It may have been strange and a little schizophrenic. But the 1998-99 season was always the Evan and Kevin Show.
Mild-mannered sixth-year senior Evan Eschmeyer was a Big Ten phenom. Explosive in the paint, he became the second-leading scorer in Wildcats history without ever attempting a three-point shot.
“He basically put us on his shoulders and carried us,” recalls senior forward Tavaras Hardy, a freshman on the 1998-99 team.
Second-year head coach Kevin O’Neill, on the other hand, was just explosive. Infamously foul-mouthed, he put his temper on display after a loss to Indiana, when he erupted into a sweater-pulling altercation with Indiana coach Bob Knight.
Center of attention
NU’s first winning season since 1994 effectively began in April 1998,when the star known simply as “Esch” was granted a sixth season of eligibility by the NCAA. After sitting out his first two years with a foot injury, the 6-foot-11 center had rediscovered his game and developed into a force to be reckoned with.
Eschmeyer, currently a backup center for the Dallas Mavericks, averaged 21.7 points and 10.7 rebounds a game during the 1997-98 season. He was one of only two players in Division I to be ranked in the top 15 nationally in scoring, rebounding and field-goal percentage.
The return of the big man meant everything to the Cats.
“We were good because Eschmeyer was a pro,” recalls O’Neill, now an assistant coach with the Detroit Pistons.
And it showed on the court. Eschmeyer led the Cats in rebounding and scoring in all but five Big Ten contests that year. In one game against Michigan, he scored 29 points, pulled down 15 rebounds and drew 14 fouls – all in just 27 minutes of action.
Guard Julian Bonner also provided senior leadership on an otherwise inexperienced squad. Freshmen Hardy, guard David Newman and forward Steve Lepore all started that year, as did sophomore guard Sean Wink. After senior guard Nate Pomeday went down with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the 16th game of the season, the team depended on its newcomers.
“We needed freshmen to really come through,” says O’Neill. “Some did.”
Early success
NU didn’t look like a postseason contender early on, dropping the season-opener to Maine. But thanks to a slate of teams that averaged an RPI ranking of 173, the Cats bounced back to a 7-2 record heading into the Big Ten season.
After a loss to Iowa, the Cats put together back-to-back Big Ten road wins for the first time since 1993-94, winning at Minnesota and Illinois. Hardy and current Cats senior Collier Drayton cite the two wins as among their best memories of the season.
But no game could match the 54-50 upset of No. 14 Purdue on Jan. 27. As the buzzer sounded, students rushed the floor.
“I want everyone to understand that we should be winning these games,” Eschmeyer cautioned after the Purdue win. “I don’t want to see everyone jumping up and down and going nuts, because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Things fall apart
Having clinched the NIT at 14-6 with six regular season games to go, hopes were running high for NU’s first-ever NCAA bid.
But the Cats immediately lost to Wisconsin in Madison and returned to Evanston for a matchup with Indiana. The game was a barn-burner: NU battled Indiana to a 62-62 tie in regulation before losing by seven in overtime.
During the game, Indiana coach Bob Knight misinterpreted a student chant of “Hoosier Daddy” as a racial slur. After the game, he chastised O’Neill, and the two coaches scuffled at mid-court.
“That (chant is) not the kind of thing that should be part of college basketball,” Knight said at the time.
The Cats then dropped crucial game after crucial game, failing to post a win until the first round of the Big Ten tournament.
The second round of the tournament provided a glimmer of hope. NU needed a last-second three-pointer to down eventual Final Four team Michigan State, but Lepore’s attempt rimmed out for a 61-59 loss.
“If that shot had gone in,” Hardy recalls, “the whole place would have went nuts.”
NU quietly ended its season with a first-round NIT loss to DePaul at the Rosemont Horizon.
The Cats would follow their NIT season by going winless in the Big Ten the next year. In 2000, following a spate of transfers that included Newman and Lepore, O’Neill left the team.
“I knew when Esch left, we’d have a big drop-off,” O’Neill says. “(Newman and Lepore) were obviously not able to carry a team.”
Certainly not like Eschmeyer did.
