By John Reagan
February 18, 2021



Saturday, Georgetown welcomes Seton Hall to McDonough Gymnasium in the midst of a pandemic. Cardboard cutouts stand in place of fans. A recording of the fight song welcomes players on and off the court. Of course, it wasn't always this way.

February 20 marks the anniversary of the greatest on-campus game in Georgetown basketball history: the Hoyas' upset of #4 ranked Missouri before a national TV audience in 1982. It's reflective of a different time at Georgetown University, the time just before admissions took off, before Patrick Ewing was a household name, and before Georgetown ascended to the top of the college basketball stratosphere.

Without knowing it, it was approaching the end of an era, and the beginning of another.


If they could go back in time, today's culturally aware, upper-income students would see a different Georgetown in the spring of 1982 that what they know today. Mostly white, Catholic, and mostly from the New York-New Jersey area, Georgetown University was a more close knit, homogeneous campus that what they know today. It was a place for middle-class kids too, owing to a tuition rate ($6,800) that working families could actually afford.

The Georgetown of this era seems a world removed from today. A new intercultural center was under construction, with the promise of the campus being powered by solar energy. The amphitheater that surrounded the baseball diamond was a popular destination in the spring. Runners had their own track on Kehoe Field and the new Yates Field House was state of the art. Down the hill, the Georgetown neighborhood was booming with stores and restaurants, as the local media had declared the corner of Wisconsin and M streets as the epicenter of Washington nightlife. The downtown area was anything but. The "red light district" patrolled 14th Street, and the Law Center was in the midst of one of a number of high crime areas in the Marion Barry years. The District reported 14,468 violent crimes in 1981, about 40 per day.

If you lived on campus, social life revolved around the basement of the Healy Building, with Vital Vittles at one end (home of the 25 cent cans of Coca-Cola), and the Center Cafe on the other (home of its "Aquilino" sub). The long, narrow hallway, which in an earlier generation was used as practice grounds for the rifle team, bustled with a mix of busy students en route across campus, a variety of off-campus merchants setting up wares, the sound of video games, a TV lounge, and foreign students that always seemed to camp out on the benches, reading various European newspapers.

And there was beer. Lots of beer.

For those in dorms, the Friday parade of kegs from Dixie Liquor and students lugging cases up the hill was a common sight. The bustle of Healy Basement by day gave way to its featured attraction at night: the Center Pub. It was a fixture of campus life from 1974 to 1988, and a sizable revenue source to the University. At its peak, the Pub sold more kegs of beer than any bar in Washington. An on-campus bar kept students out of the Georgetown neighborhood and on the campus, and was a good source of revenue for University services. One dollar could buy you a cup of beer and a slice of pizza. Coffee was something you made at home.

Times were changing at Georgetown, and it was first seen in basketball, where home games were moved from McDonough Gymnasium to the 19,035 Capital Centre in Landover, MD in 1981. To say the Capital Centre was a world away from campus might have been an understatement. Instead of a 10 minute walk across campus, students boarded yellow school buses for a one hour drive into the woods of Landover, where not a single restaurant or gas station could be found within a mile of the arena. But the school had little choice but to relocate the games.

"With the demand from students, faculty, and alumni for tickets, and with the high interest in our new recruits, we feel like this move fulfills an obligation," said head coach John Thompson.

"Georgetown is scheduled to play Nevada-Las Vegas on national TV next season and has been contacted by Notre Dame, DePaul, and Iowa," wrote John Feinstein of the Washington Post. "None of these schools would consider playing in a 4,100 seat gym because revenues would not equal travel costs."

Nor would the University of Missouri; yet, there they were.

Following the Feb. 20 game, Missouri coach Norm Stewart stood in the hallway and promptly told the press, "I didn't schedule the game."

He wasn't kidding. The journey of how the Big 8 champions found their way to Washington on a crisp February day in 1982 is a story all its own.


For all its success in the Big 8 Conference, the University of Missouri had not scheduled an opponent from the East Coast since 1966. With the exception of an appearance in the 1973 NIT versus Massachusetts, the Tigers had never played a game in the Northeast.

A trip eastward wasn't in the plan for 1982, either. Missouri had signed a season opener hosting Hardin-Simmons University, then playing in the Trans-America Athletic Conference, but a coaching change there canceled the deal. Missouri then set a date with a Division III school, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, to open the season. But a subsequent phone call from NBC Sports had an offer too good to refuse.

But Norm Stewart wasn't on that call, but Dave Hart.

Dave Hart (1925-2009) was the first of three generations in his family in the business of a college athletic director, and was one of the profession's notable innovators. Prior to the early 1970's, the job of an athletic director was a sort of honorarium for a retired coach, largely to play golf with alumni and set schedules for its teams. Hart, a former football coach at Pitt, took over as athletic director of Louisville in 1973. He marketed athletics as a business, setting up promotions with local businesses and began a new plan where ticket holders had to pay a per seat donation to keep their football and men's basketball seats. It didn't win support from all fans, but by 1977, Louisville had cut its losses and stabilized football attendance at 19,000 a game, narrowly avoiding the pending NCAA cutoff which would have relegated to the Louisville football program to Division I-AA, the level where Georgetown football is today.

Hart moved to Missouri in 1978, introducing many of the same marketing programs to bolster the Tigers in the Big 8. And while football struggled at Missouri under Hart's watch, basketball grew under Norm Stewart, a 1956 Mizzou alumnus. In 1976, Stewart took the Tigers to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 32 years, and led the Tigers to a 25-6 season in 1980, the first of an unprecedented four consecutive Big 8 titles. But Missouri never ranked higher than 10th in the Associated Press polls.

Realizing that the 1981-82 Tigers could be a national contender, Hart sought to get the team on national TV. NBC was eager to get a game with Georgetown, given the rising national interest in its freshman center, Patrick Ewing. Georgetown had two open dates in its February schedule, and the discussions began.

But there was a catch. Georgetown athletic director Frank Rienzo told Hart that the Capital Centre would be unavailable Feb. 13 and Feb. 20, owing to the Ice Capades, which was hosting a 10-night engagement in Landover through Feb. 21. Instead, the two dates were available at Georgetown's McDonough Arena. Seeing an opportunity for national exposure, Hart accepted the date of Feb. 20 for a one game contract.

Even though Dave Hart spent two years as an assistant football coach at Navy, he likely had no awareness as to what McDonough Arena was...or more importantly, what it wasn't. It's likely Stewart didn't know either. In a contemporary interview, Stewart said the Tigers were familiar with what he called on-campus "barns" in the Big 8 (such as the 14,000 seat Ahearn Field House at Kansas State, or the 7,000 seat Gallagher Hall at Oklahoma State) and assumed Georgetown had an old barn of its own, too.

In retrospect, perhaps Missouri fans could be forgiven for thinking Rienzo pulled one over on Hart. From its outset, the building is named "McDonough Gymnasium", even if the basketball office had only started to refer to it as "McDonough Arena" in the 1978-79 season. Any college or high school coach familiar with the Northeast could have tipped off Hart about what Georgetown had to offer, but the Missouri program was sufficiently distant that no one apparently did. And, to state the obvious, there was no search engine in 1982 for the phrase "what is McDonough Arena?"

Somewhere, the likes of Dave Gavitt and Jim Boeheim were rolling their eyes in collective amusement that the best team in the Big 8 was heading to McDonough Gym in the upcoming season. And as the 1981-82 schedule progressed, these were two teams were on a collision course in the most unlikely venue seen on national television in years.


Norm Stewart's 1981-82 team may have been the best starting lineup of his career at Mizzou. One of a handful of 700+ win coaches not elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame, the Hall eluded him not for what he did, but didn't do--the Tigers never made a Final Four appearance.

"Stewart won more games in 32 seasons at Missouri (634) than the school had won in its previous 61 seasons (630)," wrote ESPN.com in 2000. "That's about all you need to know about Stewart's era in the heartland. His teams won 20 or more games in 17 seasons and eight Big 8 Conference titles."

Returning four starters, including All-America candidate Steve Stipanovich, the Tigers opened with its best start in years. Missouri won its first six games by an average of 23 points, and moved to #4 in the Associated Press poll following a 92-70 rout of Notre Dame. The Tigers entered Big 8 play undefeated at 10-0 and were all but unstoppable.

A narrow win at Nebraska was as close as any Big 8 team would come to the Tigers in January. An 84-64 win over Oklahoma sent the Tigers to #1 in the nation at 16-0. Per a Missouri history account, Oklahoma coach Billy Tubbs was said to have remarked that night, "I'd be pretty stupid to say they don't deserve to be number one. What would the number one team do to us then?"

While Missouri was roaring into February, Georgetown had stumbled. The Hoyas dropped three straight late in January, starting at Syracuse, where Ewing fouled out in 16 minutes of play and the Orangemen won by five, 75-70. Georgetown came out flat in a game versus Connecticut, 62-53, the only loss for the Hoyas versus the Huskies over the next seven seasons. Three nights later, Otis Thorpe (14 points, 14 rebounds) held Ewing to seven points in a 50-49 loss at a boisterous Providence Civic Center. The Hoyas were suddenly 3-3 in Big East play, traveling to face the conference leader, Villanova.

