Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Booth sees his ’85 team in current ’Cats,
West Chester resident was assistant on ’Nova’s national title team
EASTGOSHEN>> When West Chester’s Harry Booth talks about the magical run of 1985, it’s as if Villanova’s one and only NCAA basketball championship happened earlier this month.
Now 76 and semi-retired from coaching, Booth had an up-close and personal connection to the successful pursuit of a crown that culminated with the quintessential David vs. -Goliath narrative, and continues to live on in lore as one of the greatest moments in March Madness history. Thirty one years ago, Booth was an assistant on the staff of head coach Rollie Massimino, and he remembers it well.
“The title run was really unexpected,” said Booth, who’s lived in West Chester for 45 years. “We were very fortunate just to get into the tournament.”
The only alum to serve as a captain and head coach for two sports at St. Joseph’s University, Booth has a myriad of stories to tell. And even though 1985 was just onefifth of his five-year coaching stint at Villanova, it will always be at the top of the list.
That’s because the underdog Wildcats became the lowest seed (8th) to ever win the NCAA Tournament. And Villanova needed
to play nearly flawless in the final in order to topple star center Patrick Ewing and mighty Georgetown, and did exactly that.
“To be honest, the run was unbelievable,” Booth admitted. “Entering the NCAAs, not one of the coaches ever believed that we would win a championship, let alone dream we’d get to the Final Four. But when kids are confident and are familiar with the teams they are playing, anything is possible, especially in a onegame tournament.”
In addition, there was talent on this team. The front line starters — Ed Pinckney, Dwayne McClain and Harold Pressley — combined to average 42-plus points per game that season and all three went on to play in the NBA. Point guard Gary McLain committed just seven turnovers in the sixgame NCAAs and backup guard Harold Jensen was suddenly red-hot shooting the ball.
“We knew we had a good team and we were in the toughest conference in America,” Booth said.
The 2015-16Wildcats are back in the Final Four, just two wins away from capturing title No. 2. Booth is watching intently, and sees one a very important similarity between Villanova’s current squad and the one that shocked the world 31 years ago.
“If you check the scores and what we did back in ’85, we played outstanding defense,” Booth pointed out. “What I see with this current squad is they are an outstanding defensive team. I think that with their tenacity and intelligence, they play the best defense at Villanova in the last 20 years.
“If they are shooting well, they will beat anybody. But they have the ability to stay in games because of their defense. This could be the year Villanova wins another one.”
The way Booth tells it, the first title run was not only unexpected, it came close to never happening. The Wildcats suffered their ninth loss in a blowout to Pittsburgh in the regular season finale and then dropped No. 10 to St. John’s in the second round of the Big East Tournament. It was the squad’s third loss that season to the Redmen.
In today’s parlance, ’Nova would have been called a bubble team. But thanks to playing in the nation’s toughest conference, Villanova made the NCAA Tournament, which had just been expanded from 53 to 64 teams that year. And even though the coaching staff was confident the team could do some damage, a deep run wasn’t on anybody’s radar.
“The irony is that none of the coaches thought that it was our best team,” Booth recalled. “Two years before in the NCAAs, we lost to Houston with Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. To this day, I still don’t know how North Carolina State ever beat that team.”
On the surface, the Wildcats road in 1985 seems incredibly difficult. It started with a tough first round matchup with Dayton, on the Flyers’ home court, and Villanova squeaked by, 51-49, on a basket by Jensen in the final 30 seconds.
“In a sense, our most difficult game was the first game,” Booth acknowledged.
Next was second-ranked Michigan, but the Big Ten champions took the Wildcats lightly. After all, they finished fourth in their conference with a 9-7 record. And even though ’Nova went more than eight minutes without scoring, it held on to edge the Wolverines, 59-55, to advance to the Southeast Regional semifinal.
“All of the sudden, the kids started gaining
confidence in themselves,” Booth said. “And then some things kind of fell into place that really helped us. It was familiarity with the rest of the opponents.”
On deck was Maryland, and All-American Len Bias. Less than two months earlier the Wildcats fell to the Terrapins, 77-74, at Cole Field House, but it was highly competitive. Villanova won the rematch, 46-43, to advance to the Regional Final in Birmingham, Ala., to play seventh-ranked North Carolina.
Once again, Villanova had experience playing UNC a few years earlier, during Michael Jordan’s final college season, and knocked off the top-ranked Tar Heels, 56-53, in Chapel Hill.
“Eddie ( Pinckney), Dwayne (McClain) and Gary (McLain) were part of that and it gave them confidence,” Booth explained.
Down five at the half, Massimino went into the Villanova locker room and didn’t say a word until there was about three minutes to go before the team had to go back on the floor.
“Rollie finally said, ‘You know where I’d like to be right now? At home, with a big bowl of pasta,’” Booth recalled.
“Everybody was just looking at him, but he said nothing more. It wound up relaxing them, and we went out and completely dominated North Carolina in the second half and won going away.”
The Wildcats wound up outscoring Carolina by 17 in the final 20 minutes to win 56-44. It meant that Villanova was going to the Final Four at Kentucky’s Rupp Arena. It was the program’s third appearance all-time and first since 1971.
In the national semifinal, the ’Cats faced a Memphis State team that featured All-American Keith Lee. But, once again, the Villanova seniors weren’t
intimidated because when they were freshmen, the Wildcats topped the Tigers in the 1982 NCAA Tournament. The winner would face the St. John’s-Georgetown winner in the final.
“I told friends of mine that we would beat Memphis State — we all felt confident,” Booth said. “I also said that we cannot beat Chris Mullen and St. John’s, but if we got Georgetown, we could stay with them and if things went our way, we could beat them.”
On March 30, Villanova handled Memphis State, 52-45, and the Hoyas bounced St. John’s, setting up an all Big-East Final two days later. The ’Cats had dropped two regular season meetings with Georgetown, but both were close. One ended 5250 in overtime and the other was a 57-50 decision.
“We played them twice every year so we knew them and we were close in the two games that year,” Booth said.
Perhaps better equipped mentally than any other team to challenge the big bad Hoyas, Villanova hits 13 of its 18 first half shots, yet only took a 29-28 lead into the intermission. But in the second half, the Wildcats flirted with perfection, downing nine of 10 shots from the floor, and burying 7-10 free throws in the final 70 seconds to stun Georgetown, 66-64.
In all, Villanova shot an otherworldly 79 percent (22 of 27) against a defense that held opponents to an average of 39 percent all season.
“We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we played the best basketball game we had played all year, and maybe the best ever against Georgetown,” Booth said. “However, people don’t realize, Georgetown played the best they’d ever played against us.
“To me, it’s still the greatest game in the history of the NCAA because both teams played their best.”