A Season Inside

by John Feinstein

  Smith doesn’t talk about recruiting, one of his many rules. Everything is relative, of course. The chinks in Smith’s armor might be considered strengths in many programs. And yet, sitting in the Deandome listening to 21,444 people make no noise at all while the Tar Heels were winning an important ACC game, one had the sense that all was not well in Paradise.…

  Twenty miles and a lifetime away in Raleigh, things were pretty good. Georgia Tech was in town to play N.C. State and Jim Valvano was feeling good about his team. The Wolfpack, buoyed by its victory at Duke, had almost won at North Carolina for the first time in Valvano’s eight years at State. They had lost in overtime but the sense was there that State could play with anybody. A win at Clemson on a night when Shackleford had to sit out with a bad ankle had reinforced that notion.

  Georgia Tech was a hot team, too. After struggling through January, the Yellow Jackets had won four in a row, a streak started when freshman Dennis Scott hit a twenty-five-foot three-point shot at the buzzer to beat DePaul 71–70 on national television.

  Tech’s program was an interesting one. Bobby Cremins had become the coach there in 1981, taking over a program that was in shambles. Tech had been in the ACC two years and had a conference record of 1–29. Within three years, Cremins turned everything around. Recruiting with boundless enthusiasm and aggressiveness, he brought players like Mark Price, John Salley (now a star with the Detroit Pistons), and Bruce Dalrymple into the program.

  In 1985, Tech beat North Carolina three times—a remarkable achievement in itself—won the ACC Tournament, and reached the Final Eight of the NCAA Tournament. Cremins was the hot young coach in America. He was easy to like with his Bronx accent and his malapropisms. Cremins had been a very good player at South Carolina in the late 1960s, but had left college unsure of what to do with his life.

  “Let’s be honest,” he said. “All coaches will tell you they want to help people and teach. That’s nice, but it’s a crock. If we all wanted to help people and teach, we’d go join the Peace Corps. Even that may not be the answer. When I played basketball in South America after I got out of college, I knew some Peace Corps guys and all we ever did when I was with them was hang out and smoke dope.”

  It is just like Cremins to casually admit that once upon a time he smoked dope. Most coaches would be too frightened about what it might do to their image, but Cremins is secure enough to know that in 1988, very few people are going to judge him on something he did in 1970 unless he decides to become a Supreme Court judge. Or unless he starts losing.

  Deciding the Peace Corps wasn’t the answer, Cremins got into coaching. He landed the job at Appalachian State, stayed there for five years, then moved on to Tech. By the fall of 1985, with the guts of the ACC championship team back for ’86, Georgia Tech was everyone’s preseason No. 1 pick.

  But things didn’t work out for the Yellow Jackets that year. The one starter they had lost, center Yvon Joseph, proved to be more critical than anyone had anticipated. And, in the big games, the shots that had fallen so easily on the way to the top weren’t falling anymore. Tech lost the ACC final by a point to Duke and was upset in the NCAA round of sixteen by LSU.

  Price and Salley graduated off that team, and even with a superb pair of young forwards in Duane Ferrell and Tom Hammonds, Tech dropped to 16–12 in 1987. Now, with super-freshman Scott to go with Ferrell and Hammonds and senior point guard Craig Neal finally playing up to his vast potential, Tech was one player short—a big center—of being a great team. Even without that center, it was still a dangerous team.

  Valvano liked Cremins as much as he liked anyone in the league. And he respected him. Like everyone else, he loved to tell Cremins stories. “A few years ago I asked Bobby how old he was. He said, ‘Thirty-six or thirty-seven.’ I said, ‘Well, what year were you born in?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I think it was ’46 or ’47.’ ”

  Valvano still isn’t sure how old Cremins is. But by halftime in Reynolds Coliseum he knows that, regardless of his age, Cremins has a hot basketball team. Tech is leading 47–28. Valvano has gotten so out of sorts in the first half that he has drawn a technical foul, something he almost never does. “I think that’s my second one in eight years.”

