OXFORD, Ohio — Thirty minutes before tipoff, the man who led maybe the biggest win in the history of Miami (Ohio) basketball is making his way to his seat. That victory was 46 years ago — knocking off defending national champion Marquette in the 1978 NCAA tournament — and here Darrell Hedric is, still coming to games in his 90s, even on snowy December nights.
“This is a true story,” the current coach, Travis Steele, will say later of Hedric. “He works out every day. He still lifts. He’s been awesome for me and a great resource. He still drives here. I’ve learned so much from him. I tell (the players) every day we play for those who came before us. They built it up and we want to get back to that. That’s all they want to see.”
Which brings us to why yesterday seems so real around Miami basketball.
There always seems to be one past landmark or another to trip over. The RedHawks made it past Air Force 73-60 the other night to go to 5-2 on the season, this after winning the Fort Myers Tip-Off Palms Division title. Miami was carried by 42 points from Peter Suder, the most in a game for the RedHawks this century, going back to when Wally Szczerbiak put 43 points on Washington in the first round of the 1999 NCAA tournament. Szczerbiak followed that with 24 points the next game as Miami upended No. 2 seed Utah to get to the Sweet 16, and by then, Wally World had become one of those charming Cinderella stories that brightened the month of March.
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Matter of fact, this program became renowned as a troublemaker in the tournament. Especially for big fish. Miami followed that shocker of 24-3 Marquette in 1978 by taking Maryland to overtime in 1985 and did the same thing to Iowa State in 1986. There was the fight to the wire against North Carolina in 1992 before losing by five points, knocking out Arizona and going to overtime against Virginia in 1996, Wally World in 1999 and a two-point near-miss with Oregon in 2007.
There are some glittering names on the wall who were a part of it. Szczerbiak became a national sensation. Ron Harper went on to five NBA championships, sharing the backcourt with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and then Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers.
But the NCAA tournament mischief stopped in 2007 and now it’s 2024. There has been but one winning record in the past 15 seasons, and all Miami wants to do is get back to being a pest.
“That’s why I took the job,” said Steele, who is in his third season. “I took it as a little bit of a challenge. It’s been a while since Miami has won. It’s been a long time. We’ve got to get it back to that. I knew this was going to be a rebuild. I told the athletic director when I took the job, 'Hey this is not going to be a quick fix.' But we’ll get it there.
“I want (Hedric) to be able to watch this thing getting rebuilt. That’s what drives us every day. And not just Darrell. I want to do it for Charlie Coles, for Herb Sendek, for all the players who have been here.”
Coles, a star as a Miami player, returned to coach and engineered Szczerbiak’s run and was also there when Kentucky needed a late shot to beat Miami by two in Rupp Arena in 2009. It was nearly the first loss for new Wildcats coach John Calipari. In 1998, Coles collapsed during a game because of a heart attack. He endured several heart operations but kept coming back for more. Cardiac issues eventually forced him to retire in 2012 and took his life a year later, but his sense of humor never waned. He once told the story of being in church not long after his collapse and a woman telling him she had gone through the same thing and that before she was resuscitated, angels were all around her. “I told her, ‘Ma’am I’m going to start living better, because where I was, there wasn’t no angels.’ ”
Sendek went from coaching Miami to taking North Carolina State to a string of NCAA tournaments and now is at Santa Clara, where last season, the Broncos upset both Oregon and Gonzaga. Very Miami-ish.
Steele might even want to do it for Weeb Ewbank, who coached basketball one season at Miami and went 5-13 in 1939. Not a golden season but Ewbank would make his name in a different sport. He was the New York Jets coach when Joe Namath famously stunned the Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III.
Miami knows history, all right, and just wants more. Only one way to get it, and the problem has been that the RedHawks have not even survived to the championship game of the Mid-American Conference tournament since 2007.
“We’ve got to win the MAC to get in the NCAA tournament. This is a one-bid league,” Steele said. “So every decision I make, I make it about getting us to Cleveland and winning three games in three days.
“I know this, our guys are fearless. The brighter lights, the better.”
Eighteen years is a long time for a program that so values its past.
“It’s everything,” Suder said of the quest to get Miami back to the old days. “When this place was going through March Madness, that’s where we want to get. That’s our future.”
And if they ever want to understand better the fuss that Miami could once make in March, they can always ask the 91-year-old guy working out in the weight room.
