‘This is a night hopefully our fans are going to….

‘This is a night hopefully our fans are going to remember forever’: ISU men’s and women’s basketball claim Big 12 titles on one historic night 25 years ago

March 1, 2000.

The afternoon’s Ames Tribune featured a front-page story on the upcoming presidential election, mentioning Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore polling leads in their respective parties.

The sports section previewed that Wednesday night’s away basketball games for the Iowa State men and women.

It wasn’t your ordinary preview.  Both games held unprecedented significance for not only their respective programs, but for the entire Iowa State Athletics Department.

Big 12 Conference regular season titles were both on the line.

Iowa State officially joined the Big 12 Conference in the summer of 1996. Since the Big Eight merged with four former Southwest Conference teams – Texas, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Baylor – Iowa State had yet to win a conference title in any sport.

There was scuttlebutt around Big 12 media that maybe Iowa State didn’t belong in this new super-conference.

All the negative talk changed in one night, however, when on the premier day of March 2000, the Cyclone men’s and women’s basketball teams clinched at least a share of Big 12 regular-season titles in a pair of historic victories.

The 10^th-ranked Cyclone men did it with an 87-79 triumph over Texas Tech in Lubbock to guarantee at least a share of the Big 12 regular season championship, their first conference title in men’s hoops in 55 years.

A mere 30 minutes later, the 11^th-ranked Cyclone women also clinched a share of the Big 12 title, their first-ever league crown, with an impressive 79-66 win at Texas.

In one night, the trajectory of Iowa State Athletics made a national pivot. The evening was a prelude to one of the greatest athletic eras in school history. Both teams would go on to win Big 12 Tournament titles a week later.

Furthermore, the Cyclone women’s gymnastics team flipped its way into the party. Behind the exploits of All-Americans Kelli More, Betsy Hamm and Sissy Huey, ISU added another league crown when the gymnasts won their first-ever Big 12 title 18 days later.

All three teams will be honored this winter in 25-year anniversary celebrations.

Five conference trophies in a three-week span. It all started on one night 25 years ago.

A Magical Season In Ames

The Cyclone men weren’t supposed to be here.

Heading into the 1999-2000 campaign, head coach Larry Eustachy’s second at the helm, the Cyclones were a combined 27-33 in the previous two years. All-American Marcus Fizer was entering his third year at Iowa State. Expectations were low.

One preseason publication picked the Cyclones to finish last in the Big 12 Conference, noting, “They have not won with Fizer in his two years at ISU and no change is predicted for this season.”

What the prognosticators didn’t forecast was the improvement of Fizer and this team’s toughness and grit.

ISU also brought in one of the greatest players in school history in point guard Jamaal Tinsley, a junior college transfer who was a ballhandling wizard.

The team began to gel after a slow start. Tinsley recorded a triple-double in his first-ever Big 12 Conference game (Missouri) and Fizer emerged as a dominant force in college basketball.

“We beat Missouri at home in the Big 12 opener,” All-Big 12 shooting guard Mike Nurse said. “We felt with Hilton Magic we could beat anybody in the nation on our court. That was a big win for us. They had swept us the year before. But then we beat Nebraska and Kansas State on the road, getting those road wins and jumping out to 4-0 in the league gave us a lot of confidence. Now you start thinking you are pretty good.”

Iowa State was 10-2 in the league, including a sweep of nationally ranked Kansas for the first time since 1982, with two home games remaining. Its two blemishes were heartbreaking overtime defeats on the road. The league’s other two top-tier teams were making visits to Hilton Coliseum in No. 14 Texas and No. 10 Oklahoma State. It would a memorable week.

The two opponents would be a test to see if the Cyclones were for real. In back-to-back sold-out games, the raucous, deafening crowds helped the Cyclones knock off a pair of giants in victories against the Longhorns (89-77) and Cowboys (72-61).

“We get Oklahoma State in the last home game of the season,” Nurse, who drilled a 99 3-pointers that season, said. “I’m going to never play on that court again as a Cyclone. They (Oklahoma State) ran into a buzzsaw that day. It was just a continuation from the Texas game. Oklahoma State was better than Texas. They had bigs and they had good guard play. Desmond Mason and Joe Adkins were big problems for us. That was a really tough team that ran into a buzzsaw. They (OSU) ran into us in Hilton Coliseum. They had no shot.”

Fizer felt the same way.

“I can just remember at that point in the year saying to myself, ‘Whoever comes into this place has absolutely no chance.’” Fizer said. “We were peaking. That’s the roll that we were on and that’s the only thing I was focused on. We knew Hilton Magic was called Hilton Magic for a reason.”