  The technical came from Dick Paparo, who is known to one and all as “Froggy” because he sounds just like a frog. Froggy is a very good official. He is also a no-nonsense official. In the last two seasons Dean Smith has drawn four technical fouls—all of them from Froggy. A few weeks ago when Froggy teed Smith up, someone asked the coach what the technical was for.

  “I just said, ‘Mr. Paparo, I think J.R. was fouled on that play,’ ” Smith answered. The last time Smith called a referee “Mr.” he was playing Peewee ball in Emporia, Kansas.

  Valvano’s tee comes after Froggy calls a goaltending against Shackleford. The call is a correct one but, in making it, Froggy had freight-trained, racing from beyond halfcourt to make the call. Over the years, this has been a Froggy staple—the freight-train call—and he has cut back on it in recent years because supervisors have talked to him about it.

  Valvano, incensed at the sight of Froggy running in to make the call, screamed at him, “You can’t see that play. How can you make that call?”

  Once upon a time, an official in this situation might have walked to the bench and said, “Jimmy, I know I was a long way off, but I saw it clearly. It was goaltending.”

  But this year, officials are not supposed to talk to coaches except to interpret a rule or to say—once—“Coach, that’s enough,” before teeing them up. So, as Valvano rants, Froggy ignores him. Valvano knows the rule and he knows it’s nothing personal. But his team is getting blown out at home and he’s frustrated. So, he keeps yelling, finally saying, “Damn it, talk to me!”

  Froggy doesn’t talk, but he does tee. “That no-talk rule is so stupid,” Valvano says later. “It makes me crazy.”

  Surprisingly, down by 19 at halftime, he doesn’t go crazy on his team. “We have been thoroughly embarrassed so far,” he tells them. “But you know what? We can still come back.”

  Valvano had no idea how right he was. Amazingly, the game turns around completely during the first five minutes of the second half. Tech, which could do no wrong, pushing the ball up the floor on every possession, suddenly can do no right. Passes that were going right to Yellow Jackets are now going right to the Wolfpack. In a span of 5:07, State goes on a 23–3 spree that ends with a Corchiani three-pointer, putting the Wolfpack up 51–50.

  This is a stunning turnaround. Cremins’s team stands an excellent chance of folding up, rolling over, and being in serious trouble with two weeks left in the regular season. But Ferrell and Hammonds get things calmed down. Tech slows the pace, shows some patience, and gets the ball inside. State is exhausted after its wild run and Tech builds the lead back to eight. State comes back again but each time it gets close, Ferrell, the silky-smooth senior forward, has an answer. He finishes with 29 points and Tech hangs on to win, 87–84 when three-point shots on State’s last two possessions are off the mark.

  “So, it’s an L [loss] in the books,” Valvano says. “Our comeback doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, when we come back in here on Monday it will still be an L. We were a little bit tired from the Clemson trip, Shack’s ankle still hurts some and he’s missed some practice. But it doesn’t matter, it’s an L.”

  Valvano can’t get too upset with this team. It has played close to its potential most nights. Even this loss was just a matter of catching a hot team on a hot night. He sits and talks about the game and the season and almost any subject that comes into his head until way past midnight, much too wound up to think about going home.

  “The other day I got a speeding ticket,” he says, telling a story as he is wont to do during these sessions. “I was going fifty-four in a forty at eleven o’clock in the morning on an empty street and the guy nails me. Okay, I was daydreaming and I did it. But then it becomes a story in the newspaper. Why is that newsworthy? I wasn’t drinking. I w
asn’t doing drugs. I wasn’t endangering anyone. I wasn’t out late at night.”

  Before he can continue his tirade, Valvano’s late-night reference reminds him of another story. “A couple of years ago I was still doing this morning radio show I do out of the studio, going by and taping it. One night after a game, I forgot to go tape it. Just went home and went to bed. Four o’clock in the morning the phone rings. It’s the radio station. I say, ‘Oh God,’ and I get in the car and start driving down there. At that hour, I was going very fast.

  “A cop pulls me. Before I can even explain to him what’s going on, he wants me to get out of the car and walk a straight line for him. I said, ‘Officer, take a look at me. I’m in my pajamas. Call the radio station and ask them if they just woke me at home. I have not been drinking. Look at these pajamas. Would you go around town drinking dressed in these pajamas?”

