Last night we witnessed (well, not all of it) one of the best Elite 8 games ever played between #1 seed Kentucky and #3 seed Notre Dame. It was back and forth in the last few minutes that I was fortunate to see and in the end, Kentucky prevailed.
It reminded me of a game ten years ago that may go down as the best Elite 8 game of all-time, as well as the greatest comeback in NCAA Tournament history…. and I missed it all.
It was 2005 and my Fighting Illini was the #1 seed in the Midwest. They have easily dispatched of Farleigh Dickinson and Nevada in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis and had beaten UW-Milwaukee and Satan in the Sweet 16 at the Allstate Arena in Chicago. The victory setup a showdown with #3 seed Arizona, At stake – a trip to the Final Four in St. Louis. Illinois hadn’t been to the Final Four since a trip in 1989 to Seattle that saw them lose a heartbreaker to eventual National Champion Michigan.
For those of you that don’t know me very well, I get VERY involved in my teams games. So much so on occasions that I will have to turn it off because I get too worked up. It actually affects me physically in certain situations, depending on the level of the game. Since I had gotten married five years earlier I promised my wife that if the game was going to get me angry and worked up that I would turn it off. She had learned this first hand, along with her mother, in 2001. Illinois was playing, of all teams, Arizona for a chance to go to the Final Four. I couldn’t watch it in the room that they were in and once the game was over and my Fighting Illini lost, I needed to take a walk to cool off. Lesson learned.
Saturday, March 26, 2005 was a nice Saturday. Our oldest son was 17 months old at the time and Rebecca was pregnant with our second child. My wife took advantage of my nervous energy and asked me to help her clean the house. I obliged. I set the channel to CBS and turned off the television. I decided that I would turn on the TV and check the score every so often so that I knew where Illinois stood, but wouldn’t get crazy during the game, especially in front of my young son.
Something to remember – this particular Illinois team had grown into my favorite Illini team of all-time, surpassing the Flyin’ Illini of 1988-89. That team had expectations of going to the Final Four, and did, only to fall short. We knew the team in 2004-05 was going to be good; we just weren’t sure how good. We got our first idea when Illinois hosted Chris Paul and #1 ranked Wake Forest on December 1st. It was a blowout. Illinois won 91-73 and it wasn’t even that close. The Illini lead by 30 at certain points in the game and cruised to victory. I didn’t get a chance to watch that game because I was back in school to become a high school teacher. Being the superstitious guy that I was, I decided to play that card all year; and on March 26 it was no different.
As I had planned, I turned on the television at certain points in the game to check the score. At the half, Illinois led by two. I was satisfied with this as Arizona was 30-6 at that point and still a 3 seed. Illinois went undefeated in the regular season until the last game when they lost at Ohio State on a last second shot. I personally thought this was good for the Illini as they didn’t need the pressure of being undefeated going into the NCAA’s (like Kentucky this year). I got very jittery and was doing various things to once again fight against my nervous energy. Finally, I turned the TV on again to check the score and saw that my cherished Fighting Illini were down 14 points with just under four minutes to go.
It was a gut punch. It’s difficult to describe the feeling that I felt at that point. I can, without reservation, say that it was the lowest I had ever felt as a sports fan, and still is to this day. I slumped down in front of the couch and tried not to throw up. I looked at my wife and told her that I did NOT want to talk to anyone.
Something else about sports fans that’s interesting – the more passionate you are about a team, the more smack you’ll get from fans of other teams when they lose. When my new students each year find out I’m a Bears fan their initial reaction is “You know they lost to the Colts in the Super Bowl, right?” No, I didn’t realize that at all, thank you for informing me of this. Ugh. It’s so tired and old. If I had a nickel…
Anyway, I digress. As I was wallowing in my despair that night in 2005 the phone began to ring. I assumed they were coming out of the woodwork to either give me grief or console me. I still didn’t want to talk to anyone. My wife answered the phone and politely told my brother that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. He told her to tell me to turn the television on. Other friends called and each time my wife told them I didn’t want to talk and each time the friends implored her to have me turn the television on. Finally, my brother called again (another fanatic Illinois fan) and was very emphatic with my wife about telling me to turn the television on – I vaguely remember a possible cuss word but neither he nor her can confirm this fact.
Finally, I relented and turned the TV on and the first image I viewed was Roger Powell celebrating. Huh?!?! What happened? I was befuddled. In some weird alternate universe my Fighting Illini had comeback and won the game. My brain kind of froze. I didn’t know how to react. I kept watching the Illini celebrate. Luckily, we had gotten this newfangled contraption called a Digital Video Recorder or DVR. It was a TiVo and since the channel had never changed it had recorded the entire game. After finally realizing that Illinois truly had won the game, I rewound the DVR and watched the most epic comeback ever in the NCAA Tournament.
The conflicting emotions I felt that day were very interesting. Absolute overwhelming pride in my team that they had dug themselves out of the hole and won the game, but disgust in myself for not watching it live.
Every year during the NCAA Tournament I always browse to YouTube and watch ‘The Comeback’. It beings back mostly good memories, but I still have the deal with my wife. J
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