With all the talk over the University of Maryland-Baltimore County beating #1 seed Virginia last night, much of the attention in this year’s NCAA Tournament is turning toward this potential Cinderella. (UMBC = U Might Be Cinderella…. Get it?).
But thirty-two years ago it was the University of Arkansas-Little Rock that pulled a similar upset, beating Notre Dame to become the talk of the 1986 NCAA tournament.
The Trojans were 22-10 when they received their #14 seed that year, dealt the hand of playing the Fighting Irish in the sometimes friendly confines of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. UALR was led by a young, brash, and sometimes foul-mouthed coach named Mike Newell who had arrived on the scene in Arkansas two years earlier after serving as an assistant for the Oklahoma Sooners under Billy Tubbs.
According to old articles from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the night they stuck the dagger in Digger Phelps UALR tied the game eleven times before taking a one-point lead at halftime. The Trojans then went up 70-61, but Notre Dame scored ten unanswered points to make it a one-point contest late in the fourth quarter. They would go on to pull out a 90-83 victory and shock the world.
Two nights later, their run would come to an end at the hands of North Carolina State. But no one would forget what they did.
Their head coach Mike Newell went on to take a job at Lamar University and seemed to be on the path upward before he resigned due to allegations he had been verbally abusing players. He returned to Arkansas for several seasons as the head coach at Arkansas-Monticello, but now coaches on the NAIA level at Dillard University in New Orleans.
The Trojans went 7-25 this year and fired head coach Wes Flanagan last week. They’ll yearn for those days of glory when looking for their next coach.
Maybe they should call that guy in Baltimore County.
