--- title: 1989 Princeton Georgetown Game Made March Madness description: How a near-upset long ago keeps Cinderellas coming back to the Big Dance canonical: https://time.com/22981/the-game-that-saved-march-madness/ author: Alexander Wolff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-13T10:09:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:49:53.435Z article:section: Sports og:title: 1989 Princeton Georgetown Game Made March Madness og:description: How a near-upset long ago keeps Cinderellas coming back to the Big Dance og:url: https://time.com/22981/the-game-that-saved-march-madness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f788787e28360d5/69868649e8524b0d8d601e91/ap890317057.jpg?branch=production&width=665&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 665 og:image:height: 374 og:image:alt: PETE CARRIL og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 1989 Princeton Georgetown Game Made March Madness twitter:description: How a near-upset long ago keeps Cinderellas coming back to the Big Dance twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f788787e28360d5/69868649e8524b0d8d601e91/ap890317057.jpg?branch=production&width=665&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Game That Saved March Madness > Sponsored content. 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No. 16 seed Princeton's near-upset of No. 1 seed Georgetown in a 1989 first-round game made sure Cinderella would always get invited to the ball._ by [Alexander Wolff](https://time.com/author/alexander-wolff/) and [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) Mar 13, 2014 10:09 AM UTC  Princeton coach Pete Carril reacts as his team starts to lose their lead over Georgetown during NCAA tournament first round game, March 17, 1989 in Providence, R.I. Georgetown defeated Princeton 50-49. Princeton coach Pete Carril reacts as his team starts to lose their lead over Georgetown during NCAA tournament first round game, March 17, 1989 in Providence, R.I. Georgetown defeated Princeton 50-49. David Tennenbaum—AP by [Alexander Wolff](https://time.com/author/alexander-wolff/) and [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) Mar 13, 2014 10:09 AM UTC I see the rim. I see the rim. A quarter-century later, Bob Scrabis can still see the rim. Seven seconds remained in a first-round 1989 NCAA-tournament game between Princeton and Georgetown when Scrabis, the Tigers’ captain and lone senior, raised up to shoot. Before the game, Scrabis’ coach, the cigar-chomping pessimist Pete Carril, had set the betting line. “I think we’re a billion to one to win the whole tournament,” he said. “To beat Georgetown, we’re only 450 million to one.” Yet Carril’s 16th-seeded Tigers trailed the Hoyas, the most dominant and polarizing team in college hoops, by a single point, 50-49, when Scrabis dribbled off a screen near the top of the key. I got it, Scrabis thought. A St. Patrick’s Day audience, then the largest ever for a college basketball game on a young network called ESPN, was going to see a 16th seed–the lowest in the tournament–beat a No. 1 for the first time, and Scrabis would be the reason. “It’s the shot you want when you’re playing by yourself in the driveway, dreaming of something like this,” he says. “But 6-ft. 10-in. guys aren’t hiding in the hedges.” Georgetown freshman Alonzo Mourning, who would go on to become one of the best defenders in the NBA, pounced from the foul line to swat Scrabis’ shot away. The loose ball skittered out of bounds, where an official ruled it Princeton ball. Now just one second remained in the game that saved March Madness. Today the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which begins March 20, is a multibillion-dollar enterprise with the cultural and economic clout to rival the Super Bowl, in large part because of its underdogs and upsets. The nation’s workplace productivity plummets as millions of Americans, many of whom haven’t watched a game all season, furtively track the action on computers and smartphones, rooting for the small school they picked to pull an upset in the office pool. That opening round has become an American ritual. But 25 years ago, some of those would-be Cinderellas risked being shut out. As the tournament boomed in the 1980s, expanding from 48 teams at the beginning of the decade to 64 teams just five years later, the representatives of the larger, richer schools started grumbling. Why give spots in the lucrative event to champions from leagues like the Ivy or historically black conferences like the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) or Southwestern Athletic Conference, whose teams had no shot at a national title? During the previous three years, the