#HL40: Men's Basketball Success
By Joey Yashinsky, Horizon League Contributor. Follow on Twitter @OneSeatOver
Through the long, grueling winter, athletic conferences all over the country stage their men’s basketball seasons. And while oftentimes the national attention can sway towards blue blood programs, there have been a number of thrilling postseason accomplishments over the years in the Horizon League, which includes seven programs that have advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament.
In the 1990’s, Perry Watson’s Detroit Mercy Titans were the toast of the conference. The Titans climbed slowly throughout the decade, culminating in a pair of memorable seasons in 1997-98 and 1998-99.
“It was all really the continuation of 1993-94 when we actually won the conference tournament championship, but unbeknownst to us at the time, we didn’t realize that title was not going to send us to the NCAA Tournament,” Watson said. “I think there was a formula back then that our League did not meet because we were on the verge of losing Xavier, but we were still obviously happy to have won that championship. It kind of signaled to us and to me what was on the horizon for us.”
Indeed, in the ‘97-98 season, the Titans burst onto the national scene. Watson’s club posted a blistering 12-2 mark in League play and earned an at-large berth to the big dance as a 10-seed. It was the first NCAA Tournament appearance for Detroit Mercy since Dick Vitale led them there in 1979. Waiting for the Titans was an excellent St. John’s team led by future NBA players Felipe Lopez, Zendon Hamilton, Ron Artest and Lavor Postell.
“Mentally, we were not like a lot of mid-majors that might have been overwhelmed going into a matchup like that,” Watson said. “Because we felt like our program had made this journey to get to this destination for a number of years. We scheduled like we already belonged. That was the third of three straight years beating Michigan State, twice at their place. We had gone to Iowa State and won there. So we felt like we belonged, but we still had to go out and perform.”
And the Titans did just that. On the strength of 27 points from Derrick Hayes and typically stingy team defense, Detroit snagged the 66-64 win in Chicago.
The following year saw more of the same. The Titans were flying high entering the NCAA’s after capturing a conference tournament championship. On the other side were the UCLA Bruins, college basketball’s most storied program. They were led by star point guard Baron Davis, who would be selected third overall in the NBA Draft just months later.
But the 12th-seeded Titans were not intimidated. Detroit Mercy displayed a suffocating brand of defense, holding the Bruins to just 53 on the scoreboard in a three-point victory.
“I think those two victories really showed for the Horizon League what was possible,” Watson said. “I thought with our wins over St. John’s and UCLA, it gave birth a little bit to what Butler was eventually able to accomplish. The teams in our League saw those wins over big-time programs and felt like, ‘Hey, we belong.’”
“It was the highest of highs, to get an NCAA win two years in a row.”
That began an unprecented amount of NCAA Tournament success for the Horizon League. Starting in 2001, the HL would go on to win at least one game during March Madness in nine of the next 11 seasons.
Before making a run to this year’s Final Four with Auburn, Bruce Pearl was making a run into the NCAA Tournament with the Milwaukee Panthers in 2005.
The Panthers had gone 14-2 during League play and claimed a one-point victory over the Titans to earn its second tournament title in three years and the automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament where they were poised to be that year’s Cinderella story.
As the No. 12 seed and playing in a familiar venue at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, Ohio, Milwaukee would earn a 83-73 victory as Horizon League Tournament MVP Joah Tucker and HL Player of the Year Ed McCants scored 21 points apiece to upset to defeat fifth-seed Alabama.
Pearl and the Panthers were not done there as they made their way to the Sweet 16 after knocking out a Boston College team that had one round earlier defeated Penn by 20 points. Milwaukee got great performances once again from Tucker and McCants as they poured in 23 and 18, respectively, while Adrian Tigert added 16 as the Panthers defeated BC, 83-75.
A handful of years later, Gary Waters took over the Cleveland State program. It wasn’t long before the defensive guru had turned water into wine.
The Vikings won just 10 games in Waters’ first year and captured just three Horizon League victories. But over the next two seasons, Cleveland State would win 47 games, none bigger than the one over Wake Forest in the 2009 NCAA Tournament.
“Our confidence level was very high,” Waters said. “I’m not trying to boast. That year, playing in the Horizon League and some of the battles we had with Butler and other teams, it really prepared us going into the NCAA Tournament. I think the whole League was like that at the time. Everyone had confidence. And you saw that the next year when Butler got to the championship game.”
That Wake Forest team was led by three outstanding players (Jeff Teague, Al-Farouq Aminu, James Johnson) that are still currently playing in the NBA a decade later. But the Vikings had some star power of their own with Norris Cole, Cedric Jackson, and J’Nathan Bullock.