  The pajama-clad coach made it safely to the radio station. As Valvano finishes the story and is about to launch into another one, Don Shea, who hosts Valvano’s TV show, pokes his head in the door. “Oh God, Don, I forgot!” Valvano says.

  With that, he is off, at one in the morning—not dressed in pajamas—to tape his TV show.

  February 21 … West Lafayette, Indiana

  As Troy Lewis, Todd Mitchell, and Everette Stephens walked into the restaurant, there were stares. But only for a moment. Then, everyone in the place started applauding. Some of them stood up. Earlier that day, when 14,123 people had been standing and cheering them, Lewis, Mitchell, and Stephens didn’t bat an eye. Now, in this more intimate surrounding, dressed in street clothes rather than white-black-and-gold, they were embarrassed.

  “It’s a good thing,” Lewis said, “that we won.”

  “Yeah,” Stephens added. “If we had lost, they might not have served us in McDonald’s.”

  They were a far cry from McDonald’s but that was as it should be. That afternoon, Purdue had beaten Indiana 95–85 in a game so scintillating that Bob Knight, in defeat, expressed admiration for both teams. “I don’t think there was a kid on that floor on either team who shouldn’t be proud of the way he played today,” Knight said.

  Extraordinary words, particularly considering who had spoken them. But these were rather extraordinary times at Purdue, especially for the three seniors. After all the rockiness of preseason and December, it had all come together in January and February; the Boilermakers now found themselves sitting on top of the Big Ten with an 11–1 record. They also found themselves sitting on Temple’s shoulder, ranked No. 2 in the country with a 22–2 record.

  “Of course, if Temple had lost today, they probably would have jumped somebody over us into number one,” Mitchell joked.

  Temple had not lost today. In fact, the Owls had gone into the Deandome and trashed North Carolina, proving that the Tar Heels were indeed as vulnerable as some suspected. The Owls hadn’t just beaten Carolina, they had wiped them out, 83–66, starting the second half with a 19–0 run that left everyone in the place, including Dean Smith, agape.

  That didn’t much matter out here, though. On a day when Indiana and Purdue were playing in Mackey Arena, Neil Armstrong could be stepping on the moon and the reaction here would be, “Yeah, fine, but what’s the score over at Mackey?”

  Purdue people have a complex about Indiana. They can’t understand why Knight and the Hoosiers get so much attention while they go virtually ignored outside the state. “When I think about how different things might have been if we had made the Final Four last year instead of them I get sick,” Mitchell said. “We’ve got to change that this year.”

  Naturally, there is nothing Purdue likes doing more than beating Indiana. Mitchell—Lewis—Stephens are undefeated in Mackey against the Hoosiers and they certainly didn’t plan for their last game against IU to be a loss. But winning would not be easy. Indiana was a very different team from the one that had parlayed that remarkable 33–12 start into an 82–79 upset of Purdue in Bloomington three weeks earlier.

  Indiana was now on a 6–1 roll. It was getting good play out of freshman guards Jay Edwards and Lyndon Jones—especially Edwards—and was also getting production out of Keith Smart and Rick Calloway, the two players who had been benched during Knight’s January purge. Having beaten Purdue once, Knight’s Hoosiers saw absolutely no reason why they couldn’t do it again.

  It didn’t look good early for Indiana, though. Center Dean Garrett picked up three fouls in less than five minutes and had to come out. Purdue soon had a 22–12 lead and it looked—and sounded—like this might be the day when the Mackey roof finally did blow off. But, as they had been doing in recent weeks, the Hoosiers kept their cool. Led by Smart, they rallied, taking a 27–26 lead.

  Purdue regrouped, holding a 49–47 lead at the half. The game stayed torrid in the second half. Purdue scored 9 straight points to lead 62–53, but Indiana came right back with 9 straight points of its own to tie. Smart, who would finish the day with 23 points, made the play of the day, soaring over everyone and dunking a Joe Hillman miss with one hand, not a move one sees a 6–1 player make every day.

