Title/Author:
“The Perfect Game: How Villanova’s Shocking
1985 Upset of Mighty Georgetown Changed the Landscape of College Hoops Forever”
by Frank Fitzpatrick
Tags:
Basketball, college, history, upsets
Publish date:
January 22, 2013
Length:
320 pages
Rating:
2 ½ of
5 stars (fair)
Review:
It is considered one
of the biggest upsets in college basketball history during a year when the
sport was undergoing significant changes. 1985 was the year that the NCAA
basketball tournament was expanded to 64 games and had the regional brackets
that are familiar to even non-basketball fans. Several conferences experimented
with a shot clock, which was to become a permanent rule the next year – it was
not used during this tourney, which was important to this game.
Which game is this? It
was the thrilling 66-64 win by the Villanova Wildcats over the Georgetown Hoyas
in the finals of the 1985 NCAA basketball tournament. This book by veteran Philadelphia writer
Frank Fitzpatrick claims to show the reader how this one game changed the
sport. But that is misleading for
several reasons and as a result I was disappointed with this book.
The first disappointment for me is that there was very little mention of the game itself, save for some short references, until page 231 when Chapter 13 was about the game day experience for the players and the historical contest. That is a long time to wait for the main subject of the book. The information before that chapter is also not all about the season and tournament games that led up to their mighty clash. While there is some good basketball writing, especially in the previous chapter when the previous tourney games for the Wildcats and Hoyas are discussed, there is much more about the racial overtones of the Hoyas.
While one cannot
ignore the role that race played in the sport at that time, especially centered
around Georgetown, I felt that there was far too much of the book that dealt
with that subject and that the author tried to force the topic to be the reason
for something when there could be other factors. The author felt that race
played a role in how many Americans would root for a team in this game, and
that many felt Villanova was the “good” team and Georgetown was the “bad” team
due to race. While that may have had
some role, it is indisputable that many sports fans love to cheer for an
underdog. Because Georgetown was such a prohibitive favorite, it is very
possible that many simply wanted to cheer for the underdog – a possibility not
discussed in the book.
The other aspect that
I felt was misleading was that this game alone “changed the landscape of
college hoops forever.” While the game
was to undergo major changes that I mentioned earlier, they were going to
happen regardless of the outcome of this game. It could be historic because it
was the last game without the shot clock and Villanova took advantage of this,
but that was already approved to add a shot clock in all NCAA games for the
following season. Teams didn’t change to
mimic the Wildcats to copy their success.
While the championship game was held in a regular sized college arena
(Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky), it wasn’t the last one to be held in a
non-dome setting as that would not take effect until 1997, as mentioned in the
book.
Those are just a few
examples of how this book was a letdown for me after the title grabbed my
attention. The stories on the two
schools are not even complete – for Villanova, Ed Pickney’s book on the team
gives a more complete picture, while there are several books on this era of
Georgetown basketball and the two main men for the Hoyas that year, Patrick
Ewing and coach John Thompson. If a
reader wants to read on these two schools or this game, those are better
options.
Book Format Read:
Hardcover
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