College Basketball

20 years ago, 'Allen vs. Allen' gave us a Big East tourney classic

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 6:12 p.m. ET

Aaron Torres

Occasionally in sports we get a game so great, it can simply be described in a few words. The NFL has “The Tuck Rule” game. NBA fans know “The Flu Game.”

College basketball has those games too, and many of the greatest games the sport has seen have come at the Big East Tournament. Every die-hard college basketball fan remembers exactly where they were when Syracuse beat UConn in six overtimes, and for the great runs by Gerry McNamara in 2006 and Kemba Walker a half-decade later.

But for all the talk about the greatest games in Big East history, there is one that often is forgotten yet remains legendary to those who participated in it. It featured eight future NBA Draft picks, two Hall of Fame coaches, one famous last shot, and two of the greatest players to play the sport of basketball.

It was simply known as “Allen vs. Allen” -- the night that Ray Allen’s UConn Huskies, took on Allen Iverson’s Georgetown Hoyas.

As we mark the 20-year anniversary of the game this year (with the 2016 Big East Tournament well underway), FOX Sports tracked down several players and coaches who were involved in the game to share their memories.

*****

Allen Iverson, during the 1996 NCAA tournament.

To this day, the Saturday night Big East Championship game remains one of the toughest tickets to obtain in sports, and if anything, that ticket was tougher in 1996.

By the mid-1990s the Big East had once again established itself as the premiere conference in the sport. The 1995-96 season was especially strong, as Villanova, UConn and Georgetown all began the season ranked in the top five nationally. Syracuse -- which began the year unranked -- was good enough to end up in the Final Four that year as well.

“The Big East was the Southeastern Conference in football today,” former UConn head coach Jim Calhoun said. “And at least in some sense, we were the Alabama. We were starting to beat the Georgetown’s, the Syracuse’s, we were starting to take over with Ray and Donyell before him and Rip Hamilton on the way. It was a great era for us.”

For the first time the title game was broadcast in primetime, and the teams who arrived in that final did little to disappoint. UConn – back-to-back regular season champions with their star Ray Allen in tow -- had won five straight games following an earlier loss at the hands of Georgetown and their explosive star, Allen Iverson. The Hoyas had won four of five since that first game between the teams in Landover, Maryland, a game that served as a watermark for both teams.

The Huskies finished 17-1 that regular season in conference play, with their sole loss coming at the hands of Georgetown, in a game that was never really close. The Hoyas were up 30-12 by the middle of the first half, with their pressure defense forcing 20 UConn turnovers. The Huskies weren’t just flustered. Thanks to Iverson -- who finished with 26 points and eight steals -- and his teammates, they could barely get the ball past half-court.

“To be honest with you I thought they had like 10 people on the court,” UConn senior Rudy Johnson said. “I swore they had more than five people out there. It was so loud, they were going up and down, that was the first team that really, really, had so much energy and was psyched to play us.”

Allen Iverson, Jerome Williams, Kirk King and Rudy Johnson, during Georgetown and UConn's regular-season meeting in Maryland.

With a chance for revenge against Georgetown, the Huskies were clearly fired up. The Hoyas had plenty of motivation too, as it had been seven years since they’d won a Big East title. Add in the raucous crowd, the big stage, and by the time the teams met on Saturday night at the Garden, it felt like a heavyweight prize fight.

“If I remember correctly … it was the 25th anniversary that night, or that weekend, of the Ali-Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden,” former UConn assistant and current Quinnipiac head coach Tom Moore said. “I remember them advertising that on the marquee out front.”

It was indeed the 25th anniversary of “The Fight of the Century,” and on this night UConn threw the first punch. After getting pushed around in the first game, the Huskies wanted to bully the team that had recently bullied them.

“Coach was like ‘You know what, we’re going to do exactly what they did to us the first time,’” Johnson remembered. “‘We’re going to cause havoc, we’re going to run up and down the floor, and let’s see if they can hang with us.’”

In the early part of the game it worked. UConn jumped out to a quick 8-4 lead, and when Ray Allen hit a jumper and was fouled, it gave the Huskies a 31-28 lead going into the under-eight-minute timeout. The shot also gave the Huskies a psychological edge. After Allen was held to 13 points in the first meeting between the teams, he was hot early, with 12 points in the first 11 minutes.

“We went as Ray went,” Johnson said. “Don’t get me wrong, we had other guys on the team, but Ray started everything. We knew that if Ray started making shots (we were in good shape).”

Unfortunately for the Huskies, that confidence was short-lived.