Georgetown needed a win and got it, thanks to 29 from Eric Floyd, 72-56. Confidence was growing, with the Hoyas taking back to back games in Landover, a 40 point blowout of Seton Hall on Saturday afternoon and an even more impressive 17 point walloping of Syracuse on ESPN's Monday night prime-time feature. The Hoyas were back in business.

With an open date due to the aforementioned Ice Capades, Georgetown walked over Southern 84-48, at McDonough. Three nights later, GU traveled to Boston College in Ewing's first appearance in the Boston area since signing with Georgetown. Ewing's 22 point, six rebound effort proved his mettle, but the Eagles rose to the occasion, shooting 71 percent from the floor, 80-71, behind 26 points from a Georgetown nemesis, BC guard John Bagley.

The loss dropped Georgetown back into second place but was seen as a momentary setback. Following the game, the Hoyas were home by early Thursday morning, and held a practice Friday afternoon in advance of Saturday's game.

Rest was the last thing Missouri had at its disposal entering this game. To accommodate the Feb. 20 date, Hart squeezed Stewart's schedule tight for that week. Following a game at Oklahoma State on Feb. 13, Hart moved a home game versus Iowa State to Tuesday the 16th, and a road game at Oklahoma, originally scheduled for the 20th, was now Thursday, Feb. 18. Georgetown would mark the fourth opponent in seven days, three on the road.

The Tigers had no problem with Iowa State, 100-71, but were on the road two nights later with 60-55 win at Oklahoma. A five hour bus trip back to campus followed into early Friday morning. A change of clothes and a breakfast later, the team was back on the bus for te one hour trip to Kansas City and a flight to Washington. Georgetown officials had advised Stewart that McDonough was available for team practice between 1-4 pm or after 7:30. There was no way the Tigers would make an afternoon practice given the flight schedules out of St. Louis, but a 7:30 pm practice was within reach. However, the flight was late in arrival and the team encountered traffic on the George Washington Parkway. The evening practice was off.

"Stewart, a tough practice coach, reportedly gave his players last night off to explore the city," wrote the Washington Post in the pre-game article. Facing its third game in five days, the Tigers were likely exhausted. A night on the town didn't help, but it was probably the least Stewart could do. The Tigers would visit the arena for the first time Saturday morning, two hours in advance of the 12 noon start.


It's not known if Moon McCrary, Jon Sundvold, or Steve Stipanovich found their way to M Street prior to curfew, but across the river the good times started Friday afternoon and never let up. Keg parties were in force across the campus, while a large crowd at the Center Pub welcomed a special guest--former Marquette coach and NBC analyst Al McGuire, who enjoyed a beverage speaking to the students about the big game and took a seat in the DJ booth along the wall.

As parties waned, many students realized the obvious--there was no reserved seating for the game, so an early place in line was essential. The line in front of the McDonough doors formed overnight, and if a student wasn't in line for a seat by 8 am, chances were good they'd be standing instead. By sunlight, hangovers were put on hold as students cheered the arrival of John Thompson's Lincoln Continental into the McDonough parking lot and the subsequent walk-ups of players, cheerleaders, and the band.

As a standard practice, fans are not let in to arenas before one hour to game time, so as to accommodate set-up, team shoot-arounds and concession preparations. Instead, someone opened the McDonough door two hours in advance of the 12 noon start, where students quickly filled nearly all the seats and took up standing space at the northern end of the gym at the stage.

Missouri made their first appearance on the McDonough floor just after 10:30 am, unexpectedly greeted by 5,000 beery and boisterous fans, with the sound cascading between the walls. The players looked stunned with so many people in such close quarters. The fourth ranked Tigers had walked into a hornet's nest.


Ninety minutes later, it was time to begin.

"[A] sellout crowd jammed into McDonough Arena, Georgetown University, on the banks of the Potomac River in the Nation's Capital," said NBC's Dick Enberg to open the broadcast, only the second regular season game broadcast nationally in Georgetown history. The pep band, with a stroke of flair, struck up the NBC Sports theme as Enberg and McGuire went into their pre-game intros. An announced crowd of 4,620 topped 5,000, but no actual count was attempted.

The TV audience saw plenty of blue and gray, and lots of yellow, too. Were these Missouri fans? Well, not quite.

In a exercise of guerrilla marketing that never would have made it at Capital Centre, a white van appeared near the McDonough entrance a few minutes before the doors opened. While Busch beer was a corporate sponsor of Georgetown basketball, the campus rep for Miller beer had a different idea, handing out hundreds of foam "#1" fingers to students in line, with the Miller logo in plain sight. Nothing was confiscated at the door, and neither Busch nor Georgetown athletic officials were pleased to see the foam fingers (in Missouri's color, no less), across every turn of the television broadcast.

By game time, the noise was sufficiently buzzing off the roof that players struggled to hear each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please!" asked Rev. William McFadden S.J., the public address announcer. Few could hear it--even the players couldn't hear the introductions.

