The year before I’d covered the final Final Four played in a small gym, Kemper Arena, and 1989 was the first year it would be played in a massive gym, the Kingdome in Seattle. The Kingdome has been imploded so if you go the spot where Rumeal Robinson hit the game-winning free throws with three seconds left to lift Michigan to an 80-79 victory over Seton Hall, it will not look quite the same.

But it WILL likely still be raining. As it did all that week of the 1989 Final Four. Nothing against rain. Or the Pacific Northwest. Or against lovely, clean, wet Seattle.

Maybe as the town itself is wonderful but a little different, 1989’s final weekend of basketball was the same.

Seton Hall was down by 18 points to Duke and roared back to win by 17 in a hard-to-watch second half. In the second game of the All-Big 10 semi-final doubleheader, Michigan, beaten by Illinois twice in the regular season, won an 83-81 battle against the Illini, who would finish a healthy 31-5 — but not a national champion.

As it happened in the finals the year before when Danny Manning of Kansas scored off an offensive rebound late to put the exclamation point on an 83-79 victory over Oklahoma—the Sooners had beaten the Jayhawks twice in the regular season—Michigan’s Sean Higgins grabbed a missed three-point shot and scored inside with two seconds left, a knockout blow for the Wolverines against the no-longer-Fightin’ Illini.

Illinois head coach Lou Henson’s team was ranked No. 1 at one point during the season. Henson had led the Illini to seven straight years of tournament play before reaching the Final Four — then lost to team he’d beaten twice during the regular season. Sports. Sigh…

Instead, the 1989 champion would be either Michigan or Seton Hall’s Pirates, coached by the thickly bearded P. J. Carlesimo.

This set up a title game that few if anyone saw coming. Seton Hall of New Jersey has its way with the Big East but was a 3-seed from the WEST Bracket—so the NCAA Committee made them earn it for sure—and Michigan was a 3-seed from the Southeast. And you might remember that the Wolverines were coached by Steve Fisher, who, going into the final against Seton Hall, had been their coach for — give me a second to court — five games. What? Well…

Michigan’s coach during the regular season, Bill Frieder, agreed to take the basketball job at Arizona State for the 1990 season. He told Michigan athletic director Bo Schembechler he’d stay to coach through the tournament. Schembechler said thanks but no thanks, fired him, and hired Fisher. “I don’t want someone from Arizona State coaching the Michigan team,” Schembechler said as Fisher was announced as Michigan’s new coach. “A Michigan man is going to coach Michigan.”

Is that beautiful? A guy always knew where he stood with Schembechler, who understood that spoken communication is a beautiful thing. As was this final game — until the last three seconds.

(If you want to watch a recap—the Phantom Foul is at the 9:30ish mark—go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-sV-0zz93k

Seton Hall guard Gerald Greene was whistled for bumping or holding or breathing on Robinson, who dribbled left to right near the foul line with three seconds left and Michigan down by a point.  Referee John Clougherty, a name known to every college basketball fan of that era because he’d called tons of big games and would call a dozen Final Fours in his Hall of Fame career, quickly made the call from underneath the basket. Greene’s hand had touched Robinson’s hip, but you know how you put your own hand on your hip? It was like that. Only not as hard or aggressive.

It was as if the wind had been called for a foul.

Robinson, who shot the free throws as if he were in his back yard or sitting in an easy chair, made the first to tie and the second to win. A Seton Hall shot from the time line, left side, banked long off the glass at the other end.

And that’s how the 1989 season ended: with a quick whistle and a long miss, and two cool-customer free throws in between.

The last time I saw Rumeal Robinson, he was eating at Outback Steakhouse in Shreveport after a Shreveport Crawdads game. Is that 20 years ago? He looked just as relaxed as the most recent time I’d seen him before that, from my seat to his left along the free throw line, where he sank two with :03 left to win it for Schembechler, for Fisher, and for Michigan men everywhere.

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