MICHAEL ATCHISON

A Classic Revisited

Michael Atchison

Classics don’t come in December, not in college basketball. December is for final exams, paycheck games at home, the holidays and the occasional made-for-TV tilt with nothing much on the line. But ten years ago, on December 22, 1993, the Missouri Tigers and Illinois Fighting Illini played one for the ages, a game as ferocious, dramatic, unpredictable and exhausting as even the best NCAA Tournament match-up. For 55 glorious minutes, they stood toe-to-toe, trading haymakers worthy of a heavyweight title fight, both teams staggered, but neither knocked out. Eventually, it ended simply because these things have to end, but even the result suggested Ali-Frazier IV. When the carnage stopped and they went to the cards, Missouri won on points, 108-107.

There was little reason to expect that anything special would happen that night in the St. Louis Arena, which hosted its final Braggin’ Rights game before giving way to the sparkling new Kiel Center. In fact, the smart money was on an easy Illinois win. Missouri had shown little to inspire confidence in its chances. The Tigers, who had finished seventh in the Big Eight in 1993, came into the game at 5-1, but it was the softest 5-1 record imaginable. Four of their wins had been nail-biters and near-embarrassments. Mizzou beat SMU by five, Jackson State by four, Central Missouri State by three, and Coppin State by a single point. And while their five wins were hardly memorable, their one loss was entirely unforgettable. Before a national audience on ESPN and a packed house at Bud Walton Arena, Missouri suffered a historic humiliation. Arkansas crushed the Tigers, 120-68, and stole any rational hope that they could contend for a conference title or hang with a team as good as Illinois.

Missouri had a wealth of experience, highlighted by seniors Melvin Booker and Jevon Crudup, plus an emerging star in 6’7” freshman Kelly Thames, but nothing on the team’s resume suggested that anything but mediocrity lay in store for the season. Not only that, but as Christmas approached, Missouri’s roster looked like an infirmary registry. Seniors Chris Heller and Reggie Smith limped around on sprained ankles. So did sophomore Julian Winfield, and senior Lamont Frazier hobbled on a sore foot. Missouri’s depth, the one advantage it held over most teams, had all but been erased by injury. Illinois, on the other hand, came into the game healthy, nationally-ranked and confident. Led by 6’9” senior Deon Thomas, the Illini’s all-time leading scorer, Lou Henson’s club also featured precocious freshman guard Kiwane Garris, who arrived in St. Louis averaging nearly 15 points per game over the first seven contests of his college career. Illinois would bring plenty of guns to the battle.

More than 18,000 wedged into the old barn on Oakland Avenue on a cold Wednesday night, expecting nothing more than a hard-fought basketball game. And that’s what they got in the first half. The Tigers remained in the game at halftime by the grace of center Jevon Crudup, a six-foot-eight-inch slab of granite with a scowl that could wilt flowers. The senior from Raytown South High School scored 18 before intermission. Still, Illinois led at the break, 41-37.

After working up a good lather in the first 20 minutes, the teams proceeded to stage a Rocky movie the rest of the way, as one club and then the other staged huge rallies after being all but dead. And then they did it again. And again. And again. Missouri mounted the first offensive. With Crudup shackled by foul trouble and a defense designed especially for him, Booker, Frazier and Thames launched a three-pronged attack. The Tigers outscored the Illini 24-7 in the first eight minutes of the second half to take a thirteen point lead. But Illinois – paced by Thomas, Garris, Richard Keene and Shelly Clark – struck back with a sledgehammer’s force. In the next eleven minutes, the Illini won the game, or at least that’s how it appeared to the very few souls who started to trickle out of the building after a 27-7 run gave Illinois a 75-68 lead with less than a minute to play.

But Missouri wasn’t finished, not by a long shot. And speaking of long shots, Mark Atkins – who had struggled throughout the game – came up huge. For those too young to remember, Atkins was like Clarence Gilbert with less conscience, a guard who was never too far out or too tightly defended to shoot. In that final minute, Atkins scored half of his 12 points by draining a pair of three-pointers. But the Tigers still trailed 79-76 in the game’s waning seconds. As time ticked away, Lamont Frazier, a small forward who later played a little tight end, connected on the biggest shot of his career, a three-ball that tied the score and sent the game to overtime.

Overtime played out like the second half in miniature. Illinois pounced out of the gate and nearly salted the game away. The Illini led by five with 43 seconds to play before yet another furious Missouri rally, capped by a Thames dunk off of a Booker pass, tied the score at 88 and sent the game to a second overtime. In those next five minutes, the game crossed from memorable to legendary, as the drama ratcheted up to an almost unbearable intensity.

Instead of another series of wild runs, the two teams traded scores for nearly five minutes. With the score tied at 97 and very little time left, Illinois came down the floor with a chance to win. Garris, who had been the best player on the floor for most of the night, had the ball in his hands. As the clock struck zero, he put up an errant shot, but – to Missouri coach Norm Stewart’s disbelief – the officials whistled Julian Winfield for a foul. With no time left, Garris went to the line.