Just as quickly as Allen got hot and UConn built its lead, the Huskies' star went cold, and the Hoyas began to chip away. Georgetown’s defense was again spectacular, and this time, there was more balance to its offense. With Iverson on the bench in foul trouble, several players stepped up, including freshman Victor Page.

“Victor Page, I don’t think people realize, is one of the most talented guys to play in college (during that era),” Joe Touomou, a freshman guard for Georgetown in 1996, said. “Victor could shoot the ball, could handle, was fast. People talk about Allen Iverson’s speed, but Vic was quick like you’ve never seen … In the Big East Tournament, Vic had the best tournament on our team.”

Page didn’t just have a good tournament, but a historic one. He had scored 34 points the night before against Villanova (which to this day remains a freshman record in the Big East Tournament) and would eventually go on to win tournament MVP.

Thanks to Page and others, Georgetown took a 46-42 lead into halftime.

The Hoyas had seized momentum. And taken control of the game.

Jim Calhoun, during UConn and Georgetown's regular-season meeting.

*****

Most everyone on the UConn roster knew what to expect when they returned to the locker room: An angry Jim Calhoun.

Calhoun was never afraid to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but on this night he took a different approach. After getting blown out in the first game against Georgetown, the Huskies were right there with them this time. With a couple small tweaks, they could win the game.

“A lot of times he gets to halftime and he’s motivating us, and he does the screaming and yelling (thing),” Ricky Moore, a freshman guard on that team, said. “In this case, it was all about talking about the things we needed to do better in the second half. It wasn’t a lot of screaming. And I think that in and of itself gave every guy the confidence.”

As it turns out, no one took Calhoun’s message to heart quite like Moore.

The lightning-quick freshman guard (who is currently an assistant with the Huskies) had an important role for UConn in that game, as both the initiator of their up-tempo, attacking offense, and as the primary defender of Iverson on the other end. And for most of the second half Moore played those dual roles brilliantly, at times carrying the Huskies. While veterans like Allen, Travis Knight and Doron Sheffer struggled, it was Moore who put the team on his back with several fast-break baskets and a three in transition. His “and one” bucket with about eight minutes to play sent Iverson to the bench with four fouls.

Ray Allen, in 1995.

Despite Moore’s brilliant play (and Iverson’s foul trouble), the Huskies couldn’t seem to cut into the Hoyas lead as the game wound down. They trailed by seven at the under-eight-minute timeout, and the Hoyas maintained a 74-65 lead with just under four minutes to play.

Once again, it seemed like Georgetown had UConn’s number.

“I can remember looking up at the clock,” Johnson said. “We were down about 10, and I looked up at the clock and there was 3:40 or something left, and I was like ‘We’re going to (expletive) lose.”

UConn would need a rally for the ages, and as it turned out, the Huskies would get it with the help of another, relatively unknown player.

While Ricky Moore had been the catalyst early in the second half, it was junior forward Kirk King who stepped up late. The powerful 6-foot-8 forward was one of the few players who could physically match up with Georgetown and used his bulk to his advantage with four straight points to start the rally. A put-back on a missed Allen jump shot cut the lead to five, as King pumped his fist in the air.

On the other side, Georgetown could feel things slipping away.

Jerome Williams.

“Once we went up, it’s like ‘OK, we’re playing, we’re playing,’ but it wasn’t like momentum,” Georgetown senior forward Jerome Williams said. “It was like, they were chipping away. Now we’re winning but we’re not dominating. And it’s like, ‘Man, will this game just end?’”

It wouldn’t, and the problems continued to mount for the Hoyas.

After a missed Iverson jumper (thanks to strong defense by Moore), the Huskies got the ball back, when Sheffer, a guard, was fouled and made both free throws. The lead was down to three, and when Georgetown missed again on the next possession, the ball fell into Moore’s hands. He burst up-court and attacked the rim but couldn’t quite finish the lay-up. Out of nowhere, King jumped over the Hoyas’ front line to slam it home.

Madison Square Garden went bananas, as the unlikely duo of Moore and King had gotten UConn back in the game. A nine-point deficit with less than four minutes to go had been cut to just one.

“You see it sometimes in big games, Final Four games,” Calhoun said. “Guys just play to the level of the game. And both Ricky and Kirk did that. They stepped up.”

Still, UConn needed one more break. It came on the next possession.

After a quick timeout, Georgetown inbounded the ball. It went to Page, who dribbled toward the basket, before smartly pulling it back out, where he was fouled by Sheffer. Page went to the free throw line for a one-and-one attempt. If he made both, the Hoyas would have a three-point lead. If he made one, Georgetown would be ahead by two.

