Here are 11 great NCAA Tournament men's basketball games played in Providence
Bill Koch- The Amica Mutual Pavilion will host games on Thursday and Saturday, featuring six contests in the first and second rounds.
- Providence has hosted the tournament 11 times, with memorable moments like Georgetown's dominance and Villanova's thrilling victories.
- The city has witnessed historic upsets, including Yale's win over Baylor in 2016 and Princeton's near-miss against Georgetown in 1989.
PROVIDENCE — Welcome back, old friend.
The men’s basketball version of the NCAA Tournament has been missed around here. The marquee event in college sports includes a rich history in our capital city.
March Madness has come through downtown on 11 previous occasions, starting with a 1975 trip to the Providence Civic Center. The building was less than three years old and opened at the outset of what wound up being a Final Four season for Providence College in 1972-73.
COVID-19 forced a cancellation of the last planned visit to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in 2021. Now the Amica Mutual Pavilion will open its doors for games on Thursday and Saturday, six contests that will come in the first and second rounds of the 68-team field.
What sort of legacy has been created here? We’ve enjoyed the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 in past versions of the tournament. Georgetown has been a frequent visitor, a power in the Big East under late Friars alum John Thompson.
Let’s take a look at 11 games — one from each year the tournament has rolled through downtown — that still leave an impression into this year’s Selection Sunday.
1975- Syracuse 95, Kansas State 87 (OT)
The Orange reached the first of their six Final Fours thanks to a couple of nail-biters downtown. Jim Lee connected on a last-second shot to beat North Carolina in the Sweet 16, and this time it was Rudy Hackett doing the honors. He scored in the paint at the end of regulation to pull Syracuse into a 76-76 tie, deflating the Wildcats ahead of the extra period.
Hackett totaled 28 points and 16 rebounds while Lee added 25 points. Roy Danforth was in his penultimate year as the coach before accepting an offer from Tulane for the 1976-77 season. The Orange promoted assistant Jim Boeheim to replace him, and he won more than 1,000 games at his alma mater before retiring in 2023.
1976 — Rutgers 54, Princeton 53
The Scarlet Knights started their only Final Four run by outlasting a New Jersey rival. The Tigers couldn’t convert at the foul line with four seconds left, squandering a last chance to take the lead.
Eddie Jordan netted 16 points for Rutgers, which forced 16 turnovers to offset 56.1% shooting from Princeton. The Scarlet Knights added wins over Connecticut and Virginia Military Institute before losing to eventual national runner-up Michigan.
Apologies to the Huskies, who upended Massachusetts and Providence in the old ECAC Tournament before edging Hofstra in overtime. Rutgers reaching Philadelphia on the national bicentennial and taking part in a weekend that included the last unbeaten national champion takes the plaudits. Indiana beat the Wolverines and hung the first of Bob Knight’s three title banners in Bloomington.
1978 — Villanova 61, Indiana 60
Duke, as would become the norm, was the villain among the quartet seeking a Final Four berth in St. Louis. The Blue Devils beat the University of Rhode Island by a single point, 63-62, in their Charlotte opener. They hit town barely six weeks after a historic blizzard that shut down the state in early February.
A loss in the national championship game to Kentucky was still down the road for Duke, but the Wildcats and Hoosiers stole the show in the Sweet 16 thanks to some late drama. Rory Sparrow knocked home a jumper inside the final 10 seconds to erase a 60-59 deficit, and Keith Herron collected 23 points to help Villanova send Knight home early.
1979 — Syracuse 89, Connecticut 81
The last game before these two programs became Big East rivals was a high-level thriller. The Orange put five players in double figures while shooting 59.7% from the floor. Louis Orr, the future Providence assistant, chipped in with 18 points before an NBA stint as a player and head coaching time with Siena, Seton Hall and Bowling Green.
Syracuse ran into a Cinderella later on, falling to a Penn team that upset Iona, North Carolina, the Orange and St. John’s on its way to the Final Four. The Quakers were dismissed by the eventual national champion in Salt Lake City, as Magic Johnson and Michigan State dished out a thumping before taking care of Larry Bird and Indiana State in the title game.
1980 — Georgetown 74, Iona 71
This marked Thompson’s first victory in the NCAA Tournament and gave the Hoyas a program record for wins in a season with 25. Craig Shelton hit for 27 points and long-time NBA guard Eric "Sleepy" Floyd chipped in with 21. Thompson made an impression on a certain city kid during that trip and a couple more — he's frequently mentioned by former Providence and current Georgetown coach Ed Cooley as a childhood hero.
The Gaels saw their 17-game winning streak snapped under a coach bound for glory elsewhere. Jim Valvano was a national champion in 1983 at North Carolina State, hired away by the Wolfpack after this defeat. He went 94-45 at Iona and made three more deep runs in Raleigh, reaching a pair of Elite Eights and a Sweet 16.