He stood there, surrounded by 18,000 people, yet utterly alone. Garris had played a lot of basketball in his life, in driveways, on playgrounds and in high school gyms, but he had never had the ball in his hands in a moment like this. Eight games into his college career, he held this game, this epic clash, in his hands. The players had spilled everything onto the floor, fighting, scratching and sweating, and yet they remained deadlocked. After fifty minutes of ferocious hand-to-hand competition, the game was no more decided than it had been at the opening tip. But Garris could decide it. After fifty scintillating minutes of basketball failed to yield a victor, it came down to a carnival contest. Make one of two uncontested shots, go home a winner.

Garris stepped to the free throw line, the lane vacant, as the other players backed away, reduced to spectators. He was a man on an island. The official handed him the ball, then stepped away, and it was like one of those great camera maneuvers in a Hitchcock flick, where the lens zooms in just as the camera rolls back, making the subject look like the world’s loneliest soul. Garris entered the game shooting 94% from the line, but as he stood there, nerves shot and legs spent, the basket might as well have been fifty feet away. He focused on the hoop. He breathed in and out. He put his first shot up. It hit the rim and bounced away. There were shrieks, sighs, moans, cheers. And then it was like all of the air was sucked out of the building as Garris prepared to shoot again, feeling pressure like never before. He squared up and shot. Through the air, a gorgeous arc, the ball spinning but moving in slow motion, while 18,000 exhausted souls, on their feet, track the flight. But after so much fight, the radar was gone. The ball bounced away harmlessly. On to a third overtime.

The Illini had the game won in regulation, in the first overtime and in overtime number two. Yet they failed to put the Tigers away. Emotionally, Illinois was spent, but Missouri was quickly running out of soldiers. Crudup had fouled out, as had Atkins and Winfield and Marlo Finner. Melvin Booker would follow in the third overtime. With five players disqualified, Norm Stewart had to go far deeper onto his bench than he would have liked. Reggie Smith, who had little business walking (let alone playing), was pressed into duty, as were freshmen Jason Sutherland and Derek Grimm, who had played little and produced less in the young season. The freshmen lacked for experience but they did not want for energy, a commodity in short supply at that stage. Grimm had already been a hero by knocking down the free throws that tied the game at 97. But it was Sutherland who would go from bit player to leading man in the game’s final five minutes.

Missouri fans didn’t know then what we know now. On the court, Jason Sutherland was crazy, completely certifiable. He played the game like a cornered rat. He attached life-or-death importance to every possession. He left bits of his elbows and knees all over the court. And he never, ever feared anyone or any situation. He entered the game in the first overtime because there was no one left to play, and he scrapped and scraped like a seasoned veteran. He crashed around with abandon and picked up four fouls in just ten minutes. But he also pulled down two big rebounds and knocked down two huge three-pointers. One of them came at the start of the third overtime, and it nearly put the game away.

Illinois was left to chase Mizzou the rest of the way. And with freshmen Thames, Sutherland and Grimm on the floor with the wounded Smith, the Tigers looked to the coolest guy in the room, senior Lamont Frazier. Frazier spent only one minute on the bench the entire night, but he never showed fatigue. A role player extraordinaire, Frazier just made the plays that needed to be made. And in the third overtime, that meant handling the ball and sinking free throws. With the desperate Illini chasing and hacking, Frazier went to the line for the final time with 3.8 seconds on the clock. Missouri led 106-104. The calm that had abandoned Garris minutes earlier washed over Frazier. He hit one free throw and then the other. Almost four seconds remained, but Frazier had ended it. Fittingly, Illinois got off one more crazy shot in the indescribably crazy game. Garris hit a three-pointer to reduce the final gap to one point, one measly point that made all the difference. Missouri 108, Illinois 107.

Crudup scored 22. Booker added 21 and a school-record 13 assists. Frazier, the iron man, tallied 20 and Thames added 16. All down the line, players contributed, giving whatever their experience or relative physical health would allow. Norm Stewart was exhausted but philosophical. “You saw guys forget everything,” he said. “No selfishness. Just concerned about one thing. Just trying to do something together. And then it finally comes out and you win. You can never replace that feeling.”

The game would have been a classic standing alone, but its resonance only grew because of what followed. Before that night, Missouri’s season was heading nowhere. After that night, it took off for places unimagined. Buoyed in the subsequent days by the unexpected addition of high-scoring swingman Paul O’Liney, the Tigers were a team transformed. Rather than squeaking past opponents, Missouri started to rout them. First non-conference foes and then the members of the Big Eight, one after another. Norm Stewart’s Tigers shocked the league by sweeping through the slate undefeated and winning the championship. From there, this team – which had lost a game by 52 points early in the year – secured a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to within a game of the Final Four. That dream ended against Arizona in the Elite Eight, but the full season’s accomplishment was more than anyone could have anticipated. And it all started in St. Louis ten years ago in a game that counted for much, much more than braggin’ rights.