Mar
4
by Chris Maynard, chris@hoops4thesoul.com
West Regional – #1 1990 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels vs. #4 1998
(* remember to click on the pictures)
These junior guards steady the ship for their respective teams. The southpaw Anthony is a distributor who can get into the lane with the crossover and score with the silky smooth floater. Turner is a streaky shooter who is best at getting the
A battle of MOPs – Hunt in 1990 and Sheppard in 1998. Along with Duke’s Jason Williams, Hunt is the best shooter in this tournament when on. Sheppard is a tough, gritty guard who gets most of his points working off screens. While Sheppard has gone against the likes of Kentucky guards Tony Delk, Derek Anderson and Ron Mercer in practice during his career, he hasn’t had to guard a player as explosive as Hunt, who despite his average height (6’1’’), can really attack the glass and score inside. No contest here. Advantage: UNLV
UNLV Stacey Augmon (14.2 ppg, 6.9 rpg) vs. Allen Edwards (9.2 ppg, 3.2 rpg)
How good is the lengthy Augmon on the defensive end? The junior Augmon won the NABC Defensive Player of the Year Award in 1989 and is on pace to win it in 1990. Augmon won’t have much to defend in Edwards, a senior who can occasionally hit the three but is often nonexistent. Advantage: UNLV
The junior Padgett will have his hands full with the 6’7’’ Johnson, who is a guarantee on the block. The Wildcats will need to send their plethora of big bodies, including Nazr Mohammed and Jamaal Magloire, to help Padgett out with Johnson, who also doesn’t mind floating to the three point line with great effectiveness. Padgett is an emotional leader, known for hitting the big three. However, Padgett is an overachiever who stands no change against LJ. Advantage: UNLV
David Butler (15.8 ppg, 7.4 rpg) vs. Nazr Mohammed (12.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg)
The lone senior in UNLV’s starting lineup,
UNLV brings in senior Moses Scurry (7.4 ppg, 4.1 rpg), a whirlpool aficionado who brings even more nastiness off the bench. Kentucky’s bench includes the aforementioned sophomore Magloire (5.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg), who unfortunately was unsuccessful when trying to rip off the shoulder of Duke guard Steve Wojciechowski in the 1998 Elite Eight battle between the two schools in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Wildcats also use senior sharpshooter Cameron Mills (4.4 ppg, 43.7 3-pt%), who’s automatic from three-point land in the tourney. Junior Heshimu Evans (8.8 ppg, 5.4 rpg) is the team’s top scorer off the bench and takes a lot of time from Edwards, especially when the senior is ineffective. Freshman Saul Smith (2.5 ppg) wouldn’t be playing at
Tark the Shark will have no reason beyond boredom to chomp on his towel during this game. First-year coach Tubby Smith is a miracle worker with less-than-stellar talent. However, he’s no Annie Sullivan or Helen Keller. Advantage: Even.
Related Posts
- 1990 UNLV vs. 1998 Kentucky, First Half
- A Sweet 16 Tournament of the Last 18 NCAA Champions
- FROM HANG TIME TO SAC-TOWN: REGGIE THEUS IS NEW KINGS’ COACH
- 2001 Duke vs. 1993 North Carolina Preview
- 2006/2007 Florida vs. 1997 Arizona Preview
What’s up, Chris?
I’ll add a little about each year’s tourney from my recollection and some wiki-cheating
1990 was the year I really “found” college basketball. Just a tremendous season with great highs and great lows that ultimately is remembered most for the Hank Gathers tragedy. Hank died 6 days before by Bar Mitzvah and I’ll never forget the Monday morning after he died when I found out on the early Sports Center before school. I was so sad I didn’t want to leave the house. Actually, the LMU-La Salle (Lionel Simmons) game was on classic drive thru overnight and I’ll be watching it on DVR when I get off work.
The ‘90 tourney had legendary buzzer beaters from Tate George, Christian Laettner, Kenny Anderson (to force OT vs Michigan St), Rick Fox (to beat 1 seed Oklahoma in the 2nd round) and some guy on Northern Iowa to beat Missouri in a 3-14 game plus exciting upsets by Ball State over Gary Payton’s Oregon State team and Texas over 2 seed Purdue. Only one 2-seed and one 3-seed survived the first weekend. Of course LMU’s great run, including the 149 point destruction of defending champ Michigan and the Bo Kimble lefty free throws, was straight out of Hollywood.
