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35|35 Anniversary Website
This is the 23rd installment of a series of 35 moments, milestones, and facts that will be featured throughout the 2013-14 academic year to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
From the Vault: Box Score | Program | Press Release | News Clipping
It was Feb. 27, 1988 – 26 years to the date – when 1,100 basketball fans packed into (now Richard F. Scharf) Alumni Fieldhouse on the campus of Saint Joseph’s College for what was to be an epic night of NCAA Division II basketball. Rival Northern Kentucky had traveled to Rensselaer for the conference doubleheader, which featured the women’s game at 5:15 p.m. local time and the men’s game to follow.
They came early, grabbed their seats – although late arrivals were forced to stand – and watched history in the making. For those committed few that took in the nightcap, their short stroll back to their cars or dorm rooms took place just before midnight.
The majority of fans in attendance, however, were already home in bed. Those trying to tune into the men’s game on 90.5 WPUM, the school’s campus radio station, did not hear a great amount of coverage from play-by-play man and SJC junior Bill Massoels.
Mike Beitzel, the head coach of the men’s team at Northern Kentucky, was not all that interested in playing the actual game, nor was Saint Joseph’s lead man Bill Hogan, who likely delivered several different pregame speeches to his men’s team that night.
Rick Meyers, the GLVC's sports information director at the time, thought he could take in a quick movie before the men’s game concluded and he had to get to work.
To say there was a delay starting the men’s game that night is quite the understatement.
After a three-hour, 17-minute marathon, the scoreboard at the end of the women’s game totaled 261 points.
Final: Saint Joseph’s 131, No. 6 Northern Kentucky 130. In five overtimes.
At the end of what is arguably one of the most memorable – and meaningful – contests in NCAA Division II women’s basketball history, it almost seemed silly to start another game.
Players needed intravenous therapy. Fans were exhausted. Massoels was hoarse. Meyers missed the plot of the movie. Hogan and his men’s team made five extra trips to locker room, while Beitzel told NKU (and now GLVC) Hall of Fame head coach Nancy Winstel that he just watched the greatest basketball game he had ever seen.
Following what would be (and still is) the greatest win in Saint Joseph’s history and a game in which Winstel – a two-time NCAA Champion – says she has never been more proud of a team, the consensus was clear.
It was a shame anyone had to lose.
“It was a very taxing, very emotional game,” said former Saint Joseph’s head coach David Smith. “Each team would have the game won and then ended up giving it back to force overtime. There were times during the game I caught myself rehearsing my locker room speech, and that was for when we lost.”
And what do you say if you are on the other end of a game like that? Sometimes it’s more about what you do.
“After the game, I loaded the team on the bus and took them to Dairy Queen for some ice cream,” Winstel said. “The girls were exhausted. We didn’t even come back for the men’s game. We just went back to the motel and tried to rest because we still had to play at Lewis in a few days, which we ended up winning.”
Saint Joseph’s sophomore Jeannette Yeoman was one of three players on the court to log 60 or more minutes in the 65-minute contest. In fact, Yeoman and teammate Tracy Payne each played 64 minutes in the game, while Northern Kentucky’s Linda Honigford posted 32 points and 20 rebounds in 61 minutes of play. Christie Freppon led the Norse with 46 points in the loss.
Yeoman was the star of the game, however, netting a then-GLVC-record 50 points on 15-of-31 shooting, including 7-of-12 from the perimeter and 13-of-17 from the free-throw line.
“It was a battle that night,” recalled Yeoman, now Jeannette Mosher in her 16th season as head women’s basketball coach at SUNY Cortland. “I was cramping up throughout the overtimes and there were times I just wanted the game to get over with regardless of the outcome. But then I kept telling myself to finish what we started.”
NKU, which owned a 38-35 advantage at halftime, held a 77-74 lead in the closing seconds of regulation, but Yeoman buried a 3-pointer to force overtime.
According to the postgame recap by Saint Joseph’s SID Chuck Schuttrow, the score was tied at 89-89 after the first extra session and 94-94 following the second five-minute overtime. In the third extra period, NKU was up 107-101 with 1:44 left, but the Pumas roared back to a gain a 108-108 tie to necessitate a fourth session. The Pumas scored the first seven points in the fourth overtime, but three-point shooting led the Norse back to tie it all at 120-120 to set up the fifth and final OT.
