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Déjà vu All Over Again?
FEATURES |
The EKG monitor hooked up to Ed Tapscott recorded his heart rate at a frantic 150 beats per minute. Gordon Austin’s might have been double that. AU’s senior point guard had just driven down the lane where he was met by Patrick Ewing, Georgetown’s all-everything center. As the referee’s whistle blew, thousands of fans in the Capital Centre rose in eager anticipation of the critical call. Blocking! Ewing’s fifth foul; he was gone. A few moments later the result was official: AU 62, Georgetown 61. The Eagles had withstood a furious second-half rally by the No. 5 Hoyas to pull off one of the biggest upsets of the 1982–83 college basketball season. Twenty minutes after the biggest win of his life, Tapscott’s heart rate returned to a sane 65.
“I was happy to see that clock wind down to zero, that’s for sure,” says Tapscott, now director of player development for the NBA’s Washington Wizards. “It was a wonderful moment for our program. I think it gave us some sense of appreciation at AU that basketball could play a significant role on campus.” That fateful night in Landover, Maryland, Tapscott had electrodes attached to four parts of his body and a transmitter fastened on his belt. He was a guinea pig for then assistant coach and PhD candidate Fran Dunphy (now head coach at Temple University), who was working on a paper on physiological responses to stress. Boy, did Dunphy pick the right night to tap Tapscott. Despite coming off back-to-back 20-win seasons, AU was a prohibitive underdog to a Georgetown team stocked with future NBA all-stars. Those Hoyas teams coached by John Thompson Jr. didn’t just beat their opponents, they scared them into submission. But AU refused to be intimidated. “We knew we could play with them,” says Austin, who now owns an insurance agency in northern Virginia. “Coach Tapscott treated it like a normal game. He made the point to respect them, but not to fear them. We started off playing very well, and they were not. They were playing right into our hands, shooting long-jump jumpers—and we were getting all the rebounds.” AU took a double-digit lead into the locker room, but to a man they knew the game was far from over. “I said, ‘Fellas, this isn’t gonna last,’” Tapscott recalls. As expected, Georgetown mounted a ferocious comeback, pressing the Eagles into turnovers and poor shots. “We were at the point when we got it over half court, we’re not trying to attack the basket, we’re just trying to hold onto the ball,” Austin says. “It wasn’t working. The lead got down to three points, so I decided instead of spreading it out, I’m going to try to score. Ewing comes over, I lobbed it way over his head, and it went in. Three minutes later he tried to take the charge and he fouled out. If the game went another 10 seconds, we would have lost.” But they didn’t. Instead, AU registered one of the landmark wins in program history, and the celebration was on. “It was pandemonium,” Austin says. “Life was great. The whole campus was going crazy. Liquor was allowed back then; it’s a little different now.” Some things are not: Georgetown, as they were 25 years ago, is coached by John Thompson (III) and suits up Patrick Ewing (Jr.). As they were a quarter-century past, the Hoyas are coming off a Final Four appearance, and will be the significant favorite when they take on AU Dec. 29 at 1 p.m. at the Verizon Center. Coach Jeff Jones will bring an inexperienced Eagles team featuring four transfers, two freshmen, and just one senior, but as Tapscott and Austin learned on December 16, 1982, anything is possible. “It’s an opportunity for our kids to see what it’s like at the highest level,” Jones says. “At the same time, there’s absolutely nothing to fear. Hopefully we can go into [that] game looking to have fun and pull off an upset that everyone will be talking about.” —MU |
