Rollie Massimino
Basketball
Villanova's legendary NCAA champion coach
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Throughout the glory
days of the Big 5, only one
team–the 1954
La Salle Explorers with
Tom Gola–had won an
NCAA tournament.
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And that was two years before the City
Series was formed. All five schools
had advanced to the Final Fours but
there remained a constant series of
missed and voided opportunities until
the late Rollie Massimino changed the
perception that city schools could not
win the big game when he coached the
unheralded eighth-seeded Wildcats to
a 66-64 championship victory over topranked,
Big East rival Georgetown in the
1985 NCAA tournament.
The son of an Italian immigrant
shoemaker in North Jersey, Massimino
was a surprise choice for the Villanova
University men's basketball coaching
job after Jack Kraft left for Rhode Island
in 1973. But the former Penn assistant
turned into one of the most underrated
coaches in the history of college
basketball, a College Hall of Fame coach
who led Villanova to five Elite Eights
(1978, 1982, 1983, 1985, and 1988) in his
19 years on the Main Line.
But The "Perfect Game" was his standalone
moment.
Ten-loss eighth-seed Villanova
advanced to the 1985 NCAA finals with
wins over Dayton, top-seed Michigan,
and ACC blue bloods Maryland and
North Carolina in the Mideast Region,
and then beat Memphis in the semifinals.
They entered the finals game as a
huge (double-digit) underdog to mighty
Georgetown, its larger-than-life coach
John Thompson and the intimidating
anchor of the Hoyas' suffocating defense,
center Patrick Ewing.
But Massimino did his best Rocky
impression to pull off the greatest upset
in NCAA tournament history. "Everyone
wrote us off," Massimino said. "No one
thought we could do it, but I did and so
did our kids. They persevered."
Twelve hours before tipoff on the day
Villanova won the title, beloved former
Cats' coach Al Severance, who made
the trip to Lexington, passed away in
his hotel room. "If it had to be, this was
the best way," Massimino suggested.
"He was great man, a legend, a true
Villanova man." After mid-morning mass,
Massimino sent the players to their hotel
rooms and told them to think about two
things: play to win and, more importantly,
that Villanova was good enough to
win. "On a one-shot deal, we are good
enough to beat anyone in the United
States," Massimino said.
That thought resonated with Villanova's
star forward Eddie Pinckney, who had
attended fabled 5-Star camp along
with forward Dwayne McClain and point
guard Gary McLain. From playing against
Ewing and much of the Georgetown
team in these camp games, the three
future Villanova stars were unintimidated
when they met in Big East play. The
Wildcats had been competitive against
the Hoyas in two regular season
games, losing 52-50 in overtime at the
Spectrum and 57-50 in Landover with an
experimental 45-second shot clock.
The third time was the charm.
Massimino coached six perfect games
in March Madness 1985, including a
singular display of coaching brilliance in
the final game that rivaled St. Joseph's
Dr. Jack Ramsay in the Hawks' upset of
Nate Thurmond and Bowling Green in
the 1962 Quaker City Classic, or Kraft in
Villanova's 90-47 victory over previously
unbeaten, third-ranked Penn in the 1971
East Region finals.
He was a master of controlling tempo
and game management in the pre-shot
clock, pre-three-point era. His Wildcats
shot a blistering 78.6 percent and a near
perfect 9 for 10 in the second half. The
versatile Pinckney scored 16 points,
added six rebounds and five assists, did
a good job containing Ewing defensively
(holding him to just two points in the
last 13 minutes), and was named the
tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
McClain finished with a game high 17
points and sophomore guard Harold
Jensen came off the bench to shoot a
perfect 5 for 5 and score 14. Forward
Harold Pressley added 11 points, 4
rebounds and 3 steals, and McLain was
a perfect 3 for 3 with just two turnovers
running Villanova's offense against
Georgetown's stifling 40-minute pressure
defense.
The Cats took a 55-54 lead when Jensen
made a jumper with 2:37 to play, then
preserved the victory by making 11 of
their final 14 free throw attempts. Two
of the biggest came from Jensen,
who patted trainer Jake Nevin, the
beloved Irish leprechaun who was in a
wheelchair suffering from Lou Gehrig's
disease, before stepping to the line.
"This one's for you Jake," he said.
"When I saw that, I knew we were going
to win," McClain recalled.
Jensen made both shots to give
Villanova a 61-56 lead with 1:10 to play
and the Cats held on from there. After
McClain corralled the ball on the final
inbounds play and the buzzer sounded,
Pinckney and McClain jumped on press
row. The game was played on April 1st
and they both screamed, "April Fools!" to
the crowd.
Massimino won 355 games at Villanova.
He led the Wildcats to three NIT and 11
NCAA tournament appearances (where
he never lost a first-round game). He
went on to coach at the University of
Nevada at Las Vegas, Cleveland State,
and Northwood Keiser College in Florida,
and finished his career with 816 victories
before retiring in 2017. He was a finalist
for the Naismith Hall of Fame.
In 2016, Massimino was diagnosed with
lung cancer and brain cancer. In April
2016, he was at NRG Stadium in Houston
to watch Jay Wright, one of his proteges,
coach Villanova to the first of two
national championships in three years.
Massimino died sixteen months later,
in August 2017. To honor his memory,
Villanova wore throwback uniforms in
the style of those worn by that special
1985 team throughout their 2017-18
season.
No one in Philadelphia will ever forget
Rollie Massimino's magical moment in
our city's sports history.
By Dick Weiss - Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame - Inductee
