Preview: Unbracketed

Foreword by Jay Bilas

Big-Time College Basketball Done the Right Way UNBRACKETED

GRAHAM HONAKER JERRY LOGAN

In The Cinderella Strategy, Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan observed the rise and transformation of Butler basketball from the inside, seeing how the Bulldogs were able to rise in excellence and prominence while still remaining true to the core of the university, in fact benefiting from their integration into the campus. They’ve taken that understanding and examined how similar developments were able to occur at four other emergent basketball powers: Davidson, Gonzaga, Loyola, and Villanova. Their challenges and successes were all a bit different, but Graham and Jerry have exhaustively researched to discover what connects their stories. What they learned should fascinate fans of the college game.

Unbracketed brings unbridled enthusiasm for the sports fan who is longing for a message of hope. It’s refreshing to know that big time college sports can still be played at the highest level with the highest degree of integrity. Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan paint the perfect picture of how college basketball can still feed our soul and inspire us.

Advance Praise for Unbracketed

Unbracketed takes a rare peek behind the curtain at four of the most impressive basketball programs over the last four decades (Villanova, Gonzaga, Davidson, and Loyola of Chicago) and finds out exactly what led to their sustainable success. This book is well-researched, fascinating, and applicable to any leader (or organization) looking to build a winning culture!

—Mike DeCourcy The Sporting News

—Alan Stein Jr. Author of Raise Your Game

—Jim Nantz CBS Sports

Villanova’s path to the top echelon of college basketball has been defined by humility, authenticity, and teamwork in all its forms. The Wildcats’ successes on the hardwood have been matched only by the school’s effectiveness in turning young players into outstanding leaders, and readers from all industries can benefit from Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan’s portrayal of the program’s winning and time-tested methods.”

—Val Ackerman Commissioner of the BIG EAST Conference

Unbracketed is a fascinating read, pulling the curtain back on four prestigious basketball programs and institutions of higher learning. The success attained on the court, in the classroom, and within each of their communities is only surpassed by the lasting culture each has created. Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan showcase the integrity, hard work, and commitment required to build and maintain a hallmark program “by doing it the right way.” Villanova Uni versity, Gonzaga University, and Atlantic 10 Conference members Davidson

In sports, there are countless victories we celebrate on the court, but perhaps the most important victories are when sports combats the obstacles of racism and injustice off the court. I applaud authors Graham Honaker and Jerry Lo gan for continuing to tell the story of “Game of Change” in their new book Unbracketed. Now more than ever, we need uplifting stories that unite us and do not divide us.

—Jerald Harkness Producer of “The Game of Change” Documentary

Unbracketed by Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan is much more than just a book about basketball and college sports. It’s about integrity, inspiration, devotion, commitment, and faith. It includes wonderful true stories and great people like Eva Mozes Kor, Bob McKillop, and Sister Jean, among countless others. I wholeheartedly recommend it!

—Elliott Award-WinningGouldActor

College and Loyola University Chicago are textbook examples of programs achieving exceptional, sustained success in their basketball programs while staying committed to the life values of integrity, honesty, learning, determi nation, resilience, and gratitude. I congratulate all and continue to be inspired and re-energized by each.

—Bernadette V. McGlade Commissioner of the Atlantic 10 Conference

Gonzaga’s success has everything to do with alignment and consistency. The Zags have been aligned, over three decades, from President, Athletic Director, coaches, and staff in building what has become a nationally relevant men’s basketball program. The West Coast Conference is proud to be associated with Gonzaga and their amazing success, but also because Gonzaga is aligned with the mission and values of the WCC and our member schools. Gonzaga’s standard of excellence includes the University’s commitment to athletics and academics, promotes an inclusive environment, and prepares student-athletes for a successful career beyond their collegiate experience. Gonzaga is the example of the college athletic model at its best, and Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan chronicle GU’s remarkable rise in Unbracketed. The WCC aims to create champions, and Gonzaga has proven that teams can compete for national titles and stay true to the mission and values of the academy they represent.

—Gloria Nevarez Commissioner of the West Coast Conference

Unbracketed showcases what makes college basketball so great, because this book goes beyond the game. It tells stories that can be applied in life, ones of commitment, resilience, faith, and fighting through adversity to become champions. The beauty of college basketball is that anyone can rise up and capture our love for the game. Villanova, Gonzaga, Loyola, and Davidson are all four totally different types of institutions, but the principles utilized to win at a high level throughout their history all come from a common cloth.