Ivy schools had lost in the first round by an average of 40 points. “The general theme at that period,” says Rich Ensor, commissioner of the low-wattage Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, “was to push people out.” NCAA leaders hatched a plan to deny the champs from the weakest two conferences an automatic bid, on the basis of a league’s record the previous season or its performance leading up to the day the tournament brackets were announced. Then Princeton was matched up against Georgetown. Entering the 1989 tournament, the Hoyas–who had five future NBA players on their roster–were a popular pick to win the national title. If Princeton could just stay close to Georgetown, all little guys deserved a shot. The game, says former MEAC commissioner Kenneth Free, whose conference bid was on the chopping block, “kept us alive.” It did even more for the tournament’s value as a television event. ESPN had the rights to almost all of the first round, and it aired the game live in prime time. The strong ratings helped convince CBS executives that the broadcast network, which had the rights to the later rounds, should own the entire thing. “A game like that shows that the first round was something you should covet,” says former CBS executive producer Ted Shaker. You can draw a straight line from that idea to the mega-event that the tournament has since become. By the end of 1989, CBS reached a seven-year, $1 billion deal to carry every round. That contract, which raised the annual fees CBS paid the NCAA by nearly 160%, would expose March Madness to a broader audience and set the tournament on a course of exponential growth that led to the most recent deal, a 2010 agreement with CBS and Turner for $10.8 billion over 14 years. “The fact of the matter is,” says Ensor, “it all would have gone away if the powers that be had had their way.” Clash of Cultures The Georgetown-Princeton game might not have attracted much attention if Tom Odjakjian, then a programming executive at ESPN, hadn’t lobbied his bosses to put it in prime time. The talent gap was huge, but the plotlines, Odjakjian reasoned, were too tempting. “There’s a compelling Princeton-vs.-Georgetown, David-and-Goliath thing here,” he says. Under coach John Thompson, hired in 1972, Georgetown morphed from a 3-23 college-hoops doormat into one of the top programs in the nation. Future NBA star Patrick Ewing led the Hoyas to the national championship a dozen years later, and the 1989 squad entered the NCAA tournament after winning the regular-season and conference-tournament titles in the powerful Big East. They had earned their swagger. “Me and \[Hoyas guard and Big East Player of the Year\] Charles Smith had this little thing,” says Markhum Stansbury, the Georgetown team manager. “Before each game I’d go out to the court in the pregame warm-ups, watch the opponent shoot around, then go to the locker room to report back. ‘Smitty, you’re not going to believe this,’ I’d say. ‘They actually showed up.'” Princeton, meanwhile, had to scratch out a road victory at Harvard just to win its lightly regarded league. By pairing the Tigers with Georgetown, the tournament selection committee sent a clear message: There could be no bigger underdog. The teams also had contrasting styles. The Hoyas pushed the tempo and pressured the ball full-court. “We had a very nasty disposition about us,” says Mourning. “We played hard-nosed, rough, very defensive-minded, in-your-face basketball.” The Tigers slowed the pace in an attempt to neutralize the physical gap with other teams. “You had to do something to take some minutes off the clock,” says Carril. “To shorten the game.” Carril’s squad ran an intricate offense designed to lull defenses to sleep. The moment they conked out, the Tigers deployed their signature play: a backdoor cut behind an unsuspecting opponent, often for an easy layup. Each school was led by a future Hall of Fame coach who shared a rich connection: Thompson’s son, current Georgetown coach John Thompson III, played for Carril at Princeton and had graduated the previous year. “I knew Pete’s reputation, knew that he was a good coach,” says Thompson. “But I was more impressed with what I knew about him as a man. That’s why I let my son go to school there.” (A co-writer of this story, Gregory, played for Carril in the mid-’90s.) Not that most viewers who tuned in on St. Patrick’s Day knew about that bond. To many, the distinction between the teams was as plain as day. All but two of Princeton’s players were white, while Georgetown’s entire roster–plus the 6-ft. 10-in. head coach, who had backed up Bill Russell on the Boston Celtics in the 1960s–was black. Most multimillionaire college coaches