  Down the stretch, though, the Purdue seniors took over. Trailing 73–72, Mitchell posted, took a pass from Lewis and hit a soft jumper. Lewis fed Melvin McCants for a layup. A moment later, he fed Mitchell again, then, after IU had closed to within one again at 78–77, Stephens nailed a three-pointer with 4:25 left. Mitchell hit a ten-footer. Lewis hit a three. Stephens hit two free throws. Lewis hit two more. It was 90–81. Indiana rallied one more time, but Mitchell iced it with a jarring dunk with thirty seconds to go, and everyone celebrated.

  “That was just a great basketball game,” Keady said. “I think everyone here felt that way.”

  Knight, who had barely spoken to Keady for three years, was impressed enough with what he saw that, as he shook hands after the game, he said, “You’ve got a hell of a team. I hope you go all the way.”

  The contrast between the feeling in the Purdue locker room after this game as opposed to three weeks ago in Bloomington was 180 degrees. Mitchell had scored 24 points and had 9 rebounds. Lewis scored 22 and had a career-high 14 assists, a total that left everyone blinking in disbelief. Stephens had scored 16 points and had 7 assists of his own.

  The mood was so light that Mitchell and Lewis did a brief comedy act during the postgame interviews. Glancing at the stat sheet, Lewis said, “I had 14 assists?”

  “Where does it say that?” Mitchell said, grabbing the sheet from him.

  “I better frame this,” Lewis said.

  “You better blow it up real big,” Mitchell answered.

  For Mitchell, perhaps more than anyone, this victory was a sweet one. He had felt like the goat after the loss in Bloomington. Even though he had scored 24 points in that game, he had missed the front end of a one-and-one with his team up by one and fifteen seconds left, a miss that probably cost them the victory.

  The following day, still stewing about the loss and about the team’s horrendous first half, Keady had destroyed Mitchell in front of his teammates. “I told him he was worthless, playing the way he was,” Keady remembered. “I told him he might as well go ahead and quit and do everyone a favor if he didn’t care more than he did. I buried him. He cried, but he’s turned around since then and gone to war, every night out.”

  Mitchell had been stung—and stunned—by Keady’s tirade. It was not the first time that the hard-nosed coach and the laid-back player had clashed. His tears had been brought on by embarrassment and by anger. “He hurt me that day,” Mitchell said. “I know he’s a good man and I know he cares about us and would do anything for us. But sometimes he thinks because he cares he can say anything he wants and it’s okay. Well, it’s not okay. Sometimes he goes too far. That day he went too far.”

  Keady believed that, as good as his two senior guards were, Mitchell was the key to this team. He had called Mitchell in the previous spring and had told him that. He had been on Mitchell more than any other player because he believed he had to
pull Mitchell’s potential out of him. Mitchell was not the natural that Stephens was or the competitor that Lewis was. But he was a superb athlete, a player who was capable, at 6–8, of scoring inside and outside and of taking over a game—when he chose to.

  But Keady thought that Mitchell had a languid attitude and the only way to cure that was to infuriate him. He had questioned his manhood, told him not to listen to his father (who was telling him to shoot more), and told him to quit. Whatever the reason, Mitchell was now playing the way Keady hoped he would and the team had come out of Indiana to reel off victories over Wisconsin, Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa, and now Indiana. Winning at Michigan had put them in control of the Big Ten race and now, inevitably, all eyes were beginning to turn to March. As Mitchell said, “That’s where our fate will be decided.”

  This had been the theme all season, of course. That very afternoon, moments after the Indiana win, Keady had said of the seniors: “The jury is still out on how they’re going to react when the pressure’s really on.”

  Keady wasn’t being critical. Just as the three seniors loved him in spite of his faults, he loved them. But he wanted desperately for them to play their best basketball when it mattered most. He wanted them to erase all doubts about the greatness they had brought to Purdue. The seniors understood. They had understood that all season.

  “Six more games,” Mitchell said softly over prime rib and strawberry daiquiris. “And then, once and for all, we find out.”