As a Davidson Wildcat fan for more than 70 years, I’ve seen firsthand how our basketball program embodies the values, integrity, and academic mission of Davidson College. Unbracketed chronicles Davidson’s remarkable story and the coaches, players, and campus leaders that have helped author it. It’s a story that makes me so proud to be a Davidson alumnus.

—John Fanta Fox Sports

Sloan School of Management, MIT

Former Governor of North Carolina (1985-93) Former Member of US Congress (1973-84)

Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan have written a thoughtful and inspiring book and yes, a fun read, on Davidson, Loyola Chicago, Gonzaga, and Villanova’s building of a sports dynasty and its impact on their universities. Their theme of how you build on success and evolve your team and organization over time and under different leaders overlaps with my study of family companies. I’m impressed with their interesting and useful work and encourage you to benefit from the lessons they offer us.

Graham Honaker and Jerry Logan put together a labor of love here, and it’s one that any college hoops or sports fan should love because it gives such a great access point into the minds and hearts of some incredible subjects. This book, like the teams it profiles, is a winner.

—John A. Davis

Former Associate Professor of Chemistry, Davidson College (1960-72)

—James G. DavidsonMartin’57

Faculty Director, Family Enterprise Executive Programs

TABLE OFEndnotesAcknowledgmentsEpilogueConclusionChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterChapterIntroductionSchoolForewordAuthors’CONTENTSNotesProfiles1:Belief2:Doubt3:Program4:Community5:Singularity6:Continuity7:Business8:Mission23521913511125211331456787161181197243249

—Nelson Mandela

Unbracketed 145

On paper, Fitzmaurice had a strong case. Villanova, losers of six of its last eleven games, hadn’t been ranked in the Top 20 for much of the season and entered the title game as 9.5-point underdogs. They had lost twice to Georgetown already, and in the regular season finale at Pittsburgh, Massimino pulled his starters early in the second half as Nova was routed 85-62. On the other side of

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Belief CHAPTER

D

. G. Fitzmaurice, a columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader, was so confident that he made an out-of-this-world prediction. The day before the 1985 national championship game, Fitzmaurice wrote: “I can state now, in public and unequivocally, that there’ll be a Martian in the White House before Villanova beats Georgetown for the NCAA title.”8

John Thompson, the Hoyas’ colossal 6-foot-10 coach, accentuated the intimidation factor. Thompson, who as a Boston Celtic once backed up Bill Russell, restricted media access to his teams and embraced his program’s role as the Darth Vader of college basketball. “I didn’t like being the Evil Empire, but I marketed it,” said Thompson. The Washington, DC, media coined the term “Hoya Paranoia” to indicate that an inherent bias existed against the program. Race most certainly played a role. Thompson and his players were all African American and according to Layden, “they made White America just a little uncomfortable.”10

To make matters even more daunting, Georgetown had an aura. Their ros ters stocked annually with sinewy guards and forwards, the Hoyas employed a physical, swarming defense. If an opponent happened to break the Georgetown pressure, Patrick Ewing was in the paint, ready to swat the hapless opponent’s shot into the stands. As Sports Illustrated ’s Tim Layden wrote, the Hoyas “played hard, fouled hard and didn’t talk much about it afterward.”9

46 Belief

the court stood a budding dynasty. Defending national champion Georgetown came into the game with a record of 35-2 and having held the number one ranking in the country for eleven weeks during the season. The Hoyas had reached the Final Four three of the past four years, defeating Houston and Hakeem Olajuwon to capture the 1984 national title. In the national semifinal that year, their suffocating defense held Kentucky to 3-33 from the field in the second half and 24.5 percent shooting for the game.

In the semifinals of the 1985 tournament, Villanova drew Memphis. Tiger fans had badgered Lexington hotels all week for the extra rooms they believed Villanova would soon vacate, but the Wildcats dashed their hopes with a 52-45 victory. Following the game, Memphis head coach Dana Kirk said, “If they’re a Cinderella team, then Cinderella wears boots.” Few people paid attention to Kirk’s assessment. When Georgetown dispatched St. John’s 77-59 in the other semifinal, the media billed the national championship as a classic David vs. Goliath matchup.11

The Wildcats weren’t buying it, but they were about the only ones. “Ask the kids, and they’ll tell you they wanted to play Georgetown rather than St. John’s in the final,” said Massimino, before adding, “I wouldn’t have minded St. John’s.”

