Twenty-five years later, the sound of the official’s whistle piercing the vast air space inside the Seattle Kingdome still reverberates in the ears of Seton Hall players and coaches.
Twenty-five years later, the ball that left the hopeful hands of Seton Hall’s Daryll Walker — the desperation, potential game-winning buzzer-beating shot that never found the basket — remains suspended in the air, along with an endless list of what ifs?
What if referee John Clougherty used more discretion, waited a split-second longer, didn’t make that fateful foul call and instead let the Seton Hall and Michigan players decide what was otherwise one of the greatest games in NCAA Tournament history?
What if Walker’s potential game winner had gone in and not glanced harmlessly off the glass, leaving Michigan to celebrate an epic 80-79 overtime national championship victory that will forever be remembered for — or tainted by? — an official’s whistle?
To this day, that 1989 championship game stands as one of the most indelible moments in an NCAA Tournament history littered with them.
So many lives intersected on that Kingdome floor on April 3, 1989.
In what only can be described as cruel twists of fate, the two central figures who collided (figuratively and literally) in what remains the most controversial call in the history of Final Fours (and maybe in all of college basketball) allowed their respective lives to spiral years later.
Seton Hall guard Gerald Greene, whom Clougherty famously called the blocking foul on with three seconds remaining in overtime and Seton Hall leading, 79-78, has been in and out of trouble and substance abuse for years.
His current whereabouts is not known by even his closest former Pirates teammates.
Wolverines guard Rumeal Robinson, who was granted those two controversial free throws and made both to win the game, is serving time in the Federal Correction Institution in Oakdale, La., for defrauding investors in a series of scams he cooked up after his NBA playing career was over.
Neither Greene nor Robinson was available to recount that fateful title game moment, but there are many other characters central to the drama to whom The Post spoke.
“If we won the game, our lives would have been different, for sure,’’ said Michael Cooper, a forward on that Seton Hall team. “But being in that game and losing the way we did … I still feel like a champion.’’
The third-seeded Pirates surprised the nation by reaching the championship. After disposing of Southwest Missouri State and Evansville, they routed juggernauts Indiana and UNLV to reach the Final Four, where they overcame an 18-point deficit to win comfortably by 17 over powerhouse Duke.
Then-Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo now lives in Seattle, just a few miles from the scene of the most memorable basketball moment of his life.
“A week or two weeks don’t go by when I’m here that I don’t run into somebody — whether it’s at the supermarket or the gas station — that says, ‘Hey, I was at your Final Four when you guys played in the Kingdome,’ ’’ said
Carlesimo, who went on to coach in the NBA and now is doing analysis on TV for ESPN and radio for Westwood One. “I regularly run into people who reference it or claim that they were there.’’
Carlesimo has been universally admired as much for his graciousness in bitter defeat — that night and in the years that have followed — as for the job he did building Seton Hall basketball from the basement of the Big East to national prominence.
Just as he did that night in the immediate aftermath of the controversial loss, Carlesimo never has criticized Clougherty. His players, in turn, followed suit and acted with such class afterward they were revered and remembered almost as much as the winners were.
“Sure, I wish he hadn’t made the call, but the thing that everyone forgets is if he hadn’t made the call, they were going to get a shot,’’ Carlesimo said. “Rumeal would have dribbled himself into a jump shot or he would have passed it to Loy Vaught and Loy would have taken an elbow jump shot.
“That’s the way the game should have ended. You want it to end with somebody doing something good. I guess Michigan people would say, ‘Well, it did — with Rumeal making two free throws.’ But you’d prefer that it comes down to a shot — a guy makes or misses a shot — and that’s the way the game ends. But it didn’t.
“Do I think about it? Yeah. People bring it up.’’
One of those people is Steve Fisher, who was the winning Michigan coach and now is the San Diego State coach. Fisher and Carlesimo were in Spokane, Wash., together two weeks ago when the Aztecs were playing in the West Region and Carlesimo was working radio.
“I had one of my players run over and ask P.J. if he still thought that was a foul?’’ Fisher said jokingly. “P.J. and I laugh about it a little bit, but I know he’s crying inwardly.’’
