 14 seed over a No. 3 seed since the NCAA Tournament field was expanded to 64 teams the previous year.
“Down the stretch, I’m the kind of player who wants the ball,” Ransey told a large gathering of reporters in the postgame news conference. “I know I can score against anybody. We have a lot of heart. We dug down deep, and we’re hungry.”
Mudd finished with 16
points and 10 rebounds. Smith added 12 points, as all 10 players who saw action for CSU reached the scorebook.
The CBS cameras caught Mackey smiling broadly and raising his arms above his head as his players streamed to the center of the floor to savor their achievement.
“What I remember feeling at that moment was pure joy,” Mackey said. “I was so happy for the kids, the city and the school. All the hard work we put in, getting through the ups and down of the season, it all played out.”
There were no cell phones and text messages in March 1986. Still, Mudd remembered how word quickly got back to CSU coaches and players in Syracuse that hundreds of fans were celebrating on the streets of downtown Cleveland after watching the game at the University Center or at Rascal House Tavern, a popular campus hangout.
“They ran out of pizza and beer at Rascal House. That’s how popular we were that day,” Mudd said with a booming laugh. “We made history.”
Vuyancih said Mackey “kept it short and sweet” in the locker room after the game.
“He walked up to the blackboard and wrote, ‘No. 29, St. Joe’s.’ “
With the win over Indiana, the Vikings improved to 28-3 and advanced to the second round on March 16 to play St. Joseph’s.