Something that always stood out to me about UNLV was their incredible team fitness. In high altitude Denver, they were down 9 to equally thin GT at halftime in the semis before crushing them in the 2nd half. While Dennis Scott and Brian Oliver were melting down in the thin air, UNLV never stopped attacking. The final was a debacle, ending quite the run of compelling title games.
1998 was the year everyone thought the 1-seeds (UNC, KU, Arizona and Duke) were far better than everyone else. Not unlike last year. Three of the four brackets played heavily to form with a pair of 1-2 regional finals (UNC-UConn and Duke-UK) and a 1-3 (Arizona-Utah). Those brackets had little early excitement outside of another Richmond 1st round upset in a 3-14 over South Carolina which allowed 11 seed Washington to roll to the sweet 16 where they lost by 1 on the famous Rip Hamilton buzzer beater with the great call by Sean McDonough. A seriously underrated great tourney moment. WV did nip current coach Bob Huggins’ Cincy team in a 2-10 game to help pave the way for Utah.
However, the Midwest region was out of control, with Bryce Drew’s Valpo team making the Sweet 16 where they lost to scumbag Jim Harrick’s Rhode Island team that had shocked the great Kansas team with Pierce and LaFrentz in the 2nd round. Stanford eventually beat URI in a fun regional final behind Mark Madsen. There was no excuse for UNC, with Jamison and Carter as juniors and
Shammond Williams and Ed Cota around to not win it all, but they tanked against Utah in the semis. It’s easy to forget Keith Van Horn was gone by this point, but Andre Miller and Michael Doleac both picked up the slack. They actually led UK by 10 at halftime in the final, but went cold in the 2nd half and blew it. This UK team was less threatening than probably 5 other UK teams of the 90’s that did not win it all, but this one got the job done.
Great to hear from you Holy Mackerel. If there’s anyone who knows the NCAA tournament in our lifetime, it’s you. Can’t beat the good ol days talking about how crappy the 2000 NCAA tournament was while covering a crappy Durham Bulls game.
Hope all is going good. How’s the fantasy basketball league going this year?
I don’t remember much of the 1990 tournament (I was in second grade). But I’ve got the tapes of the Final Four and that UNLV team was so talented. The Final Four in 1993 was phenomenal. Michigan-Kentucky is one of my favorite games of all time. Travis Ford was locked down by Rose, and the Fab Five played probably its best game from start to finish. And as you alluded to, you were in attendance that year.
Please comment on future posts. I’d like to get your thoughts, opinions and contributions.
oops, some of my comments for 1993 got posted in above post. here are some other thoughts on 1998.
That Kentucky team in 1998 was weak. Deerfield’s Ryan Hogan (who would transfer to Iowa) was a bench warmer. I saw Kentucky earlier that year during the now defunct Great Eight at the United Center in an awful game against a Brad Miller-led Purdue squad. Talk about the pits.
I agree about UNC, which had that championship gift-wrapped but dogged it in the national semifinal against Utah. What else can you expect from a Vince Carter team.
I’m still getting over the Illinois loss to Maryland in the second round that year and Arizona getting it handed to them by Utah in the Elite Eight.
1998 stands out to me for Bryce Drew’s shot and Mark Madsen’s shimmy in the Elite Eight after dunking late on Rhode Island. The UCONN-Washington game was exciting as well as the Michigan State-UNC and UNC-UNC Charlotte games in the Sweet Sixteen and the second round respectively.
The league was good this year. Your keepers ended up putting the new guy in the playoffs, although he was a lucky to get there. The last 2 champs and my a-hole brother had the best teams again, but again my brother got terrible breaks and missed the playoffs by a game. The first 3 spots were secured really early, but the last spot went down to the last game and 2 historically bad teams (P-Rolls and Laguna) were up for it. P-Rolls snuck in at 16-13 and then pulled off a huge semis upset over Dollar Bill when Maarty Leunen, needing to win the matchup by 16, outscored Malik Hairston by 22 in the very last game of the round. Last year’s champ then sucked in the final and P-Rolls won the whole thing. Pretty amazing.
My other brother got the first pick and wisely chose Beasley, who averaged just over 30 per game. Somehow he went 6-11 with him in his lineup and traded him at the deadline to Laguna for Luke Harangody. Then somehow Laguna went 3-4 after that and missed the playoffs on tiebreak. I had the 2nd pick and took OJ Mayo. I then took DeAndre Jordan in the 2nd round. That’s all you need to know about my season.
hey, at least you didn’t pick paul harris with the sixth overall pick