After Robinson sank both foul shots to give Michigan the 80-79 lead, senior Seton Hall center Ramon Ramos inbounded the ball to Walker, who was supposed to toss it to Andrew Gaze or John Morton — the team’s best shooters — on one of the wings for a final shot.
Walker panicked, afraid there wasn’t enough time for the extra pass, so he took the final shot.
“The play was for me to catch it and throw it to the wing,’’ said Walker, now a high school custodian in the city. “Maybe I got a little nervous. My shot was just as good as anybody’s. It was a little off to the right. Maybe my life would have been different if I had hit the shot.’’
The result of that game forever changed the way Walker watches sports.
“I really don’t watch, because I wince when I see the other team crying, which is what we did at the end,’’ said Walker, who never has watched a replay of the game. “To his day it still hurts. I’d rather have lost earlier than that last game. Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much.’’
As much as the loss hurt, so, too, did the Clougherty call.
“It was a life-changing call,’’ said Pookey Wigington, a backup Seton Hall guard. “I was surprised a whistle would be called that far away from the basket with the game on the line in overtime. That was a call that was really out of character with how the game was being played.
“If you are a national champion, your life is different, the way you are perceived is different. We didn’t think about that at the time, but as I navigate through my real life, that’s a huge piece that altered everyone’s movement in the world. That’s how big that call was … and you can’t get that back.’’
“To his day it still hurts. I’d rather have lost earlier than that last game. Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt so much.’’ — Daryll Walker
Nick Katsikis, a Seton Hall reserve swingman, said, “I still can’t sleep thinking about that call. That was a bull—- call. After the battle we had in regulation and overtime and to end the game like that. It was ridiculous.’’
Michael Cooper, a reserve power forward, said his first thought when the foul was called was: “Wow, this run is going to come to an end on a foul shot, on a call?’’
“That kind of let the air out of everything,’’ Cooper said. “The feeling after the game was just disappointment, as time went on you got a little angry.’’
“My first thought was: ‘You can’t make that call. This cannot be what’s going to decide this game,’ ’’ assistant coach Rod Baker said. “I really like John, I truly like the guy, and I don’t know how he feels about it. I don’t know if he’s ever said, ‘I wish I would have let the game play out.’ I wish he would have waited a second, because if he had waited a second, he wouldn’t have made that call.’’
Clougherty, perhaps still feeling dogged by his ill-advised call 25 years ago, did not return multiple calls by The Post.
Clougherty, now 70 and the coordinator of officials in the ACC, several years ago told the Raleigh News & Observer: “There was contact. If I had waited, held the whistle, maybe I could have made better judgment on the contact.”
He also was quoted in a recent Sports Illustrated story saying, “I’ve had to answer for that call for 25 years.’’
Fisher would not say the wrong call was made, but he said he understands why Carlesimo does feel that way.
“I remember that we had the ball and Rumeal was pushing it down the floor and there was a bump,” Fisher said. “If I’m P.J., to this day I’m saying, ‘Absolutely, how could you make that call?’ If you’re at our end, you’re saying, ‘Good call.’ There was a bump. Did they have to call it? They called it.’’
Seton Hall’s leading scorer, John Morton, who scored 35 points that night, recalled being in “total shock,’’ when the foul was called on Greene.
“That was a bull—- call. After the battle we had in regulation and overtime and to end the game like that. It was ridiculous.’’ — Nick Katsikis
“I was chasing Rumeal from behind and heard the whistle,’’ said Morton, who later with the Miami Heat played alongside 1989 Wolverines leading scorer Glen Rice, who scored 31 in the title game. “When they said he was shooting foul shots, that’s when it sunk in that, ‘Oh man, he’s getting two shots. Wow, this is going to end.’ Let the players decide the game. It was hard to take, losing like that.’’
Even Robinson, after the game, conceded: “It was kind of weak to make that call at that time. I honestly feel if I was the referee, I probably wouldn’t have called that. I would have let the play go on because there’s only three seconds left. When you have so much riding on the game, why call that?”
That’s a question Seton Hall players and fans have asked ever since.
As seared into memory as the game is the way Seton Hall handled itself in defeat. Not one player moaned about the Clougherty call. Not one finger of blame was pointed.