view themselves as CEOs, not change agents. But earlier that season, Thompson had walked off the court before a game to protest an NCAA proposal to deny scholarships to freshmen who didn’t meet certain academic standards. He felt the policy would disproportionately affect poor, black students. “We’re talking about a group of black men who are basically saying to the college basketball world, ‘We dance to our own music. We do things the way we choose, not the way you want us to, and we’re not really interested in making you comfortable,'” says Todd Boyd, a professor of race and popular culture at USC. “And I think there were a lot of people who would have preferred to not see that power emanate from a black team and a visible black head coach.” This came at a time when race was never far from the forefront of the national conversation. “People tend to forget how racially charged the ’80s were,” says Boyd. Thompson’s teams endured racist taunts from opposing fans–hecklers asked Ewing if he could read. “People thought we were thugs,” says Mourning. (Nearly all of Thompson’s players who stayed four years earned degrees.) Many African Americans, however, viewed Thompson’s stances and star players with pride: Hoyas hats and Starter jackets became a status symbol. “If the Dallas Cowboys were America’s team,” says Stansbury, “we were black America’s team.” Princeton players, meanwhile, sported flattop haircuts and tight cotton warm-ups–which gave the effect of a team cast from the 1950s. “There’s no doubt that there was a big racial element to how Georgetown was portrayed,” says John Thompson III. “And there’s no doubt that there’s a racial element to how Princeton was portrayed too.” That was part of the appeal of the matchup, says Georgetown guard Mark Tillmon: “White against black. People wanted to see that.” The script felt like something out of Hoosiers, the beloved basketball movie released a few years earlier. But all of the potential drama hinged on a far-fetched idea: that Princeton would actually make a game of it. And that’s not something even the team’s coaches were sure of. The day the matchups were announced, Princeton assistant coach Bill Carmody went to Chuck’s Cafe for some wings and to watch CBS unveil the brackets. He didn’t eat a wing. At the very top of the show, Carmody heard the news: Georgetown against Princeton, in Providence, R.I. “It was literally like someone was sitting on my chest,” he says. “I could. Not. Breathe.” The Best of Sports With one second left in the game and Princeton down just a point, neither could anyone watching. Especially ESPN analyst Dick Vitale, who made a nationally televised pregame promise that if Princeton won, he would hitchhike from ESPN’s offices in Bristol, Conn., to Providence and lead the Tigers’ cheerleaders for the second-round game. At halftime, after Princeton’s clever passes and strong defense gave the Tigers an astonishing 29-21 lead, studio host John Saunders told a gobsmacked Vitale that the head of Princeton’s pep squad had just phoned, wanting “to know what size tutu you wear.” The possibility had been building since the start of the second half, when Jerry Doyle scored to give Princeton a double-digit lead. The sense of the seemingly impossible–that a 16 seed could actually beat a No. 1 for the first time–made for the closest thing to a viral meme in an era predating social media. Friends called friends to urge them to turn on the TV, race to the bar, do whatever it took to watch the unfolding upset. “It was beyond amazing,” says Saunders. “For ESPN, it was bordering on historic. This was becoming destination TV.” But Georgetown didn’t wilt. Behind Mourning, the Hoyas clawed back until they were up by a point with one second remaining. Princeton inbounder Matt Lapin passed to teammate Kit Mueller, who quickly put up a shot before time ran out. Mourning got a piece–of what, we don’t know. Something blew … but it wasn’t a whistle to send Mueller to the foul line. It was the horn, to officially end the game. Georgetown 50, Princeton 49. The controversy over the final shot–foul or no foul?