A member of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee was standing in an elevator at the 1993 Final Four in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans when a familiar face entered.
Billy Tubbs, then Oklahoma’s coach for 13 seasons, strolled in. Les Robinson introduced himself to the legendary figure who he thought wouldn’t recognize him as East Tennessee State’s former coach.
“I know who the shit you are,” Tubbs said to Robinson four years after his Sooners almost became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in March Madness history when OU held off Robinson’s Buccaneers 72-71. “You gave me one of the most miserable evenings of my life. You gave me one of the worst nights ever in coaching.”
Oklahoma avoided the infamy that ultimately befell Virginia, which in 2018 became the first No. 1 to lose its tournament opener, falling to the University of Maryland, Baltimore, or this year Purdue, which dropped its first round game to Fairleigh Dickinson and became the subject of endless Twitter memes in one of the most improbable NCAA Tournaments in history which features no No. 1 seeds in the Final Four.
2023 will mark the first Final Four ever without a No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 seed when Florida Atlantic faces San Diego State and Miami (FL) takes on Connecticut on Saturday.
Each March when the tournament takes center stage in the sports world, Robinson, Tubbs’ son Tommy and ETSU’s leading scorer in 1988-89 Keith “Mister” Jennings remember what could’ve been. Decades later, when Robinson and Jennings visit Johnson City, Tennessee, people approach them and bring up the ’89 game.
Jennings got chills watching Fairleigh Dickinson break the Boilermakers’ hearts on TV with his girlfriend. Tubbs watched too and was taken back to Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville and the night he watched his father’s team escape a near upset.
“It was scary,” Tubbs told the OU Daily. “I'm glad it wasn't us that made history. I remember it like it was yesterday.”
Former OU head basketball coach Billy Tubbs stands as his name is announced at the Sooners Tip In Club dinner at the Lloyd Noble Center Aug. 26, 2016.
‘It was a phantom call’
The 1988-89 season was one of the greatest in OU men’s basketball’s history.
Led by Tubbs and two first-round NBA draft picks Stacey King and Mookie Blaylock, the Sooners finished the regular season 26-4 and captured their second consecutive Big Eight regular season title.
That time can feel otherworldly today as Oklahoma has missed the tournament in back-to-back seasons and attendance at the Lloyd Noble Center is a recurring issue.
While the top-ranked Sooners ultimately advanced to the Sweet 16, where they lost 86-80 to Virginia, they were lucky to squeak past East Tennessee State.
“(Oklahoma was) extremely talented,” Robinson said. “Several of them went on to play in the pros, they were a great team.”
King averaged 26 points and 10 rebounds per game and was named the Big Eight player of the year, while Blaylock averaged 20 points, nearly five rebounds and seven assists a contest.
East Tennessee State entered the game hot and held a 15-point lead early in the second half. The Sooners stormed back and led by one with four seconds remaining.
Jennings, who had eight points in 35 minutes against OU, fouled out with a minute and 21 seconds left. The Buccaneers heaved a last-second shot opportunity without their leading scorer, which was swatted.
“Well, Mister, if he doesn’t foul out, I think we would’ve won,” Robinson told the Daily of the player who got his nickname from his father. “There’s no way to prove that but when he fouled out … He was the glue of the starting lineup.”
At 5-foot-7, the one they call “Mister,” averaged 15.7 points per game during his three-year career at ETSU and went on to play for the Golden State Warriors from 1992-95.
The play still haunts Jennings and he still can’t believe it was called.
“It was a phantom call,” Jennings told the Daily. “Of course I’m going to say it was a phantom call, but when I watch the video clip of it, because of course I've watched this a whole lot, I've talked a ton about this, I swiped at the ball. But … I knew I had four fouls.”
Like George Mason in 2006, OU coach Porter Moser’s Loyola team in 2018 or Saint Peter’s in 2022, ETSU’s program was forever changed, even without the victory. The Buccaneers, who had made the tournament once prior, went on to make it the next three consecutive seasons.
Robinson says making a March Madness run has more to do with the psychology of a team rather than talent. He remembers the pregame speech he gave before the Oklahoma game when he informed his players that Vanderbilt’s gym where they were playing had 12 scoreboards.
He explained during his players’ walkthrough the day before that all their family and friends traveling to the game would have no trouble seeing the score from any seat in the arena.
“‘Fellas, you don't know this, but this arena has more scoreboards than any Division I arena in America and that’s factual,’” Robinson told his team. “‘All your family and friends, if we’re playing like we are today after about 10 minutes, the score is going to be about 30 to 8 and all people from all of your towns are going to see that score.’
“And (after that), they came out there and played their asses off.”
Jennings recently finished filming a documentary in which he discusses the Buccaneers’ near historic upset of the Sooners, who’d made the national championship the year before.
Years later during his time with the Warriors, Jennings faced King, then a Chicago Bull. As the two were matched up at a point in the contest, Jennings reminded King how he almost put him on an eternal March Madness highlight loop.
“You know,” Jennings told King, “y’all got away from us.”
Former OU Basketball coach (1980-1994), Billy Tubbs, coaches from the sidelines during the OU Basketball Legends Crimson and Cream Game on Saturday, Aug. 25, 2012, with OU Legend from 1980-1983, Bo Overton, looking on.
‘I don’t think it’s the last we’ll see of it’
While he watched Fairleigh Dickinson make two free throws, extending its lead to four with 8.1 seconds left and securing its improbable victory over the Boilermakers, he couldn’t help but think it could’ve been his team even amid today’s very different college basketball landscape.
“The game has just changed,” said Jennings, who recently stepped away as the women’s basketball coach at Lees-McRee College. “These days, man, I think a lot of these kids have a better opportunity to really work on their game and their craft, more so than we did back in our days. I think the talent level is almost catching up with each other. You don't see that big of a gap like you used to see when we were playing in the late ’80s, early ’90s. In those times, there was no way a No. 1 was going to lose to a No. 16.
“So I don't think it's the last we'll see of it.”
With more upperclassmen on teams due to the extra years of eligibility granted from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are often fifth- or sixth-year seniors matching up against freshmen.
Also with the transfer portal, players can now go to any school at any given time.
“It was a lot different in my mind back then than it is today,” said Tubbs, whose father died in 2020. “So many of the teams, because of the portal and all the NIL stuff, they're all really a lot more equal. There's a lot more parity and back then it wasn't that way.”
This year’s Sweet 16 was just the second since 1980 not to feature basketball bluebloods Kansas, Kentucky, Duke or North Carolina. Three of the four teams remaining — FAU, SDSU and Miami — will be making their first appearance in the Final Four when it begins Saturday in Dallas.
Tubbs still keeps in touch with King, Blaylock and most of the players from those squads. He has watched the 1989 game many times since and happened to revisit it the week Purdue lost. It makes him think of his father and the height of OU basketball, but also how great of a game it was and how great this time of year is.
“It was just one of those kinds of days,” Tubbs said. “I mean, anything can happen again, fortunately, we came out on the right end of that.”