In the fifth overtime, NKU jumped out to a 129-124 lead with two minutes remaining, but Saint Joseph’s used a 5-0 run to knot the score at 129-all. Julie Metzner, who came off the bench to score eight points, hit one of two free throws to give NKU a 130-129 lead with 29 seconds left. Yeoman then won the game for Saint Joseph’s by connecting on a jumper from the corner with seven seconds remaining. An ensuing turnover on a travel call ended the Norse’s chance of winning the game.
“It was amazing to me how much that game went back and forth that night,” Winstel said. “We had six players foul out of the game and had players in at the end of the game that had never really been in that position to step up and make plays late. I was so proud of those kids.”
The two teams combine to set or tie five NCAA records and 10 GLVC records. The contest is still the longest game ever recorded in NCAA Division II women’s basketball history, but was matched by another five-overtime outing involving Florida Tech and Florida Southern in 2006.
The game also had a significant impact on the conference standings and NCAA Tournament implications. Saint Joseph’s moved to 23-2 overall and 13-1 in GLVC play, while Northern Kentucky fell to 23-2 and 12-2 in conference action. The two teams would go on to each finish 14-2 in the league and share the GLVC Championship.
Since there was no GLVC Tournament at that time and only four teams were selected to the NCAA Regional, the outcome ultimately earned Saint Joseph’s a bid from an NCAA Regional committee of which Winstel was a voting member.
“I definitely think (the win) was a point for Saint Joe’s when it came time for regional selections,” Winstel said. “I also believe that was a milestone game for Division II women’s basketball.”
Smith felt that had the Pumas not won that game, rival Indianapolis would have likely gotten the bid.
“I think the selection committee ultimately looked at it and said because of that win, you had to take us,” he recalled from his office at West Virginia State, where he is still among the nation’s top Division II women’s basketball coaches. “We won the regional that year and got to the Elite Eight, and then got back there the next year as well.”
Meyers, who when reminded of the game remembered it vividly, said the rivalry between Saint Joseph’s and Northern Kentucky was tremendous back in the day.
“Those days were classic,” he said. “Winstel and Smith were considered the two of the best coaches in women's Division II basketball. Not only that, it matched up two of the best position players in GLVC history in Jeannette Yeoman and Northern Kentucky senior Julie Wells, who weeks later was named GLVC Player of the Year.”
Meyers recalls having time to take in a quick movie while the women’s game was in the second half. It was nearing the end of regulation when the movie started. Since all NKU women’s road games were on commercial radio, Meyers had snuck a transistor radio and an earpiece into the movie so he could listen to the men’s game. Remarkably, the women’s game ended up lasting almost as long as the movie.
On the other side of the dial was Massoels, a Saint Joseph’s junior who did play-by-play for both the men’s and women’s basketball games. Now the Pumas’ athletics director, Massoels recalls not saying a whole lot in the men’s game because quite frankly, he had talked enough during the women’s marathon.
“I remember telling my radio partner in between the second and third overtimes not to talk any more, so he could save his voice because we were shouting into the microphone it was so loud,” Massoels said. “We also had to stand because everyone in the crowd was either standing our constantly jumping up. I did not say much during the men's game because I didn’t have a voice left.”
Linda Deno was an assistant coach under David Smith that season. Now the Saint Joseph’s Associate Athletics Director for Compliance, Deno has been involved in a number of basketball games on campus over the years and believes this one is still the most memorable.
“The atmosphere for the game was remarkable,” she said. “There was standing room only by the middle of the game and it is still in my mind one of the best basketball games ever played here. After the game the fans stormed the court to congratulate our team. It was March Madness in the month of February.”
Yeoman said that she still owns the VHS tape of the record-breaking game and that often times her parents and her husband are asking to watch it. Saying she needs to “get with the times” and have the footage dubbed to DVD, Yeoman does not need to see the film to recall one of the most remarkable moments of her career. She said her former teammates don’t get together as much as they all would like, but that when they do, it’s always a topic of conversation.
“I think this was the game that really put us up there,” she said. “After that game, we went four straight years ranked in the top 10 nationally.”
Today, some 26 years later, people close to both campuses still talk about the memorable night in Rensselaer.
Today, it’s likely a new audience has been introduced to one of the greatest games ever played in the history of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
And today, that same reaction, that same consensus seems to remain with everyone involved.
It’s a shame someone had to lose.