Throwback Thursday: The Last Amateurs

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A Season On The Brink. A Good Walk Spoiled. A March To Madness. If you are familiar with author/columnist/sports talk show host John Feinstein, these are a few of his most famous books written. But he also chronicled the Patriot League for a full season during the turn of the century (the 1999-2000 season). In his own words, he wanted to document a league that would have more of a true amateur status but yet be under-the-radar and still have a shot at the big time. Division III basketball was too far removed from the big time, and the Ivy League at that time actually had a pair of teams (Penn and Princeton) that would occasionally receive votes in the Top 25; Princeton was even seeded as high as #5 in the NCAA Tournament as recently as 1998.

What truly made the Patriot League special was that they were a Division I conference that was under-the-radar; back then, only the champion would go on to the NCAA Tournament. The NIT did not yet have a rule in place where the regular-season champion was guaranteed an NIT invite in the event they did not win their tournament. At that time, the only schools that had scholarships were at Army and Navy; those were government scholarships that also included a 5-year active tour of duty after graduation. All 5 of the other schools (Lafayette, Lehigh, Bucknell, Colgate and Holy Cross) could offer either financial aid packages or a hybrid of academic scholarships and a partial financial aid package at that time.

Lafayette was the top team in the league going into the 1999-2000 season; they were the first team at that time to have two different Players-Of-The-Year on their team. Brian Ehlers was the defending Player of the Year; their center Stefan Ciosici was Player of the Year in 1997-98 but had to sit out the 1998-99 season due to an ACL injury he suffered during the summer of 1998. The Leopards would get a notable win at Princeton that season and nearly pulled off an upset at Villanova; this prompted Nova head coach Steve Lappas to make the wisecrack that “we guaranteed you X amount of money; you were supposed to guarantee us a win!” (Lappas himself was on the other side of the fence when he was Manhattan’s head coach, so he could understand Lafayette coach Fran O’Hanlon’s position.). During the regular season, Lafayette would finish in a 1st-place tie with Navy.

The Midshipmen were another formidable team in the league by Patriot League standards; they were led by senior Sitapha Savane and junior Chris Williams. Both players had token roles on Navy’s 1997-98 team that reached the NCAA Tournament and were competitive with eventual Final 4 team North Carolina for a half. Despite pre-season turmoil that saw Savane land himself on restriction (a disciplinary measure at Navy) for 90 days and head coach Don DeVoe losing his granddaughter to a birth defect, Navy would also finish 13-1 in conference play along with Lafayette. Navy was playing its best basketball in March, but a new tiebreaking procedure in the league (namely, team RPI) allowed Lafayette to choose the top seed and home court advantage for a championship game should they advance to that point. Navy as the #2 seed was allowed to get the first-round bye that would have ordinarily gone to the outright regular season champion.

The Bucknell Bison would finish in 3rd place that season. They were led by a group of seniors including Brian Muckle and Walter Karavanic. Like many other Patriot League teams, the Bison would play a mix of guarantee games on the road and also an annual fixture game at Penn State. And like many other fixture games, Bucknell would lead for much of the game but could not pull off a signature win on the road. Bucknell was historically the most consistent winner in the Patriot League, but they were years away from pulling off a pair of Patriot League championships and also a pair of NCAA Tournament wins against Kansas and Memphis.

The Colgate Red Raiders were a team in transition; they were 3 years removed from the in-season death of popular head coach Jack Bruen. Under Bruen’s leadership, Colgate would win the Patriot League in 1995 that featured a future NBA Draft pick in Adonal Foyle. (The only other player drafted was Lehigh’s C.J. McCollum years later). Pat Diamond was the only senior on Colgate’s team that had played under Bruen; for this season former Navy assistant Emmett Davis would be in his 3rd year as the Red Raiders’ head coach. Colgate was another team that had an annual fixture game with a power program (Syracuse). Colgate-Syracuse used to be a home-and-home series, but Syracuse last traveled to Hamilton in the late 1970s.

Holy Cross was another team in transition; they (along with Fordham) fell on hard times after joining the Patriot League and abandoning athletic scholarships per league policy. As the alums grew tired of the losing culture that followed, they hired former Western Kentucky/Pittsburgh head coach Ralph Willard to help right the ship. They were also allowed to begin phasing back in athletic scholarships (by adding 2 per year) but not to a point where they would be at a great advantage over other Patriot League schools. Had Holy Cross left the league like Fordham did, the Patriot League would also be in jeopardy of losing their automatic bid in the event that Holy Cross did decide to realign. Their best post player was Josh Sankes; he transferred out of Rutgers due to lack of playing time and some bizarre drills that took place during Rutgers’ practices. But the heart of the Crusaders was guard Chris Spitler, the self-proclaimed “worst player in Division I” who would move up from walk-on to reserve player to spot starter for the Crusaders.

Lehigh was historically the worst team by Patriot League standards in the era of no athletic scholarships. They were also one of the few arenas in the NCAA where the scoreboard was more devoted to wrestling (a very popular sport at Lehigh) than basketball. What they lacked in on-the-floor play was made up for by head coach Sal Mentesana’s wardrobe. He was far and away the best dressed Patriot League head coach back then and would give Jay Wright a run for his money today. Lehigh would also be a spoiler in tournament play; they knocked out top-seeded Navy in the 1998-99 conference tournament and would defeat Colgate and scare Lafayette at Lafayette’s gym before bowing out in the 1999-2000 conference tournament. Once Lehigh began phasing in athletic scholarships like Holy Cross did for the following season, the Mountain Hawks’ fortunes began to turn for the better.

Finally, there were the Army Black Knights. Army had a rich history that featured future star head coaches in Bob Knight and Mike Krzyzewski. Krzyzewski’s own point guard at Army (Pat Harris) would be head coach at the time of the 1999-2000 season. His star player was guard Chris Spatola (who also became a future Coach K assistant and is now a play-by-play announcer for ESPN). Their slogan for the year was “40 Minutes of Army Basketball” – not often done with a lot of consistency, however. Even a Holy Cross staffer once quipped that the Crusaders lost a game because they “played 40 minutes of Army basketball.” However, that comment bit Holy Cross in the ass because Army played its best game of the year at home against Holy Cross; it was a rare opportunity for Army to clear their bench in a winning effort.

Lafayette and Navy provided the best rivalry in the Patriot League at that time; the Leopards won their first meeting at home narrowly; Navy won their home game in a blowout that got chippy late in the game as a Lafayette freshman took out a Navy player with a hard foul. What angered Navy was that the Lafayette player didn’t appear to be remorseful at the time; he was merely a freshman who had a deer-in-the-headlights moment. When they faced off for the Patriot League championship at Lafayette’s gym, it was the Leopards’ turn to blow out Navy and earn their 2nd straight championship and automatic NCAA Tournament bid. Their trip was short-lived with a blowout loss to Temple, however. The following year, Holy Cross would complete their turnaround and not only win the Patriot League championship, but give the 2nd-seeded Kentucky Wildcats a major scare in the 1st round before eventually losing.

After the 2000-01 season, American University would join the Patriot League; Loyola-Maryland and Boston University would also join years later while being able to retain their athletic scholarships. In order to maintain competitive balance in the league, Colgate, Bucknell and Lafayette eventually phased in athletic scholarships as well. The Patriot League’s original intent was to be like the Ivy League in that scholarships should only be awarded in the case of academic merit and financial aid would be packaged in where necessary. Ultimately, the schools just didn’t have the same reputation that the Ivies did where they would be in a position to offer such scholarships and aid on a long-term basis.

Click here to order John Feinstein’s book The Last Amateurs