NCAA flashback: How Valparaiso and Bryce Drew shocked the world 20 years ago

Twenty years ago, many college basketball fans had never heard of Valparaiso University, much less knew how to pronounce it.

On March 13, 1998, that all changed when senior Bryce Drew, the coach's son, completed an improbable play and buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to upset No. 4 seed Mississippi and send Valparaiso into the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

Today, those involved in what became known in college basketball as "The Shot" reflect on that game, the miracle play, and how it all changed the course of Valparaiso basketball forever.

When the tournament selection committee handed out bids to the 1998 field of 64 teams, the Valparaiso Crusaders (21-9) earned a No. 13 seed - the reward for finishing as both regular-season and conference tournament champions of the Mid-Continent Conference.

Their profile matched the description of an underdog, and underdogs are precisely why it's called March Madness.

What set the Crusaders apart from other no-name and midmajor teams in that NCAA field was experience. For Valparaiso, this was the third consecutive season the school had made the NCAA Tournament, following first-round losses to Arizona in 1996 and Boston College in 1997.

In 1998, Valpo coach Homer Drew set one goal before the team, hoping the experience of the 2 tourney losses, coupled with the experience of six seniors, would help achieve that goal.

"We just wanted to win and advance. We had experience because now the heart of our team was seniors with Bryce, the twins Bob and Bill Jenkins, two tall international players (Zoran Viskovic and Antanas Vilckinskas), and Jamie Sykes," Homer Drew said.

"The whole theme for that tourney was finding a way. We felt very comfortable because we had been there two years in a row. This was not new. It was a mission the players were on, and they wanted to win that game to advance."

Confident Crusaders

Valparaiso entered the tournament with 11 straight wins. Still, the coaches and players understood the daunting challenge against a Mississippi team some experts predicted would make it to the Final Four behind senior forward Ansu Sesay, a second-team all-American and the SEC Player of the Year.

"We wanted to have good size behind Sesay, so we would slant our perimeter people down to try and help out on him just to make his shot a little more difficult. We had two big bodies we could bang on him," Homer Drew said.

Valpo's defensive game plan for Sesay worked to perfection in the first half as the future first-round pick, who was averaging 18.6 points, struggled to get good looks and scored only 6 points. Ole Miss guard Keith Carter, however, led all scorers with 17 points as the Rebels led 38-34 at the break.

Valparaiso scored the first 5 points of the second half, but momentum swayed and neither team could pull away. With about five minutes remaining, the Crusaders held a 5-point lead that slowly dwindled as Mississippi switched to a zone defense that limited Valpo to a single bucket over the game's final four minutes.

The open look

With less than a minute remaining and trailing 69-67, Valparaiso's Jamie Sykes and Jared Nuness missed 3-pointers.

Mississippi had the ball and, with 20 seconds remaining, guard Jason Flanigan drove the left baseline and missed a contested layup. Valparaiso got the ball with 15 seconds left, and instead of calling a timeout, Homer Drew opted to play on.

"We wanted to go in transition and try and take advantage of any open shots. We were not getting many good looks late in the game, so we wanted a layup, a power move inside or maybe getting Bryce an open look," Homer Drew said.

Bryce Drew took the ball, hurried across midcourt on the left side and, almost 10 feet beyond the 3-point line, pulled up to take the shot.

When the Mississippi defender left his feet to contest the shot, Drew passed the ball a few feet away to teammate Zoran Viskovic, who immediately returned the ball to a now-open Drew for an uncontested 3-point attempt. He missed. Sesay pulled down the rebound and was immediately fouled by Sykes with 4.1 seconds remaining.

"I had a wide-open look. I thought I may have rushed it. I just missed," said Bryce Drew, who after a six-year career playing in the NBA coached five seasons at Valparaiso and has coached at Vanderbilt the past two seasons.

Everything after that moment, Bryce said, was a blur, but he had no anxiety or didn't feel the game was over.

Sykes wasn't as optimistic. "When that shot missed we were walking back down the court and I was thinking we lost again (in the first round)."

Time for a timeout

After Sesay missed the first of 2 free throws, leaving the door open for a Valpo tie, Homer called a timeout. As his team walked toward the bench, he knew he had to refocus his players.

"The guys were just dejected. Here's a shot Bryce has taken thousands of times in our backyard and in our arena and in practice all his lifetime and then to miss it," Homer said. "He was just devastated that he missed. In the timeout we talked about we don't have any timeouts left, so when Sesay misses (the free throw) let's just get the rebound and let's go with it and try to get a shot up and see if we can end it on a great note. Just give yourselves a chance."

