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Upset of the millennium: historical sports short

Nutter Center practice. Photograph: Jessica Fugett/The Guardian

The year is 1999, the month is December. The whole world is gearing up for Y2K, in fear that computers will destroy us all, the author of this article is 1 month old, and the WSU men’s basketball team is gearing up to get smashed by their toughest opponent in years, at home.

The Michigan State Spartans were ranked as the 8th best team in the country, counted by many as the favorites to win the NCAA Championship that coming March.

But on that night, they had to take care of business against a lowly Raiders squad, who finished the season before at 9-18 and weren’t looking much better this year. Officially, Wright State was a 23-point underdog even though they were playing in the Nutter Center. The stage was set for an ugly matchup and the fans who came out to the Nutter House that night came prepared for the Raiders to have their doors blown open by a clearly superior team.

Let’s take a step back in time first.

To really put things into perspective on this December 30 matchup, let’s do a couple of comparisons:

The Michigan State roster in the 1999-2000 season had 9 different players who would later go pro in one way or another. 4 of them went on to the NBA. Morris Peterson played for 10 years and scored 7,608 points in the pros, and his teammate  Jason Richardson played in the NBA for 18 years and even won 2 dunk contests! Just in case you remain unimpressed, there were 7 guys over 6’5” on that MSU team.

As for the Raiders, they were by no means impressive. Only 2 men from that team would go on to any form of professional basketball. Kevin Melson would play 10 games in the Euroleague, and Israel Sheinfeld would play 16 games, oddly enough in Israel’s pro circuit. As for stature, Mr. Sheinfeld clocked in at a massive 6’10”, and his teammate Thomas Hope was 6’9” but that was about it.

Now let’s take a look at the coaches involved:

On the Michigan side of things, there is Tom Izzo. Without a doubt, MSU’s greatest basketball coach (except for maybe George Denman), and in some people’s opinion the best college basketball coach ever. Izzo is still coaching at MSU today and boasts a career record of 574 wins and only 225 loses.

At the time of this game however, he was entering his 5th season as the MSU head coach and was finally beginning to build momentum. The program that he had built was beginning to take shape and become a national powerhouse like no one had ever seen.

On the Wright State side of things, Ed Schilling was in his 3rd season as the Raiders head coach. He’d end his career after 6 seasons and a 75-93 record. He posted a winning season only 2 times, and 1999 was not one of them.

So the stage is set; an average roster and a barely sub-par coach from a small program take on a team of future professionals and their hall-of-fame coach from a titan program in the college basketball world.

When asked about his viewpoint on approaching such a lopsided matchup, WSU’s Marcus May said “This is a win-win situation.” You know, you either get blown out and no one is surprised or you find a way to win and everyone goes bananas. At least that’s how he saw it.

So the lights come on and the camera starts rolling as action gets officially underway between the 3-8 Wright State Raiders and the 9-4, #8 Michigan State Spartans. After tip off, the Raiders scored the game’s first 7 points, and eventually found themselves up 19-12 midway through the first.

But surely enough, the Raiders got a little sleepy, went 8 whole minutes without a field goal, and early in the second half MSU was up 34-27. All is as it should be. But the Raiders did not simply go away as they were expected to. In fact, as many close games and head-scratchers do, this one came down to 1 thing: who was making their shots.

MSU was a great team that year, but on that day their shots just weren’t falling. The Spartans averaged an impressive 48% on their shots from the field, but walked away from the Nutter Center having hit only 33%, and just 21% in the second half. They went 18 for 55 from the field and, in a season where they averaged over 70 points per game, put up only 49 points. There was no other game where they put up less than 59. And with 21 seconds left in the game, Wright State’s Israel Sheinfeld sank 2 free throws to push the Raider’s total to 51 points.

Each team got the ball again, but it didn’t matter. Some called it a fluke, some called it the upset of the millenium, others simply said “that’s basketball”. No matter how you slice it, the final buzzer sounded and the scoreboard showed Wright State 53, MSU 49.

Tom Izzo said after the game that “there is no question the better team won tonight” and fully claimed fault for the loss.

As for Wright State’s coach Ed Schilling, this was undoubtedly the greatest victory he’d ever have as a coach. And in a decade where the Raiders went 130-153, perhaps the greatest win of the 90s for Wright State. Both teams went their separate ways, and the Raiders went on to finish the season at 11-17, while the Spartans ended the regular season at 23-7. As for the postseason, the Spartans swept through their three games on route to a Big Ten Title, winning all three by no less than 9 points.

Then they entered the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed, and defeated the Florida Gators 89-76 in the National Championship game. All said and done, The ‘99 Spartans had a win-loss record of 32-7, a Big Ten title, and to top it all off, a National Championship win.

It just goes to show, it doesn’t matter how many future pros you have, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to go on to be proven as the best team in the country, it doesn’t matter if you have one of the best coaches in NCAA history, anyone can win, and anyone can lose. Sports are weird.
(Also, if they were the National Champs, and we beat them, doesn’t that make us National Champs?)

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