How 'Nova's 1985 national title game upset of Georgetown shook college hoops

II. THE FAMILY

Every coach has a gimmick. Massiminos was family. Come to Villanova to play basketball, and youll be part of a family. Well eat pasta dinners together and talk about life and then well win because youll love each other like brothers. It was a sales pitch, wrapped in genuine emotion. The youngest child of an immigrant shoemaker who had a sixth-grade education, Massimino would have five children of his own, and they would give him 16 (17 now) grandchildren. Even on the road Rollie never wanted to be alone in hotel suite, says Mitch Buonaguro, his top assistant in 85. He always liked to have people around him.

In the early 1980s, many prospective recruits and their families were eager to buy a piece of Massiminos schtick. His family atmosphere was absolutely key, says Harold Pressley, who in 1982 as a senior at St. Bernard High in Uncasville, Conn., was an All-America. He came in, lounged around with my mother, seemed real comfortable. It worked. It was believable. And it was real. Jensen says, I was recruited by Providence, Syracuse, UCLA and South Carolina. I felt very comfortable with the community that Coach Mass had built at Villanova.

tulane university, rocked by an alleged point-shaving scheme and cash payments to players, cancels its basketball program. Students successfully persuade school president Eamon Kelly to reinstate the program in 1988.

Photo Illustration by Erica Cotten; Nycretoucher/Getty Images (money)

The 85 team came together in one huge chunk and then in small pieces that followed. In the summer of 1979 Howard Garfinkels Five-Star Basketball Camp in the Pocono Mountains was attended by a stunning roster of future Hall of Fame players, including Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Ewing, Chris Mullin and Karl Malone, all of whom would enter college in the fall of 81. Among the other prospective recruits at the camp were McLain, a Long Island native living with his high school coach in southeastern Massachusetts; McClain, a willowy 6' 6" forward from Worcester, Mass.; and Pinckney, a solid big man from Adlai Stevenson High in the Bronx who was under-recruited. The three of them became friends, and when Buonaguro induced McLain to commit to Villanova, McLain put the heat on McClain to join him, and McClain in turn applied pressure on Pinckney. It was nothing complicated, says McClain. We connected. We all wanted the Big East, and we knew with a point guard, a small forward and a big man, maybe we could do something.

Point guard Gary McLain was part of Villanovas stellar 1981 recruiting class. He, Pinckney and McClain would form the nucleus of the Wildcats title team.

Richard Mackson for Sports Illustrated

As freshmen and sophomores, the big three played on good teams that were beaten in the Sweet 16, in 1982 by Jordans North Carolina team and in 83 by Houstons Phi Slamma Jamma. Eighty-three was the best team we ever had, says Massimino. A year later the Wildcats went 19-12 and lost to Illinois in the second round. The seniors reported to preseason conditioning in the fall of 1984 with 67 wins on their rsum, yet no trophies in the case. But they had experience, says Steve Pinone, a sophomore reserve on the 85 team who later became an assistant coach under Massimino and Lappas. They had been to two Sweet 16s and fought tons of Big East battles. Pinckney, McClain, McLain and the junior Pressley had been joined in the starting lineup by junior shooting guard Dwight Wilbur from Paterson, N.J. Jensen would back up Wilbur, while the hulking Everson and Mark Plansky, a 6' 7" freshman sapling from the Boston area, would get frontline minutes off the bench. They struggled throughout the regular season. I still dont know why, says Pinckney. The chemistrythat senior year, it just wasnt happening. A soft early schedule and some nice wins got the Wildcats to 13-3 heading into a January nonleague game at Marylands Cole Field House. The game was NBCs featured Sunday-afternoon telecast with the fabled announcing team of Dick Enberg and Al McGuire, and the Terps beat Villanova 77-74. Plansky, seven months removed from his high school graduation, found himself subbed in for Pressley and guarding Maryland All-America forward Len Bias. As soon as I came into the game Lenny drops to the low block and starts screaming, Mismatch! Mismatch! Give me the rock! says Plansky. Ive got a tape of the game. After Lenny gets about his fifth basket over me, Al McGuire says, on TV, Mr. and Mrs. Plansky, its not your sons fault. Hes just guarding a superstar. Bias, who would be dead of a cocaine overdose 17 months later, finished with 30 points, and that defeat sent Villanova into a regular-season-ending tailspin that included six losses in its last 11 games.

These were heavy days in the Big East, and among Villanovas nine regular-season defeats were two each to Georgetown (both close, a fact that would be widely overlooked at the Final Four in Lexington) and St. Johns, teams that volleyed the No. 1 ranking all season. The most humbling was the regular-season finale. With his team trailing Pittsburgh 40-23 at the half in Pitts Fitzgerald Field House, Massimino told his starters at halftime, Youve got two minutes to show me something, or youre coming out. He gave them three before yanking them for good. Reserves played the last 17 minutes and Pitt won, 85-62. Villanova slunk home to Philadelphia with an 18-9 record, firmly on the NCAA bubble, even from the most powerful conference in the country.

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How 'Nova's 1985 national title game upset of Georgetown shook college hoops