“Long after Pete Carril leaves the coaching profession, last night’s scene here will remain imprinted on the national consciousness,” The Daily Princetonian declared on March 15th, 1996.
While the 2023 men’s basketball team’s Sweet 16 run was monumental, it was not Princeton men's basketball's first historic feat. In the first round of the 1996 NCAA tournament, Coach Pete Carril led the team to a major upset victory over the University of California, Los Angeles.
“March Madness back then… it was everything. That’s where everyone wanted to be,” said team member Chris Doyal ’96.
Following the team’s triumph over the UCLA Bruins, Princeton erupted in celebration. As the ‘Prince’ proclaimed the next day, the score was “DAVID 43, GOLIATH 41.” However, Doyal and the team were not there to see Prospect Avenue flood with excited students.
“We missed the celebration on campus, but for about 24 hours, we were the darlings of basketball,” captain and former team coach Sydney Johnson ’97 explained. He described an influx of interview requests and media attention following the game: “everybody [was] paying attention to how David beat Goliath.”
Aside from what Johnson described as a “brain versus brawn” contest and UCLA’s notoriety, anticipation built over the tournament being Coach Carril’s “last dance,” following his retirement announcement.
However, the game nearly did not end in a Princeton victory, or even with Princeton in the bracket at all. Coach Pete Carril, who had led the Tigers since 1967, was known for “near misses” in the NCAA tournament, including a 49–50 first-round loss against Georgetown in 1989.
“We were this perennial Cinderella team that got to the NCAA tournament six, seven, eight times but could never win a game, even though all the games were close,” Doyal explained. “It was like almost the entire country was rooting for us to actually win one of these games.”
Before making it to the UCLA game, Princeton had to overcome another hurdle: defeating Penn. Until 2017, if Ivy League teams ended the regular season with the same record, they played an additional game to secure their bid in the NCAA tournament. “That year we had to beat Penn in a playoff game, and they had beaten us, I think, eight times in a row. So the lead-up to the game was very special,” said Mitch Henderson ’98, current Head Coach of Princeton’s men’s basketball team who was on the team at the time.
After defeating Penn 65–63, Princeton was seeded 13th in the Southeast Regional and scheduled to play UCLA — 4th-seed and reigning national champions — on March 14th.
At the start of the game, the Bruins immediately jumped out with a 7–0 run. “We were a good winning team that faced runs before, but it was almost just a wake-up [call],” Johnson explained. By halftime, the Tigers had picked up the tempo, trailing the Bruins 19–18.
“I got a wide open layup to push us with a lot of momentum in the halftime,” Gabe Lewullis ’99 said. “That helped us get ready to go in and compete for the second half.”
Steve Goodrich ’98 and Johnson tied the game 41–41 with 2:58 left. With 21 seconds remaining, Lewullis scored two points on a backdoor play — part of Carril’s classic “Princeton offense” strategy — to pull the Tigers ahead 43–41.
“The lasting memory is just [that] I was standing under the basket when [UCLA] shot their last shot, and you could see that it wasn’t going to go in, and just knowing you were a part of something like that,” Doyal said.
Despite losing to Mississippi State in the second round, the victory over UCLA remains a high point of Princeton athletics and Coach Carril’s career.
“Coach Carrill is, was, [and] will always be a genius to me and many, many, many of the players and coaches who worked with him, [were] coached by him, and had to compete against him. He taught me to see,” said Johnson.
This year could see another UCLA-Princeton rematch by the women’s basketball team. Seeded 9th in the Sacramento region for this March Madness, the Tigers will play Oklahoma State on March 21. The winner of that game will play the winner of the Cal Baptist and UCLA match-up in the second round.
Lucia Zschoche is the associate editor for Archives and an assistant editor for Features for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections requests to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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