“We were a mature group and handled it with dignity and kept our poise,’’ Morton said.
“We thought it was important not to detract from Michigan winning the national championship,’’ Carlesimo said. “There was nothing to be gained. It was over. Everybody saw it. There was no question people were going to talk about it. People wouldn’t have criticized them if they cried about it, but I thought our guys handled it extremely well. Our guys all took the high road.’’
It was a difficult road to take. Wigington recalled being urged by Carlesimo to “handle things the Seton Hall way, with pride and dignity.’’
“That’s not how everyone felt,’’ he said. “Do I think guys wanted to express their true feelings? Yes. Gerald was pissed, he was really, really pissed. That kid played his tail off and to be put in that position on a call like that … ’’
That ’89 Final Four was the fifth in a row Clougherty had worked. He was not asked back the following year, but ended up doing seven more.
Larry Keating, the Seton Hall athletic director, insisted that Carlesimo “saved Clougherty’s career’’ by not publicly ripping him.
“There are a lot more serious things that happen to people throughout life,’’ Carlesimo said, “but from a basketball standpoint, that’s about as tough a situation as they’re going to have to deal with, and I think our players did a good job.’’
One of those more “serious things that happen to people throughout life’’ happened to Ramos, who suffered a serious brain injury in a one-car crash on an icy road in Oregon when he was an NBA rookie with the Trail Blazers in 1989.
Among the damaging results was a loss of short-term memory. Ramos, who was Seton Hall’s gentle giant, knows he was in an accident, but cannot remember anything since and cannot live on his own.
“But being in that game and losing the way we did … I still feel like a champion.’’ — Michael Cooper
He lives in his home country of Puerto Rico with his parents, who have taken care of him the past 25 years. Felix Roman, who was the Seton Hall basketball team manager, lives about 30 minutes from Ramos and visits him periodically.
Roman said Ramos “remembers me like it is still 1989,’’ but added, “For him, in terms of memory, his life stopped in 1989.
“That’s something I’ve been carrying the last 25 years,” Roman said. “I was the one who P.J. called that Saturday morning to tell me Ramon was in an accident. I had to tell his family. Bad things happen to good people. I always wonder, what would have been? Maybe he would have been a 15-year player in the NBA.
“You’ve got history and you’ve got destiny. The destiny that life gave Ramon was not what he was supposed to get, but that’s what he got.’’
When The Post reached Ramos at his home in Puerto Rico, he sounded happy and healthy. His words were delivered slowly, but he remembered the Final Four run — particularly the championship game, in which he scored nine points and had five rebounds.
“I remember we played hard in that final game. We played good,’’ Ramos said. “The way it ended I feel bad about it, but we played hard. It was a very good game for us. … I felt good about it. … I feel very good.’’
Ramos and the rest of his teammates and coaches from that 1988-89 Seton Hall team are going to be inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame on June 18. Ramos is expecting to make the trip to New Jersey, which he did five years ago when the team celebrated its 20-year reunion at a Seton Hall-Georgetown game at the Prudential Center — a game in which John Clougherty’s son, Tim, was one of the officials.
Where are they now?
Paths taken by members of the 1988-89 Seton Hall Pirates:
P.J. Carlesimo, coach: ESPN analyst, living in Seattle
John Morton, guard: Fordham assistant coach
Darryl Walker, forward: NYC school custodian
Ramon Ramos,center: Lives in Puerto Rico
Gerald Greene, guard: Unknown
Andrew Gaze, guard: Coach and media personality in Australia
Jose Rebimbas, guard: Head coach at William Paterson
Michael Cooper, forward: Underwriter for Freddie Mac
Nick Katsikis, guard: Owner of Penn Queen Diner in Pennsauken, N.J.
Pookey Wigington, guard: Comedian Kevin Hart’s agent/entertainment company owner in L.A.
Felix Roman, manager: Accountant in Puerto Rico
Bruce Hamburger, assistant coach: Assistant coach at Fairleigh Dickinson
Tom Sullivan, assistant coach: Retired, living in Florida
Rod Baker, assistant coach: NBA D-League coach for 76ers
John Carroll, assistant coach: AAU basketball advisor