The small audience at the pregame meal, composed of just the team, coaches, and assorted staff, may have been the only ones in the country believing Villanova had a prayer. The lead headline in the Los Angeles Times sports section read, “It Will Take an N.C. State-Type Miracle to Unseat Hoyas

Villanova forward Ed Pinckney recalled his parents’ resignation at the matchup with the Hoyas. “After they demolished St. John’s 77-59 in the other semifinal, my parents, both of them, said, ‘Well this has been a great run. It’s been really nice. Too bad it’s got to be over.’ Nobody thought we were winning that game except us.” Georgetown’s Michael Jackson agreed, stating “I don’t think there was a living ass in the country who didn’t think we were the better team.”12

To add to the difficulty, the day of the championship game began with tragedy. Former Villanova head coach Al Severance, who had accompanied the team to Lexington, was found dead of a heart attack in his hotel room. Severance coached at Villanova for 25 years and led the Wildcats to their first Final Four in 1939. Massimino was only one coach removed from Severance, having been at the helm at Villanova since 1973. The son of Italian immigrants, the diminutive Massimino won just thirty-two games in his first three seasons before consistently piling up twenty-win campaigns. At the team’s pregame meal, Massimino announced that Severance would be with the team in spirit, suggesting that “he’ll be up on the basket swatting Georgetown shots away.” From there, Massimino instructed his players: “Go back to your rooms, close your eyes, and picture yourself playing this game to win. Don’t play this game not to lose. Play it to win. Believe you can win.”13

Unbracketed 47

Massimino’s game plan involved patience on offense and constant doubleteaming of Ewing on the defensive end. The absence of a shot clock (it would be implemented the following season) was also a major advantage for Massimino, who wanted to slow the game down. Yet, strategy was secondary to the mental game. Chuck Everson, a backup center on the team, recalled, “Coach Mass told us before the game to think about two things: One, anybody can beat anybody on a given night, and two, he wanted us to play the game to win instead of playing not to lose, essentially telling us to go for it. We were not afraid of Hoya Paranoia and all that other stuff. We’d been down the road with these guys numerous times.”14

Tonight.” Before the opening tip, street vendors were hawking T-shirts outside of Lexington’s Rupp Arena that read “Georgetown NCAA Champs.” For his part, Thompson deflected talk that the game was a foregone conclusion. When told by a media member that 99 percent of Americans expected Georgetown to win, Thompson replied, “99 percent of America isn’t right about most things.”15

Rollie Massimino is carried off court after Villanova’s NCAA Championship victory over Georgetown. BETTMANN ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES

48 VillanovaBeliefcoach

That night, following his pre game handshake with Thompson, Massimino returned to the huddle and told his team that perhaps there was at least one more person who thought the Wildcats were a real threat to win. Thompson’s hands were sweating. “We’ve got ’em!” declared the Villanova coach. After a shaky first possession, Pinckney, battling the flu in addition to the Georgetown front line, took the ball right at Patrick Ewing, and then passed off to Harold Pressley for a reverse layup. Villanova led 2-0 and wouldn’t look back. The Wildcats proceeded to shoot 13-18 in the first half and led 29-28 at the break. Massimino had his team believing.16

Almost impossibly, the Wildcats got even better after they emerged from the locker room. If Mozart were to orchestrate a half of basketball, it would resemble Villanova’s second half performance. The Wildcats slowed the tempo and waited patiently for high-quality shots, making nine of their ten attempts in the second half. For the game, Villanova shot an astounding 78.6 percent (22-28) from the field and 90 percent (19-23) from the line to nip the Hoyas 66-64. As an 8-seed, Villanova remains the lowest seed ever to win the na tional championship, and their 28 field goal attempts remain the fewest in championship game history.

