Under the Radar Game of the Day: La Salle at Rowan, 3:00 PM Eastern, free streaming at rowanathletics.com
Heading into the 2003-04 college basketball season, the Villanova Wildcats were facing several key early season player suspensions related to usage of university phones (running up long distance bills). The Wildcats were scheduled to start that season in the Maui Invitational, but head coach Jay Wright was concerned about his team’s ability to win in that event with the suspensions. Games were allowed to begin being played on Friday, November 21 and the team’s first game in Maui was scheduled for Monday the 24th. So Coach Wright’s goal was to get a couple of games in that first weekend before the Wildcats made it to Maui. This resulted in the now famous “Midnight Game” against Temple, played at 12:01 AM on Friday the 21st (and won by Villanova 73-48). After that game, the team flew to California and decided to get in one more game there on Saturday afternoon before heading on to Maui. That game was at Division III Redlands, and the Wildcats were tested, barely escaping with a 114-103 win. That was also the last time a Division I school played a Division III school on the road. Until today.
In the 1995-96 season, the D3 Rowan Profs out of Glassboro, New Jersey were coach by Dr. John Giannini. Dr. Giannini had turned the Profs into a national powerhouse at the D3 level in the three years before the 95-96 season, leading them to two Final Four appearances in that time. But the 95-96 season was the most magical of them all as they defeated Hope College in the national championship game and cut down the nets. That victory catapulted Giannini’s career as he went on to the Division I level the following year, leading the Maine Black Bears for eight of their most successful seasons in program history (even though he never broke through into the NCAA tournament) and then moving on to La Salle, where he is now in his 12th season, including the magical Sweet 16 run in 2013. Today, however, Giannini will be returning to his roots.
Today’s Under the Radar Game of the Day is the return of Dr. John Giannini, along with his La Salle Expllorers team, to Glassboro to take on Rowan. The Explorers will be the first Division I team in well over ten years to play a true road game against a D3 team as La Salle has agreed to play the Profs, at the Profs’ campus site, in a game that will include a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the D3 national championship. Although 99.9% of the time here at HOOPS HD we criticize D1 programs for scheduling games against non-D1 competition, this is one of those .1% games. This is a great, classy move by La Salle University to help honor their head coach and their South Jersey neighbors at Rowan. We don’t expect the game to be very competitive, but that is not the point. The points is the need to honor the history of this game, something so many people fail to do, and La Salle and Rowan will be doing just that this afternoon. Congratulations go out to both teams, as both are true winners today, no matter what the final score may be.
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