Instead, Page missed the front end, allowing UConn to grab the ball and call a quick timeout. The Huskies drew up a play, and everyone in the building knew: It was going to Ray Allen. The Huskies inbounded the ball, and Moore set the play in motion with about 20 seconds left on the game clock.

“I had the ball and I knew they were going to try and deny him as much as possible,” Moore said. “So I tried to hang onto the ball as long as possible, and I tried a dribble handoff.”

Moore executed it perfectly, giving the ball to Allen, who dribbled to his right. Johnson moved into the corner ready to catch and shoot if the Georgetown defense collapsed on Allen. If they didn’t, Allen had the shot.

The play went exactly as planned, as Allen turned the corner and saw Jerome Williams closing in on him. He jumped in the air and went to pass, until the very last second, when he saw Williams anticipate it, and jump right into the passing lane.

“He turned the corner, and I saw Jerome Williams floating towards Ray, so I dropped back and I thought he was going to pass it to me,” Johnson said. “But Williams floated back, and Ray looked at me and looked at the goal, and shot the ball. All this happened so fast that I don’t understand how he got that shot off.”

Ricky Moore.

Allen did get the shot off, twisting and contorting his body in mid-air, before throwing the ball at the rim.

Somehow it went in, even if some Georgetown players still can’t believe it.

“I tell Ray Allen to this day, ‘If I wasn’t a pro, you would have never got that shot off,’” Williams said. “Because he was looking to make a pass, and I literally jumped in the passing lane … And he had no place else to throw it, and he throws it at the rim.”

It did in fact go in, but Georgetown had one more shot to win it. Senior center Othella Harrington quickly inbounded the ball to Iverson, who sprinted up the right side of the court, cut to his left and put up a fallaway jumper that hit the side of the rim. Williams grabbed the board, but his bank shot careened off the side of the rim.

The horn sounded, and somehow, UConn had won, having scored the game's final 10 points. Calhoun jumped in the air, as Georgetown’s players stood in stunned disbelief, wondering how they gave away a game that seemed wrapped up minutes before.

Allen -- the hero -- sprinted towards the Huskies bench.

John Thompson.

“Ray Allen came running towards our bench and just sort of like bicycle kicking, running in a full sprint,” assistant coach Tom Moore said. “And one of our managers, Karen Ewald, was a female, she runs out to head towards the court. And right in front of me, Ray decked her. … I mean, he decked her. So she’s trying to get out to the middle of the court, and Ray’s running parallel to the sideline, and Ray just steamrolled her. I just paused for a second to make sure she was alright, and she bounced up like a trooper.”

The moment between Allen and Ewald can be seen on video of the celebration, but as funny as it is in hindsight, it doesn’t take from the importance of the game for UConn. They had avenged the earlier loss to Georgetown and took home a conference title. Short of winning a national championship, there was nothing more important to Calhoun, than protecting your own turf.

“I thought winning a game in the Big East is like winning a fight in your own neighborhood,” Calhoun said. “It’s almost amongst family. … It was so great to beat someone you had so much respect for.”

*****

When Madison Square Garden released a DVD of its “50 Greatest Moments” back in 2006, the Ray Allen shot made the cut, right alongside Knicks championships, the Rangers’ 1994 Stanley Cup win and concerts by Billy Joel, Elton John and Elvis. In 2013, USA Today named “Allen vs. Allen” the third greatest moment in Big East Tournament history, behind only Kemba Walker’s magical run in 2011, and the six overtime Syracuse-UConn game in 2009.

Speaking of that six-overtime game, a man who had a front row seat for both compares them favorably.

“I know we were involved with the six-overtime game, and some great games with Syracuse and Pitt and St. John’s and so on,” Calhoun said. “I’d be hard-pressed, hard-pressed to find a better game (than “Allen vs. Allen”) that said, ‘Hey, this is Big East basketball.’ I believe that.”

The man who opposed him on the other sideline agreed. While John Thompson denied a request to be interviewed for this story, he did release a statement through a Georgetown spokesperson in which he simply said, “It was an all-time classic.” Those are large words coming from a man who won six Big East Tournaments and coached in three Final Fours.

Even some of the players, guys who were part of so many great wins throughout their careers can’t help but look back on that game fondly.

“This is part of Big East history and a lot of people don’t know about it,” UConn’s Rudy Johnson said. “And all the people that participated in it went on and did big things.

“I will forever be in the same story as John Thompson, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Jim Calhoun,” he said. “Any time you pull up that video, I’m there.”

Aaron Torres is a contributor for FOXSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Aaron_Torres or Facebook. E-mail him at ATorres00@gmail.com.