As Sesay stepped up to the line for his second free throw, Valpo players positioned themselves according to the plan, which called for the rebounder to get a quick outlet pass to Bryce, who would catch the ball somewhere near midcourt before shooting a desperation 3 as time expired.

So much for those plans as Sesay's second free throw missed and the ball was tipped out of bounds. The referees ruled Valpo's possession. Sykes remembers it well.

"When Sesay missed that second shot, Jenkins knocked that ball out of bounds. It was not Ole Miss. Ole Miss should have got the ball back. Jenkins hit it, and we looked at each other and said, 'Oh, well.' "

Sykes looked down the court at his teammates and called out one word: Pacer.

Pacer was a play designed for a game-ending situation, something practiced throughout the season. Pacer involved three players - Sykes, Jenkins and Bryce.

Sykes was the trigger man from the opposite end of the court. The 5-foot-10-inch guard was the perfect candidate to make the long throw.

Jenkins had two jobs - first, he had to outjump any defenders and catch the pass from Sykes. Once Jenkins had possession, he had to find Drew and get him the ball.

With 2.5 seconds left, the referee bounced the ball to Sykes, who pumped once. Carter, defending on the play, stood flat-footed with his hands waving above his head. Sykes pumped a second time more convincingly. Carter's feet stayed planted. On the third pump, Carter jumped. Sykes quickly pulled the ball back and fired.

"I couldn't see where I was throwing, but I knew where I was supposed to throw the ball to and I just hurled it in that area," he recalled.

The final sequence

When Sykes released the ball Drew already had taken a few steps toward the ball near midcourt in an attempt to make his defender think he was trying to catch the inbounds pass. The Mississippi defender, intent on denying Drew the ball, had overplayed the inbounds pass and now trailed the ball.

As it sailed past midcourt, two things happened simultaneously. Drew turned and sprinted toward the Valparaiso basket while Jenkins exploded into the air with his 40-inch vertical leap over a pair of Mississippi defenders. Jenkins caught the ball midflight with both hands and immediately passed the ball to Drew, who was streaking down the sideline with his defender now several steps behind.

Sykes knew something special was about to happen.

"When I saw Bill jump and the ball hit his hands I knew 100 percent that it worked."

With two of the first three steps successfully completed, it came down to Drew, who caught the ball sprinting down the sideline before pulling up for his shot approximately 23 feet away from the basket and five feet from his father.

They both thought he had missed.

"I'm right in line and the ball looks like it's going to hit the front of the rim. It looks short. Even Bryce would tell you it looks a little bit short," Homer said.

"I really thought it was short," Bryce said. "If you go back and watch the replay, it just skids over the front rim and goes in."

Scott Drew, an assistant in 1998 standing to the right of his father and now the head coach at Baylor, saw it differently.

"I thought it had a chance. They thought it was a short. I think I'm just more positive than them," he laughed.

Before the ball dropped and hit the floor, pandemonium erupted. Bryce darted to his left and dove on his stomach near the 3-point line, where his teammates and others piled on.

"It's the only time when the players and our whole staff, except for my dad, jumped on the pile," Scott said.

Homer said there was some divine intervention for that play to work on that day.

"What you saw on national TV was probably the best the play had ever been run even in all the practices," he said. "Like I've said many times, only God can set it up and take it where it's a discouragement and make it into a highlight."

Lasting impact

That shot, Homer said, not only propelled his squad into the next round, in which they defeated Florida State in overtime and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen, really was a shot seen around the world.

"That game put us on the college basketball map not only nationally but internationally because I had many telegrams at that time," Homer said. "Many phone messages from Europe to Australia congratulating us on the win. It helped us with recruiting because eight out of 10 years we went to the NCAA Tournament."

Homer, who retired from coaching in 2011 with 640 wins, said even 20 years later he still hears about the shot.

"Every year, even last year, I got a video from a high school coach in Ohio saying, 'we used the Pacer play' and they had won the game. It was really neat to hear that people would run it and would score on it."

While the shot's legacy lives on in high school and college gyms and occasionally makes it on the CBS broadcasts during the NCAA Tournament, Scott Drew said that game meant much more to his family.

"Normally your favorite memories in your life involve your family. Very few get to have one of their favorite memories be, not only their career, but their career with their family" he said. "That's what makes that so special. You very seldom get to tie both together. For a company it might be making that first dollar; it might be opening that first store. For us, it was winning that first game."

When asked where it ranked in his career, Homer agreed.

"It obviously has to rate No. 1. Scott, my oldest son, was sitting next to me when it happened. Bryce, the youngest, making that shot and just happy for the years that Bryce put into making that shot and the years that Scott helped him learn how to play and worked with him on his shooting.

"It was a great moment for the university and a great moment for the Drew family."