Cole racked up 22 points. Jackson did a little of everything with 19 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. The No. 13 seed Cleveland State didn’t just beat the heavily favored Demon Deacons -- they won going away, 84-69, pestering Teague and Co. into 18 turnovers while committing just six of their own.
“I’m a believer that you win in March with great guards,” Waters said. “That year, we had fantastic guards with both Cole and Jackson. And Bullock was an All-League player. The only tough thing about that game is that it was the late game, so not many people were up to see it. If they’d have watched that game, they would have known the talent we had at Cleveland State and how strong our League had become.”
“The thing I remember most from my time there is the great battle we had at Hinkle Fieldhouse. Every game was a nail-biter. So many of the teams were evenly matched in the Horizon League at that time and the competitiveness was really high. And I give a lot of that credit to Butler. They were so good at that time, so everyone tried to increase their level of play to either surpass or match what they were doing.”
That Butler dominance would make a major splash on the national college hoops scene over the next two seasons.
The Bulldogs, guided by current Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens, busted brackets on their way to consecutive appearances in the national championship game in 2010 and 2011.
The first edition, in 2009-10, steamrolled through the conference season with an 18-0 mark and finished it off with a 25-point victory in the Horizon League title game. But Gordon Hayward, Shelvin Mack, Matt Howard and Willie Veasley were just getting started.
The fifth-seeded Bulldogs demolished UTEP, then snuck by Murray State in round two by just two points. Top-seeded Syracuse was the next victim, followed by No. 2 seed Kansas State.
The Final Four was right in Butler’s backyard at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. On the opposite end of the floor was the legendary Tom Izzo and the two-time national champion Michigan State Spartans.
But even in the rough-and-tumble Big Ten, the Spartans hadn’t seen defensive tenacity like they were about to experience from Butler. Led by Ronald Nored, one of the best defenders in the country, the Bulldogs held Michigan State to only 50 points in a down-to-the-wire two-point win.
There was one more hill to climb, that of Mike Krzyzewski and the famed Duke Blue Devils. And despite a very difficult night from the floor (34.5 percent), Stevens’ resilient group had a chance to win at the buzzer, with Hayward’s attempt from midcourt just a hair on the strong side, banking off the glass and front of the rim to give Duke the title.
Many times in sports nowadays, there is a bit of a hangover the following season for whoever finished second in the year prior. Butler proved the exception to that rule in 2011.
The Bulldogs grabbed a share of the Horizon League regular season championship and followed that up with a dominant performance in the conference tournament, holding Milwaukee to just 44 points in the final.
Then, improbably as just an eight-seed in the tournament, Butler went on another run. Victories over Old Dominion and No. 1 seed Pittsburgh highlighted the event’s opening weekend, the two wins coming by a combined three points. Tight games were had with Wisconsin and Florida in the ensuing rounds, but Butler clawed through successfully, besting the No. 2 seed Gators in overtime.
In front of over 75,000 fans at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Shelvin Mack poured in 24 points and the Bulldogs once again triumphed in the national semifinals, taking out VCU by eight. Amazingly, it was the fifth consecutive single-digit victory for Butler in the NCAA Tournament, putting front and center the Bulldogs’ uncanny ability to remain calm in the most stressful of moments.
Unfortunately, there was no happy ending this time, either. The championship game was played with a lid on both baskets and Kemba Walker’s UConn Huskies grabbed the title, 53-41.
The back-to-back championship game appearances by the Butler Bulldogs remains one of college basketball’s most remarkable feats in this century.
At the highest level of basketball, the Horizon League continues to be well-represented. There have been 23 players from the conference drafted to the NBA, including seven since 2010, while nearly 40 have suited up in the NBA.
Hayward and Mack have enjoyed long careers after their tremendous run at Butler. Both Cole and Jackson found their way to the NBA from Cleveland State. Former Valparaiso Crusaders Alec Peters and Ryan Broekhoff did the same.
And there have been several others, as well: Willie Green and Ray McCallum, Jr. from Detroit Mercy, Alfonzo McKinnie from Green Bay, now a major part of the Golden State Warriors bench attack, Othyus Jeffers from UIC and Kay Felder played at Oakland under Greg Kampe before reaching basketball’s highest level.
Men’s hoops in the Horizon League has a rich history filled with countless success stories.
The accomplishments of Perry Watson and Detroit Mercy, Gary Waters and Cleveland State, the Panthers in 2005 and the Butler Bulldogs present just a snapshot of the Horizon League’s best moments -- a conference that has been and continues to be a standard for excellence on the basketball court and beyond.
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