Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember watching this Saturday afternoon game by myself upstairs at my parents' house, thinking that Connecticut would easily get past Cinderella Gonzaga and advance to the school's first Final Four. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong as the Bulldogs gave the Huskies a hell of a game on the home court of the Phoenix Suns, the America West Arena. If you would have told me UCONN would go on to beat a juggernaut Duke squad and win the national championship after this Elite Eight game, I would have called you crazy. Ultimately, Connecticut had the best player on the floor this game in junior forward Richard "Rip" Hamilton, who went on to have an amazing NBA career with the Detroit Pistons. Gonzaga may have fallen short, more on talent than effort, but the Bulldogs forever changed as a program during this run in the 1999 NCAA Tournament. While Gonzaga has produced bigger names since 1999, this team of Quentin Hall, Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm, Casey Calvary, Adam Eaton and others is what put this program on the map beyond being the alma mater of John Stockton. At this point and time Gonzaga was a lovable program. Nowadays I can't stand the program, which is a testament to the school's success during the past 27 years. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. After getting back from my sister's gymnastics rehearsal, I settled in and watched the second set of games this Friday night. I was happy to see Temple beat Purdue but disappointed that Miami (Ohio) could not keep up its Cinderalla run against Kentucky, the defending national champion. At this time I was tired of Kentucky, which had been to three straight Final Fours, winning two of the last three titles, with two different head coaches, Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith. Years later, I realize how special these Kentucky teams were with Wayne Turner at point guard, Scott Padgett at power forward and many other key contributors. This Kentucky team just knew how to win. Kind of like how it currently is with UCONN, Kentucky had to be overtaken to win a national title back in the mid to late nineties. It was quickly clear that Miami (Ohio), despite having a future first-round pick in Wally Szczerbiak, was nowhere near ready to defeat Kentucky. However, a team lurking in the Elite Eight would be up to the challenge two days later! 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember being so mad on the Friday night of these games. My Mom made me go to my little sister's gymnastics recital at a nearby park. While I tried my best to talk my way out of going, my Mom would not budge. As a junior in high school, I couldn't imagine doing something any more boring on a Friday night. Anyways, I got home right at the end of these first set of games. I was surprised to see that Southwest Missouri State acquitted itself fairly well against an all-time juggernaut of a Duke team. I remember catching the end of the Oklahoma and MSU game, which was kind of choppy and ugly to be honest. I do remember Oklahoma's Eduardo Najera and Michigan State's Mateen Cleaves both getting hurt as they ran into each other late in the game. I believe Najera was setting a ball screen on Cleaves, whose head smacked Najera right under the chin. I was happy that Michigan State advanced and knocked out Oklahoma, as I was still mad the Sooners upset my beloved Arizona team during the first round of the 1999 NCAA Tournament. :-)  

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember watching the Iowa - Connecticut game and being very impressed with how tough the Hawkeyes were playing the Huskies. All year long I felt that the only team that could possibly defeat prohibitive favorite Duke was UCONN, but the Huskies were given a game by the Hawkeyes during what would be the final game for Head Coach Dr. Tom Davis at the school. I was very happy to see Ohio State pull the upset of an Auburn team that came out of nowhere this season to be a #1 seed. If my memory serves me right, Auburn wasn't even ranked in the top 25 during the preseason. The Tigers were led by the amazing Chris Porter, a forward who was drafted by the Golden State Warriors, I think, but did not play long in the NBA. This was an upset-minded night of tourney games, with the only higher seed winning being UCONN as the lower seeds Ohio State (#4), Gonzaga (#10) and St. John's (#3) all pulled off the "upsets." 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember watching these games on a Thursday night, ecstatic that St. John's and Gonzaga pulled off the upsets. The St. John's and Maryland game was a battle of Ron Artest vs. Steve Francis that had my attention as the Chicago Bulls were figured to have a high draft pick during the 1999 NBA Draft. The Bulls would actually end up with Artest at the #16 pick after picking Duke's Elton Brand #1 overall. As for Florida and Gonzaga, the Bulldogs would pull off another improbable victory with a Casey Calvary tip in with just seconds to go. I will never forget Gus Johnson going crazy at the end of this game after Calvary's tip in. Calvary was an awesome player for the Zags, so athletic and springy. He is a very underrated player in the program's history. For Florida, this heartbreaking loss would be its last in the NCAA Tournament until the 2000 title game against Michigan State. The Gators would bring in an amazing freshman class of Matt Bonner, Brett Nelson, Justin Hamilton and Donnel Harvey, a true beast, to supplement a returning core of Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Teddy Dupay and Brent Wright. Billy Donovan's 1999-00 team was loaded to say the least. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. One thing I disliked about the NCAA Tournament coverage at this time was the local CBS affiliate would show teams within your region of the country. That meant that I would always get Big Ten teams that I had seen enough of during the regular season. Such was the case with a Purdue team I wasn't the biggest fan of at the time. As for Kansas and Kentucky, the defending-champion Wildcats were given a scare by a Jayhawks team that was down in comparison to prior versions. I remember Scott Padgett saving Kentucky this game. As for the court, I have no idea what the Louisiana Superdome was doing with this psychedelic floor, which was one of the uglier tourney hardwoods from the time period. Of course, nothing takes the cake like the floor at Boise State, host of many NCAA Tournament games during the nineties. :-) 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember going out to play some afternoon basketball with my buddies at nearby Wilson Park only to get home and be shocked to see Miami (OH) finishing off its victory against a Utah team featuring Andre Miller that had made the championship game the prior season. Temple and Cincinnati also seemed to battle during the NCAA Tournament. John Chaney's Owls would get the upset on this day behind the play of crafty lefty point guard Pepe Sanchez. I loved that guy's game. As for Cincinnati, Bob Huggins' Bearcats would be a year away from being the dominant regular season team of college basketball, that is, until Kenyon Martin broke his leg during the Conference USA Tournament. Cincinnati would not get out of the second round in both 1999 and 2000. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. After upsetting UCLA during the first round, Detroit would not have enough to beat an Ohio State team that was looking like a dark horse to make the Final Four. As for Weber State vs. Florida, I enjoy looking back at this game as the Gators were a year away from making the National Championship Game. It is fun to see freshman Mike Miller along with Udonis Haslem, Brent Wright and Teddy Dupay a year before their tourney run. With Harold Arceneaux and Eddie Gill, the Wildcats would give the Gators a tough game but fall short. Note: The second-round game between Tulsa and Duke is also in this video. Duke absolutely destroyed a Tulsa team coached by Bill Self, who would lead the Golden Hurricane to the Elite Eight during the 2000 NCAA Tournament before leaving that summer to take the Illinois job vacated by Lon Kruger, who was hired by the Atlanta Hawks in the N.B.A. 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember getting home from playing some basketball with my cousin and some friends and being shocked that Gonzaga had upset Stanford, which had made the Final Four the prior year and returned all five starters from that team. Gonzaga's miracle run would continue all the way to the Elite Eight, though this Bulldogs team was no fluke with Matt Santangelo, Richie Frahm and Casey Calvary. As for Arkansas and Iowa, I was a bit surprised the Hawkeyes won this game. I always enjoyed watching Nolan Richardson's teams. Iowa had a guard named Dean Oliver whom I really liked. He was a crafty lefty who wasn't even six feet tall. From what I remember, this game was up-and-down, with the Hawkeyes outshooting Arkansas from deep. From an aesthetics standpoint, I loved the contrast of Iowa's black uniforms and Arkansas' red uniforms, especially off the glare of the shiny hardwood at the McNichols Sports Arena in Denver, Colorado. Iowa would advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where it would actually give eventual national champion UCONN a very competitive game. UCONN would then defeat Gonzaga during what was another tough game, sending Jim Calhoun and the Huskies to their first Final Four. Including 1999, UCONN has been to eight Final Fours, winning six national championships in the process. When anyone talks about the best program in all of college basketball the past 25 years, it is UCONN hands down. Not Duke. Not North Carolina. Not anyone else. Note: At the end of this video is some footage from a regular season game between Louisville and Michigan State at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan. I am guessing I stopped recording after these NCAA Tournament games, with a little room left on the six-hour VHS tape. As I was in high school, I did not have the financial means to be buying as many VHS tapes as I would like, and thus would record over games, which I wish I hadn't done all these years later. However, times were different, and I had to do what I had to. :-) 

Enjoy from my personal collection of NCAA Tournament games. I remember waking up late on this Saturday morning, rushing to my VCR to pop in a tape and record the Indiana - St. John's game, which had already started. St. John's controlled this game at the Orlando Arena, where the Magic played. I really liked this St. John's team with Ron Artest, Erick Barkley, Lavar Postell and Bootsy Thornton. In fact, I was so excited when the Chicago Bulls drafted Artest with the 16th pick of the 1999 NBA Draft. Along with #1 overall pick Elton Brand, the Bulls seemed to have a promising young core, or at least I thought at the time. As for Indiana, Head Coach Bob Knight scared the hell out of me as a kid, though it was clear to high-school me that the Hoosiers were no longer a great program at this point in time. I remember watching the first half of New Mexico and UCONN, which was way more competitive than I expected. My cousin Brian then called me up to play basketball at his friend's house so I left and did that the rest of the afternoon. Afterward, Brian came over to my house and we watched the rest of the second round games, including Florida vs. Weber State in the nightcap. Life surely was a ball back then. :-)