1992 Sweet 16 Tigers driven by coach, unselfish play

It was a long 37 years.

There were 10 regional championship game defeats.

There was the disappointing 61-60 regional finals loss by the 1985 state-ranked Tigers to a St. Bede team they beat by 20 points the week before.

And there was one lone regional champion in 1986.

Then came the 1991-92 season. The Princeton Tigers, who had just one returning starter, came out of nowhere to end that long sectional dry spell dating back to the 1954-55 season with a thrilling last-second, 54-53 victory over the Mendota Trojans. That long awaited sectional championship on March 6, 1992, brought sheer Prouty Pandemonium to the home crowd.

It has been 25 years since that Sweet 16 season. Here’s a look back at that 1991-92 season that put Princeton Tiger basketball back on the map, building the foundation for following champions to come.

“That was something that hadn’t been done for so long. Winning a regional was a big deal,” said former Tiger coach Roger Lowe, who coached at PHS from 1987-92. “Anyone who has ever won a championship will tell you the first one is the hardest. You had to make sure your kids believe they could do it, and we preached that every day.”

The word that best describes the 1991-92 Tigers is unselfish. They are the most unselfish team that I’ve witnessed in my 33 years as a sportswriter.

To a man, the players were all about the team and nothing but the team. That was preached day in and day out by their leader, Lowe, who was as driven and as passionate coach as one will find.

“It was the most unselfish team I ever coached, everybody sacrificing personal gains for the team success,” Lowe said. “We assisted on 70 percent on our baskets made. That just proves how unselfish they were. Everybody embraced a role, knew what their roles were and embraced them. It was all 14 for one.”

They were so unselfish, that every man on the team accepted their roles, from star player Matt McDonald down to the last man on the bench.

They were so unselfish that McDonald, who everyone would have bet the farm would take the shot with the game on the line, instead passed off to unsung hero and teammate Jeff Ohlson. Ohlson was a starter at the beginning of the season, but saw his minutes drop considerably at the end. Still, he was the guy Lowe wanted in the game at the end.

“Who did I have the faith in at the end of the game? Ohly,” Lowe said. “Any Indian can start a game, but it takes a warrior to finish one.”

Ohlson, known these days as the assistant principal and activities director at PHS, calmly hit the first free throw with two seconds remaining to lift the Tigers to victory.

No one remembers 25 years later that Ohly missed the second free throw, and it sure doesn’t matter, because one was all it took. He never shot at that hoop again for 24 years, preserving the ‘92 moment, he said, until last year’s alumni game when he again made a free throw at the end.

Scott Matthews, who is now Director of Graphic Design for the University of Oklahoma Department of Intercollegiate Athletics, says today as he did then, that it was only fitting to have his teammate “Ohly” shoot the game-winning free throw.

“Ohly comes out with all the pressure in the world and sinks the game-winning free throw. It may have been his only shot all game. It was special because he was such a good guy, so unassuming and team-oriented,” Matthews said. “If there was anyone on the team who deserved to make that free throw, it was him.”

McDonald was the lone returning starter from the 1990-91 regional finalists, who lost to Hall. He was the big gun, averaging 19.3 ppg, but a team player at heart, Lowe said.

“We had the one equalizer in Matt McDonald, who could score against anybody,” Lowe said. “Mac could have scored 30 points a game, I’m convinced of that. But he was willing to share the glory for the betterment of the team.”

Seniors Tim Marquis and Matthews were the “defensive stoppers” and classmate Scott Ross, the “ball handler,” Lowe says. Sophomore Matt Mestan was the “guy who got rebounds,” while juniors Jay Ferguson and Jason Zbrozek and Ohlson played key roles off the bench.

Both Marquis, the second leading scorer (8.9 ppg) and rebounder (5.9) and Ross were B team players in junior high and freshman years and worked their way into key roles for a sectional champion team.

Lowe says he remembers driving by Ross’ house and there were not many times he wasn’t out shooting or working on his ball-handling.

Lowe also highly praises the reserves in seniors Peter Henning, Chad Mitchell, Darren Ferguson and Tim Russell, and juniors Steve Schultz, Ted Schwarz, “who every single night in practice made us better and that’s why we got good.”

The Tigers started the season 6-0 before losing to a very good Dunlap team, which returned much talent from the super-sectionals the year before, by just one point. Despite the loss, Lowe said he knew then he had a very good team on his hands.

Ohlson points back to a big 62-55 win at Rock Falls right after Christmas as a proving point.

