It was exactly 10 years ago — March 18, 2004 — that the 12th-seeded Manhattan Jaspers shocked the nation, beating No. 5 Florida and David Lee, 75-60, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The small school from The Bronx had busted the bracket.
Then-coach Bobby Gonzalez still has boxes filled with countless back pages and headlines of Manhattan’s magic moment. He recalls ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, remembers hanging up on Rudy Giuliani’s phone call because he thought it was a prank.
Ten years later and preparing to celebrate his 50th birthday on Tuesday, Gonzalez still hasn’t had a better day.
“It was euphoria. It was my 40th birthday. It was a moment for a lifetime,” Gonzalez told The Post on Monday. “It was unlike anything I’ve been part of in my 50 years in life. I was the hottest coach in the country and we were the hottest mid-major team in the country.”
This year, No. 13 Manhattan is back in the Big Dance for the first time since then and looking to pull off an even bigger upset against No. 4 Louisville. And Gonzalez? His successful seven-year stint, which included four 20-win seasons and back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances in Riverdale, has been smothered by the chaotic circumstances surrounding his ousting at Seton Hall.
Often likened to a tyrant, Gonzalez’s volatile personality, combined with a string of player arrests in his final season, led to his firing from Seton Hall on March 17, 2010. It ended a four-year tenure with the Pirates and ignited a war of words that ended when a lawsuit filed by Gonzalez for wrongful termination was settled.
The Binghamton, N.Y., native mostly regrets recruiting players with questionable backgrounds, but admits some fault for his behavior.
“I could’ve handled some things differently,” Gonzalez said. “I was cocky, I was in a hurry, I had a chip on my shoulder, I was trying to prove myself, I was too rough with the media, I was too demanding, is there some truth to that? There’s 10 or 20 or 30 percent truth to that.
“Because I got that reputation, it was like the boy that cried wolf. No matter what I did after that, it didn’t matter.”
One of the most successful coaches in Manhattan history — who had winning records in his final three seasons at Seton Hall — hasn’t been seen on a sideline since.
Now, living in Westchester with his wife and six-year-old daughter, Gonzalez has juggled multiple jobs since the high-profile firing, working in television and radio, scouting for NBA teams, doing motivational speaking, running basketball clinics and consulting for teams. This season, he worked with Larry Brown’s SMU and King Rice’s Monmouth.
Gonzalez says he has been offered multiple head coaching positions at mid-major schools, overseas and in the NBA’s D-League, but has turned them down because of location or the team’s standing. He says he would get back into coaching if the right situation came along, but he doesn’t need to.
Despite the perception, he says the decision is his.
“They don’t see you and they say he’s never going to be heard from again,” Gonzalez said. “There’s a million guys that have had baggage. All that stuff about people saying I can’t get a job or I’ve been blackballed, they have no clue what’s going on.
“I’m never going to say never, but I’m enjoying what I’m doing.”
Compliments don’t come easy at either program, where mistreatment can be made to sound like an understatement. But his players at Manhattan remain loyal.
Gonzalez regularly keeps in touch with former Jaspers such as Jason Wingate, Dave Holmes and Luis Flores, widely considered the best player in Manhattan history. A little over a week ago, Gonzalez drove to Springfield, Mass. to attend Flores’ induction into the MAAC Honor Roll at the Basketball Hall of Fame.
Though it wasn’t always easy playing under Gonzalez, Flores says it was effective.
“We used to say he makes coffee nervous,” said Flores, who scored 26 points in the upset over Florida. “Bobby refused to let up no matter what. At times, we felt like this is too hard, this is too much. He would just press, press, press, but it made us tougher. He felt that was how we could win, if we were tougher than everybody else.”
It is 10 years later. Everything that could be said has been said. The opinions formed, likely remain. But of all that’s changed, one thing remains — Gonzalez’s on-court credentials.
“I have a lot of respect for Bobby as a coach,” said Manhattan’s director of basketball operations Mike Bramucci, a former assistant of Gonzalez. “Bobby had a different way of doing things, but the kids played their brains out for him every night.”