The Cyclones were 12-2 in the Big 12 and ranked in the nation’s top-10. It was time to mention the impossible. The regular-season Big 12 Championship was a distinct possibility. Road games (Texas Tech, Baylor) would finish off the regular-season schedule.

Another Step

These Cyclones were supposed to be here.

Iowa State head women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly was hired prior to the 1995-96 season. The Cyclones were 8-19 overall and 1-13 in the Big Eight the year before he started. Each campaign, Fennelly kept building the Cyclones to heights they had never reached before.

ISU had made three-straight NCAA Tournament appearances and finished second in the Big 12 with identical 12-4 records the two seasons prior.

The 1998-99 team made history by advancing to the NCAA Elite with a historic upset over top-seeded UConn and the preseason hype was off the charts for 1999-2000 with every member of the team returning.

It was a new frontier for the Cyclones. ISU had won a combined seven league games the four seasons prior to Fennelly’s arrival. Now the Cyclones were the preseason pick to win their first conference title in school history.

Once the hunter, the Cyclones were now the hunted.

“Our players felt they were that good. We proved it the year before, but like anything, you go to the next year and you must start over,” Fennelly said. “Even though we had the same players, did we have the same mindset and commitment? You just don’t show up in November and expect to have a good team. It’s what you do from March to November. Luckily, with the leadership of this team they relished everything about it. They wanted to be good. We knew we were good and weren’t going to make excuses if it didn’t go well. That group was so connected, and they still are to this day. They understood what was coming and they were ready for it.”

A roster loaded with talent- including All-Americans Stacy Frese and Angie Welle- was certainly up to the challenge and high expectations, racing out to a 9-1 record in the league, including a season-opening throttling of No. 6 perennial power Texas Tech, 62-37.

But winning a conference title in a league with outstanding teams is never easy. Consecutive losses in mid-February proved costly and dipped the Cyclones to 9-3 in Big 12 play with four games left.

How would the Cyclones respond? Fennelly felt confident this team would bounce back.

“With some teams you have to talk about we are only worried about the next 40 minutes,” Fennelly recalled. “With this team we would talk about more broad-based topics like what we can accomplish and what we want to do. I remember saying, ‘Okay, we got to win the last four games.’ The maturity and the way this group was connected, I wasn’t really concerned. Yeah, you are a little worried, but I can promise you when we came to practice after losing two in a row you wouldn’t have known the difference. They were like, the next team is in trouble.”

Fennelly was correct. The next Cyclone opponents were in serious trouble. ISU responded by winning three-straight games (Missouri, Texas A&M, Baylor) by an average margin of victory of 30.3.

Only one game remained in the regular season. It was basketball blue blood Texas. Hall of Fame coach Jody Conradt and All-American Edwina Brown were waiting to wreck the Cyclone party at The Drum in Austin.

55 Years

The battlefields in Europe and the Pacific were still raging the last time Iowa State won a conference title in men’s hoops. The year was 1945, and the Cyclones secured the Big Six title with a 61-39 thrashing of Kansas in the season-finale.

Iowa State was in the driver’s seat to claim its first title in 55 years with two games left. The Cyclones held a ½ game lead over second-place Texas, who defeated Kansas on Monday, and a game advantage over Oklahoma State.

The math was simple. One victory and the Cyclones clinch a share. Two victories and the Iowa Staters would be undisputed Big 12 champions.

The Cyclones stayed focused in media sessions prior to the game in Lubbock. Eustachy stressed each game was important regardless of the implications.

“To be honest with you, I don’t remember us talking about if we win, we clinch a share of the Big 12,” Nurse said. “I don’t recall that. But what I do recall is Larry saying, ‘The games get more important and tougher.’ The next game was the most important game.”

Texas Tech was a cellar-dweller in the Big 12 in 2000, entering the game with a 12-13 overall record and 3-11 conference mark. Despite its poor record, it was Senior Night and the Red Raiders reveled in the chance to play spoiler.

The game tipped at 7 p.m. CT, 30 minutes ahead of the women’s game in Austin.

One of the Red Raider seniors was two-time All-Big 12 guard Rayford Young, the father of future Oklahoma All-American and NBA All-Star Trae Young. Young came out pistols firing.

“The crowd was rubbish to be honest, but that shouldn’t be an excuse,” Nurse remembered. “All the games at this point are very important. We came out flat and then Rayford Young had himself a day. There was nothing I could do, honestly. The guy was throwing everything in…little floaters, threes, everything. He’s leading them to an upset.”

Young was torching the Cyclones. He opened the second half unconscious, scoring 15 points in the first eight minutes en route to his game-high 36 points. Another Young jumper with just under seven minutes remaining in the game gave the Red Raiders a 64-61 lead.

The Cyclones were staggering and needed a boost. They got it from Nurse.

The sharpshooter made back-to-back 3-pointers to ignite an 11-0 Cyclone run. In less then three minutes, ISU seized control with an eight-point lead.

The talent on this Cyclone team ranks among the best in school history. Nurse perfectly summed up how difficult the Cyclones were to defend.

“Most of the Big 12 played us where they had to help on Marcus,” Nurse said. “They had to sag because they didn’t want Marcus to beat them. This made me wide open when the ball gets swung to me, and if I can’t make those shots, I shouldn’t be in the game. I was wide open for most of the year. You didn’t run many plays for Mike Nurse, but I was open. I was getting those shots because of Marcus and Jamaal. Everybody sagged off on Jamaal, and he beats you anyway. You sag on Marcus, and then he does something different and scores. Alright, now teams start doubling him, and the ball get swung around, and (Kantrail) Horton and Nurse are open. The shot goes up, you are doubling up Marcus and you can’t block out Stevie Johnson. Suddenly Stevie Johnson is all alone on the offensive boards. With that team it was pick your poison. By the end of the season, we had it figured out.”

Tinsley was the facilitator, but he was aware of the remarkable talent surrounding him.

“As a point guard, as a real point guard, you can’t just credit yourself, you got to credit the other guys who get in good position for you and run the floor for you,” Tinsley said. “And as a true point guard, that’s your job to make other people better and get them in the right position. They also have to be willing to run up and down the court. I had a bunch of guys that ran the court like you are supposed to. It made everyone’s jobs easier.”

Fizer put the finishing touches on the TTU win, scoring 12 of his 35 points in the final 10 minutes of the game. The Cyclones made their free throws down the stretch to ward off any Red Raider comeback.

Iowa State was Big 12 champion for the first time in over a half century with a hard-fought 87-79 win.

For most of the guys on that team, this amazing accomplishment didn’t really sink in initially. Sure, they knew the facts. This team understood how special it was and yet wanted bigger prizes in the coming weeks.

“You saw when we beat Iowa, we took our shirts off and backflipped, really over-celebrating,” Eustachy told the Ames Tribune. “I think this team has learned to handle winning and learned to understand that there are bigger fish to catch now.”

But Eustachy also fully understood the significance of this moment, “The conference tournament is backseat to this. The NCAA Tournament is backseat to this. The crown jewel is the conference championship, and now we get a ring.”

An Amazing Comeback In Austin

Iowa State arrived in Austin Tuesday night with a clear picture of its path to its first-ever conference title. Texas Tech routed Baylor that night to finish off the regular season at 13-3 in the league, an ½ game edge over the 12-3 Cyclones.

Wednesday’s game was a must-win.

Frese, an Iowa State Hall-of-Famer, and one of the greatest players in school history, was a senior. Her presence during her three years helped make the Cyclones a perennial top-25 team. She was more focused on beating Texas in Austin, something that had never been done before.

“I mean, it’s Jody Conradt,” Frese said. “Obviously growing up in a basketball family you know who Jody Conradt is. You’re going to Texas. They had Edwina Brown. It was Texas. They had the uniforms with the sleeves.”

Learning the Red Raiders were victorious was exactly the news Fennelly wanted to deliver to his team.

“I remember finding out Texas Tech won and we had to win this game,” Fennelly said. “I discussed it with the team. Most of the time you try to let your players just worry about yourself. If I would have done that with this group, they would have said I was out of my mind. I don’t know if we win that game if we didn’t know that Texas Tech had already won. We weren’t going to go out this way. This is the way it’s supposed to be. If you are going to win this league what better place to do it than at Texas? It was perfect and we had the kind of kids who could do it.”

The Longhorns entered the contest at 18-10 overall and 9-6 in the Big 12. This game was not going to be easy, and after 34 minutes of action, this was exactly the case.

The Texas frontcourt led by Brown was having its way with the Cyclones, forging a nine-point lead (62-53) with six minutes remaining.

What happened next is still somewhat astonishing 25 years later. The Longhorns literally ran into a Cyclone, as the visitors closed out the game with an improbable 26-4 run.

“I kept saying, this team is too good to finish second,” Fennelly said. “There was obviously a moment of doubt. But at that same time, it was kind of like, that group had a consistency of effort. They never panicked. When they got it going, I don’t care who we were playing, they didn’t have enough timeouts. I’m big on anyone can start something, but special teams finish, so let’s finish it.”

What a finish.

UT still held a five-point lead with under five minutes left until four-straight 3-pointers from four different players – Megan Taylor, Lindsey Wilson, Frese and Tracy Gahan – stunned the crowd. The Longhorns mustered just a single point in the final four minutes.

Wilson, a true freshman, had 19 points and Frese netted 11. Welle had a monster game with 22 points and 15 boards in a 79-66 triumph.