The season culminated in a trip to the White House, where the Wildcats were recognized for their remarkable run. Ronald Reagan, who bore no resem blance to an alien, spoke with the benefit of a little hindsight. “You’re being called a Cinderella team,” said the President, “but I don’t see anyone around here who looks like he could fit into a glass slipper.”18

Even for that small group of individuals who believed it was possible, the victory was surreal. “We believed it, but we didn’t believe it,” said assistant coach Steve Lappas, who would succeed Massimino as head coach in 1990. “I mean, I was a high school coach the year before, so I couldn’t even fathom that I was there. It was an out-of-body experience. Everybody knows Villanova, and it’s because of that game.” Suddenly, the small Augustinian university on the outskirts of Philadelphia was on the map.17

The Cinderella story is a building block for belief across the institution. Across the board, members of unbracketed communities—faculty, staff, and alumni—emphasized the value of watching their basketball teams succeed in groundbreaking fashion. Father Rob Hagan, the former Senior Associate Athletic Director for Student-Athlete Welfare at Villanova before becoming Prior Provincial for the Augustinian Province of St. Thomas of Villanova in 2022, was a student at Villanova back in 1985. “That experience as a sophomore on this campus,” Father Rob recalls, “for a small Catholic school to feel like anything is possible—if you work hard and believe and work together, anything is possible—that was a big takeaway from that experience for our whole class.”

When Massimino passed away in 2017, Hagan was asked to speak at his funeral. He recognized that while the calendar date of the 1985 national cham pionship game was a happy coincidence, the contagiousness of Massimino’s own belief was not. “The connection that I drew there was that all that happened on April 1, April Fool’s Day. Sometimes you have to be the fool in the room who is willing to believe in those things that everyone else thinks are impossible. Rollie was that way. Rollie got those guys believing.”

When Jason Donnelly joined the university as assistant men’s basketball coach and director of basketball operations in 2005, the legacy of the 1985 run to the school was clear. “The ’85 team were the flag bearers,” says Donnelly

Unbracketed 49

—Stephen Covey

S

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”

Unbracketed 197

CHAPTER

Watson hadn’t seen much of the president yet, but he knew they had a meeting on the books. Making small talk, Watson mentioned their upcoming meeting, but Garanzini wasn’t aware it was on his calendar, so he asked Watson what the meeting was to be about. Watson replied that it was just an update on how things were going over in athletics. “He looked me dead in the eye,” Watson recalls now with a smile, “and said, ‘If I ever want to know what’s going on in Athletics, I just talk to Sister Jean.’ I felt this small,” he says, pinching his fingers close together. These days though, he wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea.

Mission 8

teve Watson had only been on campus for a month or two when he bumped into Loyola’s president, Father Michael Garanzini, on campus.

198 Mission

Amid all of college basketball’s black eyes, and even as the sport remains a fulcrum in the strategic management of institutions, the true point of dis tinction at Loyola, Davidson, Gonzaga, and Villanova is the intertwining of each school’s mission with its flagship athletic program. In the construction of an unbracketed basketball program, mission is present at every level: the glowing beacon atop the building, signaling that these programs are worth our attention; the steel framework, giving the program its shape and sturdiness at each point of its ascension; and the soil in which its foundation rests.

“That’s just who she is. She has her finger on the pulse of everything that’s going on, especially in the athletic department.”

Later on in the conversation, Watson points out that every athletic team at Loyola has a chaplain. It’s not just men’s basketball and Sister Jean. The presence of the chaplain is not to push any sort of religion on student-athletes, but to provide them with an additional resource for navigating life and to offer them an experience that is unique to Loyola. In the case of Sister Jean, this approach took on an additional benefit when the Ramblers became the media darlings of March Madness in 2018: it signaled to the extended Loyola com munity that the university was still rooted in its mission. “Having Sister Jean, that just gave people so much confidence,” says former dean of the business school Kevin Stevens. “I heard this from so many alums: that Loyola is still Loyola, which means that it still had the Jesuit values at its heart, and Sister Jean was the walking embodiment of that. That meant a lot—that we could do it and be clean.”

There are points at which the basketball program’s connection to the in stitution’s mission is obvious: Davidson’s trip to Auschwitz, Gonzaga’s service in the Spokane community, Villanova’s value-based recruitment strategy, and Loyola’s commitment to keeping alive the story and spirit of the Game of Change. At other points, it is more subtle: the way Davidson passes the basketball, the decision to push men’s and women’s basketball together at Gonzaga, the by-design intermingling of the student body with student-ath letes in Villanova’s Davis Center, and the composition of Loyola’s traveling party to Spokane to learn from Gonzaga. At all points, it is embodied in the coaches and players, and signaled by the depth to which they are invested in