–has helped keep the legend of the game alive. “We’ll have to take that one up with God,” Carril said that night, “when we get there.” Mueller has come to agree with the call. And Mourning swats the debate away like one more shot. “I blocked it, man,” he says. “I didn’t hit anybody on the wrist the whole damn game.” If the underdog fell a point short, college basketball scored a huge victory. Georgetown advanced to the Elite Eight before losing to Duke. By the end of 1989, the NCAA reversed course on locking out weaker conferences. “It changed the way people watched the NCAA tournament,” says Saunders. “They weren’t just watching their team. They were looking for the upset.” No 16 seed ever has beaten a No. 1 in the men’s tournament. But so much of the $10.8 billion event, which grows in value every year, is built around the hope that this year might just be the one. And it might never have happened were it not for that night in Providence in 1989 when Cinderella saved her invitation to the dance. FOR AN EXPANDED VERSION OF THIS STORY–A COLLABORATION BETWEEN TIME AND SPORTS ILLUSTRATED–AS WELL AS VIDEO FROM THE GAME, GO TO SI.com/longform ## Transcript You could look at it as a David and Goliath. I think that's an American trait, in't it? For Americans to root for the underdog. People like to see the Davids come out and destroy and beat the Goliaths. There were discussions At that point to eliminate the automatic bids from a lot of the quote unquote smaller conferences. There were serious discussions. And just with one game all those discussions came to a screeching halt. Bobby Winston gets a scream from Mueller. Comes up! Fires! We were on a roll in the regular season. Yeah. Georgetown was dominant that year. They won the regular season Big East title. We went to the Big East Tournament and rolled away with that. So we were feeling invincible. We were feeling like no one could beat us. For the Princeton Tigers number 30 will be Chris Markhart. You know Princeton was, they were a young team I think it was a rough year for them. They barely won the league. They lost three games in the league and they needed to win at Harvard to clinch the spot. [ NOISE ] At that point I had achieved my goal, and the team had achieved their goal to be in the tournament, and, and win the Ivy League, so, so this was, I, I don't wanna say gravy. You know, so they're all getting together. There, there, watching the selection show all excited.. When we found out that we were gonna play Georgetown. And they weren't, they weren't that happy about it. Hey, Princeton and Georgetown. I'll tell you what, I'm supposed to go home for the weekend. If Princeton can beat Georgetown, I am going to hitchhike to Providence. I am going to change into the Princeton cheerleading uniform. I'm going to lead all the cheers. Let's go tigers, Let's go Tigers. It will never happen. They were Pretty intimidating. [ MUSIC ] When you see it and feel it for yourself that people are literally scared of you on the floor. Coach used to always say, they're not scared of you, they're scared of the ghost. And that's the people that came before us and put this program on the map. Georgetown, That's the ballgame, the National Champions. It was definitely more than a basketball team, I mean, I think we were a cultural symbol. Everybody wanted to see the underdog beat the controversial coach. Not just Georgetown, but coach Thompson. They wanted to see that. Then, I think you can take it a little further you know, white against black. You know, people wanted to see that. Not saying that there was some kinda racial tension but, you know, a lot of people thought Coach Thompson was a racist. Which was unfortunate because they didn't get a chance to sit down and just talk with him, find out who he is and what he's all about. I could have given a damn what people thought about Georgetown basketball. You know, it's what I thought about Georgetown basketball that was significant to me. You know, we won ball games and Championships and that's what we tried to do. East region actions continue here from Providence Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. We are just about set to go. Kit Mueller And once the game started, I remember my, my first shot I took was blocked by Alonzo Mourning. And, you know, was a backdoor cut, and, and he blocked it, and I thought, oh, no. You know, I don't want this to be the you know, what it's gonna be like the, the rest of the game. I knew we were gonna get pressed, and we handled our press pretty good. We were running our stuff, we were getting lay- ups, we get some easy shots, we were making some baskets. We was known as a great defensive team. Full court and half court. But to play it consistently, every possession, at least 30 seconds. That could be a wear on. In the half court set, right away, Princeton was able to run their stuff, and they got few back doors early. The offense was working. That's a goal tend with a bucket for [ INAUDIBLE ]. It all, you know, all of a sudden they're up. You know, they, they had this lead. Well I think it has a lot to do with styles of play. You expected them to get some back doors. You expected them if they got a lead for you to be in a position where you had to chase them, and to be a little bit more cautious. And as it progressed, we