TicketsA great basketball moment can arrive in a multitude of ways. It can come out of nowhere, like a poster dunk or an unbelievable half-court shot against a rival. It can come from your star player reaching a career milestone or breaking a record that seemed years in the making. Or it can come from an unlikely hero, cementing himself in program history with a moment that seemed straight out of a fairy tale.
On November 25th, 1989, that’s exactly what happened in the brand-new Shoemaker Center.
That day, the Shoe was hosting its first game ever as the Cincinnati Bearcats faced off against the #20-ranked Minnesota Gophers. It was the debut of a new era of Bearcat basketball, as the program had a new coach to go along with its shiny new home. Bob Huggins was hired to bring national prominence back to Cincinnati, which hadn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 1976 or a Final Four since 1963. Rome wasn’t built in a day, though. There would be some growing pains, and he threw together any pieces he could find on campus for his roster ahead of the 1989-90 season.
Steve Sanders was one of those pieces. A fifth-year student who originally arrived in Clifton to play football, he figured he’d give basketball a try as a walk-on while he finished his degree. It was also a dream come true for Sanders, who preferred basketball over football growing up.
“I would always think about how it would have been if I had played basketball,” Sanders told the Cincinnati Enquirer in an interview.
He ended up holding his own in the summer during pick-up games with the team, so much so that Huggins made him a member of the starting five against the Gophers to open the season.
The Bearcats and Gophers had an intense game from the start, with Minnesota having a 31-30 lead heading into halftime. The visitors tried to press UC in the second half, but that quickly backfired. Cincinnati was able to take advantage, even stretching the lead to as much as seven points. However, due to some “dumb things down the stretch” the team did in the closing minutes, according to coach Huggins, that lead shrank and eventually disappeared. With ten seconds left, Keith Starks turned the ball over with his team trailing, 64-63. It seemed like the fairy tale start to the new era of Bearcats basketball would fall just short.
Kevin Lynch, the Gopher who intercepted Starks’ pass, dribbled the ball down the court. With four seconds to go, he was standing in front of his own bench, waiting for a UC player to foul him. Then, something miraculous happened.
For reasons we may never know, Lynch attempted a behind-the-back pass to the Minnesota player trailing behind him. He missed him entirely, and the ball began bouncing towards the other side of the court. For about 3.2 agonizing seconds, the ball danced down the side of the court, finally landing out of bounds, and giving Cincinnati possession, with 0.8 seconds left.
The Bearcats had a chance. Huggins had to draw something up. He designed a play where Andre Tate would inbound, and one of Keith Starks, Levertis Robinson, or Lou Banks would attempt the shot. According to Huggins, “Steve was our last resort.”
Tate held the ball for a second or two, with none of the three ideal shooters open. Sanders came screaming into the corner, breaking free from his man. Tate hit him in stride, and Sanders, the walk-on football player who had exactly three shot attempts into his college career to this point, let the Bearcats’ first (and only) three-point shot attempt of the game fly.
He drilled it and sent the Shoemaker Center into pandemonium. He jumped up as soon as it went in and ran across the court before being mobbed by teammates. Against all odds, the Bob Huggins era of Cincinnati basketball had its magical beginning. The Bearcats won, 66-64.
After the game, Sanders hung around the court, reliving what had just occurred hours before. “I had to go stand on that spot one more time,” he said.
He also told Bob Huggins after the game that “everybody would forget about it after two weeks.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth.