Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Shining moment
30 years ago: Trojans stuck dagger into Digger
Myron Jackson was sitting at his desk in San Antonio a few weeks ago when co-workers started asking him about his college days.
“I saw you on YouTube,” one of them told him. “I said ‘Really?’ ”
So Jackson flipped on his computer and found the 30-year- old video clip his co-workers were talking about.
It showed Jackson and a close-knit group of UALR teammates knocking off Notre Dame in the program’s first, and most memorable, appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
Jackson, that team’s leading scorer and Trans America Athletic Conference Player of the Year, hit jumpers and dished passes to Pete Myers, who scored 29 points, including a crucial three-point play late in the 90-83 victory. Michael larke had 27 points and Jackson scored 22 in upsetting the third-seeded Fighting Irish.
“Everybody kept talking about Cinderella,” said Paul Springer, a freshman point guard on that team. “We didn’t know what that word meant.”
On Thursday, Jackson checked into the Little Rock Marriott attached to the Statehouse Convention Center, where the only UALR men’s team to win an NCAA Tournament game played its home games in 1985-1986.
Jackson (19.4 points per game) and Myers (19.2 ppg) led that 23-11 Trojans team, most of which will be in attendance tonight and honored with rings at halftime of UALR’s game with South Alabama.
Myers, currently an assistant coach with the Chicago Bulls, and Coach Mike Newell, now at NAIA Dillard in New Orleans, won’t make it. Clarke died last year.
The others will gather for the first time in almost three decades, including forward Paris McCurdy and assistant coach Jim Calvin.
“You see all the stuff that they got, but I don’t think they were able to get that much if we didn’t put the platform down,” said Springer, who now lives in Sherwood. “It’s good to see us appreciated.”
The upset on March 14, 1986, remains UALR’s lone NCAA Tournament victory. Newell led them to the NIT semifinal the next year and back to the NCAA Tournament in 1989 and 1990 before leaving for Lamar. The Trojans have been to the NCAA Tournament once since, a loss to North Carolina-Asheville in a 2011 play-in game.
The team that Jackson, Springer, McCurdy and Calvin will watch tonight is trying to distinguish itself just as the 1985-1986 team did. These Trojans, picked in the preseason to finish fifth in the Sun Belt Conference, are one of four Division I teams with 20 victories and enter tonight 20-2 overall, 10-1 in the Sun Belt.
First- year Coach Chris Beard said he welcomes the visitors.
“The first thing we’ve got to do is thank those guys,” Beard said. “We’ve been using their story and their names and we always talk about that team. In a lot of ways, they laid the groundwork for what this team is trying to do and is trying to accomplish.”
One notable difference between the current Trojans and the team from 30 years ago is that the 1985-1986 Trojans didn’t make an early splash.
A Jan. 8 loss to Hardin-Simmons dropped UALR to 4- 9, and a fiery locker room speech by Newell followed, along with an adjustment to the starting lineup.
McCurdy, a freshman forward from Detroit, said Newell set the Trojans straight on their priorities.
“I brought you guys here for basketball,” McCurdy said, recalling the moment. “Basketball first, books second.”
McCurdy, from Detroit, and Springer, from Fort Wayne, Ind., were put in the lineup and UALR was on its way.
“Pete, Myron and Clarke came to me and said ‘You’re a freshman, but we need you,’ ” Springer said. “So I got my shot and ran with it.”
UALR won its next nine games. An overtime loss to Houston Baptist on Feb. 5 ended the winning streak, but the Trojans then won nine more, including an 85- 63 victory over Centenary in the final of the TAAC Tournament at Barton Coliseum to earn an automatic NCAA berth.
The Trojans (22-10) were seeded No. 14 by the NCAA Tournament committee, setting up a matchup with Notre Dame, which was 23-5 and ranked 10th nationally.
UALR, with about 100 fans but no band or cheerleaders, became a crowd favorite at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
The game was tied 11 times in the first half before Jackson’s jumper at the buzzer gave UALR a 40-39 lead at halftime.
Clarke took over in the second half, and his basket inside gave the Trojans a 7061 lead.
Notre Dame outscored UALR 10- 0 to take a 71-70 lead, but Jackson’s jumper gave the lead right back to UALR and Myers’ three-point play off a pass from Jackson gave it the lead for good.
“We were confident, and we just played our best ball and we didn’t get away from what we were used to doing,” Jackson said. “It turned into what people would call an upset for them.”
Three weeks later, Notre Dame Coach Digger Phelps caught up with UALR assistant Calvin at the Final Four in Dallas.
UALR was known nationally as Arkansas-Little Rock at the time.
“You can’t trust a hyphen team,” Calvin said Phelps told him.
Two nights after beating Notre Dame, UALR put a scare into No. 6 seed North Carolina State, coached by the late Jim Valvano, who gained everlasting fame for coaching North Carolina State to a stunning upset over Houston in the 1983 national championship game.
In Minneapolis, UALR’s Ken Worthy made a free throw with 14 seconds left in regulation to tie the game, but the second free throw bounced out.
North Carolina State pulled away in the second overtime to win 80-66.
“I went cold,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t hit anything.”
McCurdy said he and forward Curtis Kidd returned to their hotel room and contemplated the future.
“We should be in the Final Four by the time we’re seniors,” McCurdy said, recalling the conversation.
UALR returned the NCAA Tournament in 1989 and 1990 under Newell, but never again with McCurdy and Kidd, who transferred to Ball State after the 1986-1987 season.
This weekend is for celebrating UALR’s only NCAA Tournament victory.
“That,” Calvin said, “was a special bunch.”