realized, we're just playing, we're playing basketball. We're playing Georgetown, but, we were gaining confidence as the game progressed. Absolutely. Your, your Georgetown, you're the number one seed. Your, you're losing to Princeton. What's going on? And you can see, you could kind of tell they were thinking about that. Starting to think about it, sounded psychologically like oh wow, you know, we in for a war. This is why they call it March madness. I guess speechless would be the way to describe this here. The only thing I can say Dick is that the head of the Princeton cheer leading squad just called, wanted to know what sized tutu you wear. I can't believe what I'm looking at John! This is unbelievable! College basketball. Incredible. You know, if this was happening now it would be all over. It would break the system. Viral back then is like you pick up you're buddies, there's like, you know, holy crap, you know, like what's going on? And I mean, and, and then, and it wasn't just Princeton people. People are aware of this at halftime. You're seeing this moment and you just know that like it's, you know, I don't believe this. Heading back out there and, you know, going through warm- ups and there's obviously a buzz in the, in the arena. One of the key things is we come out And we score right away, which is huge, because it gets the crowd right back into it. I thought everything was fine until the first eight calls of the second half went against us. Then I said, oh, somethin's fishy here. They changed their defense I had less opportunities to shoot. We were missing shots. Well, we tried to play to our advantages, see I mean, just as their advantage was pulling it out, tempo and, which they do very well, you know, our advantage was Zo. It was a very simple strategy, Alonzo Mourning at half time was realizing wait a second just give me the ball. He deserved to get every ball every time down the court. So Mourning hits another big foul shot. 50- 49 Princeton down a point. 15 seconds left. I mean and this is like, you know when there's a one point difference you know this is a do or die shot. [ MUSIC ] Scrabis and Mueller Well, that was sort of like sort of a pick and roll, which you have, well we have the pick but we didn't have the roll, Georgetown man to man, They give it to Scrabis, So, I know I was gonna get the ball, I get the ball to the top of the key, and then you, you know, you always want that shot, you know, when your, your backyard or on the, on the playground you don't leave the playground until you make it, but, you don't have, 6'11 future pro's jumping out of the bushes to, to block your shot. Bobby Winston, he gets a scream from Mueller. Comes up, fires, blocked by Mourning! Loose on the floor! Jefferson can't save it. It's out of bounds! He made a, he made a great play. You know, the ball scrambles around after that, it's kinda chaotic. And we get the ball back with one second left. Lap and Mueller fires no, the Hoyas escape. And I mean escape. And advance to the second round in the Eastern regional. Unbelievable. The Princeton TIgers. Every time the game comes up, in Princeton circles, it's an emphatic, yes, he was fouled. [ LAUGH ] Was it a clean block, or was Bobby fouled on the last shot? That, you can argue until you're blue in the face. Tigers, putting on just a fantastic show here tonight. What am I gonna say? Alonzo fouled somebody? No, I didn't think he he fouled anybody. I thought he made a good block. He's very capable. of making a good block. They were a 20 point plus underdog coming in here. You have all this excitement. You have all this anticipation. You have all this transpire. And then, boom, it's over. [ MUSIC ] It was hard. It was, you know. There's a, there's 100 little reasons that you think of. Maybe we coulda done 'em. And then a 100 more, which had been worse. So you take things the way they are, or the way, the way they happen, and that's, that's all. That's all you can do. It was a huge loss for Princeton, huge win for college basketball. The way that game played out, make the world kinda say, oh, maybe we shouldn't get rid of Of the quote unquote little guys because they can play, too. That's what makes this, this event special giving smaller schools the opportunity to do something. People saw how big an audience it got, how magical and fun it is at the 16- 0 to one, it's like, we've, we can't lock any of these Cinderellas out. That would be ridiculous. The beauty of the NCAA tournament is, is that it's not like the pros, it's not a series, it's on, on any given night, the starts align themselves properly, a 16 can give a 1 a game, a 15 can beat a 2. 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