“No one picked us to win or gave us a thought we could win that game, and we went in and played team selfless basketball like coach had instilled into us daily and won,” he said.

Ross, however remembers a game, that was not a good one, a 66-48 loss at Ottawa’s Kingman Gym, and the moments following that kept the Tigers on course. Ross said the team fully expected Lowe, whom he describes as a “master motivator who frequently challenged us as young men to be better,” to give them pretty good talking to.

What happened, instead, was “courageous tenderness,” he said. Ross remembers how “Coach simply and powerfully told us he loved us. In that moment, we became a true team. In that moment, we became true men.”

Few fans may recall the Tigers had a big scare in their very first regional game with Henry. They were up 12 and Lowe subbed out with a minute and half to go, wanting to rest his team that was fighting much sickness. The Mallards caught fire, hitting three 3s and got within two, forcing Lowe to quickly get his starters back in.

The Tigers held on for a 55-52 win and Lowe says “we were lucky” to win.

Next came a tough Hall team on its homecourt, who beat the Tigers by 10 (52-42) just 10 days before. The game was tied late at 45 with McDonald hitting two free throws and Marquis making four and Zbrozek taking a charge, receiving the team’s coveted Purple Heart, to seal the 51-45 regional title win.

Lowe and players say beating Hall was a huge barrier to break.

“To me beating Hall in the regional championship on their floor to avenge the loss in the prior year’s blowout in the championship game was pretty huge,” Darren Ferguson said.

“That team was extremely good and of course (we had) the rivalry. It was a great win for the program that night,” said McDonald, whose son Cam attends Hall today.

The Tigers put it all together against the Western Rams, posting a 64-41 win in the sectional semifinals in what he thought was their “most complete” game of the year.

Next came the Mendota Trojans of Mike Kilmartin, an offensive juggernaut, who had averaged 85 points in its last two postseason games. The teams battled to the very end with Olson’s free throw sending the Tigers to that elusive sectional crown.

Off to old Chick Evans Fieldhouse on the campus of Northern Illinois, the Tigers met Elgin St. Edward in the DeKalb Super-Sectional for the right to advance to state in Champaign. Lowe said the Tigers had never seen anything like the Green Wave before.

“They spread you out and were quicker than us at every position,” Lowe said.

The Green Wave also had a big gun in Chris Payne, who fired in 41 points with seven 3-pointers. He had 39 points in the sectional championship with nine 3-pointers.

Still the Tigers led 52-50 near the end of third quarter and trailed just 54-52 at the end of three. It was a five-point game (71-66) with under two minutes to play, but the Tigers had to foul late. The Green Wave enjoyed a free-throw parade, scoring their last 17 points from the charity stripe and making 33-40 overall.

PHS outscored St. Edward by 11 points from the field.

“If Buda Western was our best game, that super-sectional was our second best game. I thought we played great. We played a good game that night, we just couldn’t guard the free-throw line,” said Lowe, who then and now says it was a well-officiated game.

Lowe said he has never watched film of that game nor does he plan to.

“I still have it. It’s VHS, so I don’t know if it’ll play,” he said.

The best symbol of the team’s unity were the crew cuts the Tigers fashioned after winning regional.

“Somebody said they would get a crew cut if we won the game. I kind of laughed it off until I saw my brother and Jason Zbrozek at our house with theirs the next morning. I was like “Man, this is serious!” Darren Ferguson said.

“I vividly remember coach grinning ear to ear seeing everyone show up at the next practice with their new do’s. It was the epitome of everything he preached brought to life and he hadn’t even suggested that we do it.”

Apparently senior Peter Henning hadn’t got the memo yet about the hair cuts, Ferguson recalls, and got sent for a little extra shooting before practice.

The super-sectional game would be the last one Lowe would ever coach at PHS. He was dismissed shortly after the end of the season for what was then said to be his “in the face discipline.” He had no desire to coach again, remaining on the PHS teaching staff until retiring in 2012.

His life lessons remain with his players today.

“I’ve ever met someone that was as prepared and dedicated as coach Lowe was for the team and his passion goes without saying for basketball,” McDonald said.

“We were largely a team of role players led by a coach who pushed us every day to be successful,” Mestan said.

“Coach Lowe, whom I credit as the most influential person in my life outside of my family, taught me to see life with new eyes,” Ross said.

Kevin Hieronymus is the BCR Sports Editor. He was the freshman B coach at PHS during the 1991-92 season and before. Contact him at khieronymus@bcrnews.com.