Missouri opened the game with a Jon Sundvold jumper, 2-0. "That was important [for Missouri],", said McGuire, "because we're like playing in a confessional box here." Ewing answered with a turnaround jumper and the crowd roared.

With five quick fouls for Georgetown, Missouri led 6-4 at the first media time out. Georgetown answered with seven straight points, 11-6, forcing the Tigers into seven turnovers in the first nine minutes. Three quick fouls for Stipanovich hurt the Tigers early, and the Hoyas took advantage. A Patrick Ewing turnaround jumper and two baskets from Eric Floyd sent the crowd into overdrive at a 23-16 lead.

"I feel like we're in a wine cellar," said McGuire, later adding the memorable quote of the afternoon, "the fire marshal must be out of town today."

 
In an era without a shot clock or the three point shot, tempo was key. A slow game between two teams could yield scores in the 40's, while an up-tempo game could quickly top 80 or more. Missouri tried to start up-tempo, but Georgetown's defense forced too many turnovers and Stewart opted for a slower offense. When Stewart hit the brakes, Thompson did the opposite, and as Georgetown picked up the pace, it was getting more shot attempts. Neither team shot very well in the first half (Georgetown at 37 percent, Missouri 39) but 12 Missouri turnovers led Georgetown to a 31-23 score at the break, behind 11 points from Ewing and eight from Floyd.

The Hoyas opened the second half strong and pushed the lead to 12 before settling into a zone defense that gave Missouri problems. The crowd never relented, standing throughout with the same energy as the opening tip. An Eric Floyd jumper to put the Hoyas up 41-29 shook the camera stand in the south corner of the gym.

Whether it was the four games in seven days, no pre-game practice, the raucous atmosphere, or just a long night out for the players, the Tigers were visibly running out of steam. A 10-2 run put the Hoyas up 18, 49-31, and when Stipanovich fouled out with 12 minutes remaining, scoring just four points, Mizzou looked down and out, were it not for a 13 second half point run from 6-6 forward Ricky Frazier, closing to 52-40 in the final six minutes. Through it all, Stewart did not call a time out in the second half.

Up 13 with 1:35 to play, Georgetown went into a slow-down and the fans turned up the volume.

"The fans know they have it," said McGuire. "Georgetown will be jumping tonight."

"Missouri might have psyched themselves out early in this game coming into this field house, whatever they call it," he added. "Interesting it was called a gym and now that Georgetown's now Park Avenue, they're calling it an arena."

With under a minute left. Ewing disrupted a Missouri shot inside and took off for the north goal. A Gene Smith pass found Ewing for the dunk, but he clanked it off the rim, sending the ball high into the air. The fans went crazy. So did the announcers.

"Watch the rim bend!" said Enberg. "Watch the rim bend!"

"I'm surprised the basket didn't come down!" said McGuire.

It was replayed four consecutive times. The final seconds followed.

"Two seconds, one second, Georgetown has upset Missouri!" exclaimed Enberg. The 63-51 score was Georgetown's biggest win ever versus a ranked opponent at home and only the fifth win in McDonough history over any ranked opponent. The broadcast ended with a NBC commercial to watch its Sunday Sportsworld series for coverage, of all things...from the Ice Capades from Landover, MD.

 
As the players left the court, the students did something different. They stayed. The cheerleaders made it to center court and the fans kept cheering. The band kept playing. The exit at McDonough would take some time to clear and the students were in no hurry to leave. As the pep band continued what had now become a three hour session, the fans took a long goodbye, wholly unaware that it would become the last regularly scheduled game on campus in their undergraduate years.

Georgetown would return to Capital Centre, hosting 218 more games there through the 1997-98 season. Over that same period, McDonough Gymnasium hosted four, none rivaling the passion and impact of that game in 1982.


If Georgetown basketball was a powder keg in 1982, Ewing's missed dunk was the fuse that set off the blast. Georgetown wasn't a surprise anymore, and a national audience of basketball fans saw it first hand. Three weeks later, when CBS's Brent Musburger looked at the NCAA brackets and called Georgetown "the most dangerous team in the nation", no one was doubting it.

From that win over Missouri, Georgetown won its next 10, roaring all the way to the national championship final, by an average of 15.2 points. Ewing's 13 points and 13 rebounds that day against Stipanovich was a revelation. No one remembers Ewing's 5 for 16 shooting effort, many missed from close range. What they remembered was his speed, his reach, and his ferocity. Suddenly Georgetown was, as McGuire put it, going "Park Avenue", with a seven foot freshman leading the way.

Nearly forty years later, the gymnasium is still called "McDonough Arena" by the basketball office. But like the university it represents, it's no secret anymore.