1981 — BYU 78, UCLA 55
Danny Ainge introduced himself to the region he’d call home for the better part of the next three decades with a masterpiece against the Bruins. He poured in 37 points on 14-for-22 shooting to help the Cougars eventually reach the Elite Eight.
James Madison upset Georgetown, 61-55, and BYU slipped past Princeton, 60-51, in the opening pair of games to set up the next round. The Dukes dropped a 54-45 snoozer against Notre Dame while Ainge followed the 21 points and five assists he posted against the Tigers with something more special. He eventually became an NBA champion as both a blue-collar guard and player personnel executive with the Boston Celtics.
1985 — Georgetown 60, Georgia Tech 54
This season marked the high point for a Big East conference that was still relatively new — three teams in the Final Four, including the top seed out of the East Region.
Patrick Ewing dominated just down the road from his Cambridge home against Loyola Chicago, collecting 21 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots while stopping the Ramblers. Bill Martin did more damage against the Yellow Jackets, totaling 12 points and half of his team’s eight steals while eliminating an ACC power that included future NBA veterans Mark Price and John Salley.
The Hoyas beat St. John’s in the national semifinals in Lexington before suffering a stunning 66-64 loss to Villanova in the title game. The Wildcats shot 78.6% in the game and 9-for-10 in the second half, riding center Ed Pinckney to a crown as a No. 8 seed.
1989 — Georgetown 50, Princeton 49
Time Magazine described this as ‘The Game That Saved March Madness.’ Perhaps a bit extreme just a decade removed from the ratings bonanza that was Michigan State-Indiana State, but it’s a worthwhile debate. It was played on ESPN, a cable network that still wasn’t part of every home or bar television package.
The Tigers were 23-point underdogs as a No. 16 seed, and coach Pete Carril joked they were “a billion to one” shot to win the NCAA Tournament. Princeton held a 49-47 lead inside the final two minutes before Alonzo Mourning knocked down three free throws and came up with a blocked shot that saved the Hoyas from disaster.
We waited another 29 years for that first 1-16 upset — Maryland Baltimore County did the honors against Virginia in a 2018 game shown on the Turner family of sports networks. CBS — which later partnered with TNT, TBS and TruTV — agreed to a seven-year deal worth $1 billion for full broadcast rights by the close of 1989. We’ll have satellite, cable, streaming and any other multimedia option under the sun available to us should another such game take place this spring.
1996 — Massachusetts 79, Stanford 74
Check the NCAA record book and you won’t find this game. The Minutemen were stripped of this victory and an ensuing Final Four appearance after star forward Marcus Camby was found to have accepted an alleged $40,000 in improper gifts from an agent.
That’s not how the mind works, of course. We can’t forget John Calipari flipping the coffee table on the sport’s established order, feuding with the likes of Temple coach John Chaney and then-Kentucky coach Rick Pitino. UMass fell to the Wildcats in the national semifinals after smacking Arkansas and Georgetown along the way.
2010 — Villanova 73, Robert Morris 70 (OT)
Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher scratched from the starting lineup was the first clue. The Wildcats were in for a long afternoon against the Colonials, who just about pulled off a shocker as a 17.5-point underdog. Robert Morris coach Mike Rice used this appearance as a springboard to the Rutgers job, a tenure that ultimately ended in allegations of verbally and physically abusing players and his firing in 2013.
Reynolds buckled down from the free-throw line in the extra period to help Villanova escape. They weren’t so lucky in the next round, shoved aside by Saint Mary’s and denied a berth in the Sweet 16. Omar Samhan became an instant star with the Gaels, a big man with game and personality to spare.
Georgetown was run out of the gym by Ohio to open the night doubleheader, a 3-14 matchup that was an unexpected 97-83 cruise. John Thompson III was in the midst of a downward slide that saw him eventually forced out of the job his father once held and Greg Monroe was off to the NBA Draft lottery after one college season.
Did we mention Kawhi Leonard and San Diego State lost to Bruce Pearl and Tennessee in the last of four games on the opening day? Wonder whatever happened to those guys.
2016 — Yale 79, Baylor 75
The Bulldogs captured their first Ivy League title since 1962 and had no intention of making it a short stay in March. Makai Mason was electric with 31 points and the tandem of Justin Sears and Brandon Sherrod helped Yale win the battle on the glass against a Big 12 opponent.
Duke and a cadre of future NBA players — Brandon Ingram, Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard and Marshall Plumlee among them — stopped the Bulldogs one step shy of the Sweet 16. Miami advanced alongside the Blue Devils, with former Providence guard Jim Larrañaga celebrating in his college home city. Duke and the Hurricanes were both eliminated in the next round by Oregon and eventual champion Villanova, respectively.
Some other notable names in Providence nine years ago — Buffalo coach Nate Oats (Alabama), UNC-Wilmington coach Kevin Keatts (North Carolina State), Wichita State guards Fred Van Vleet and Ron Baker and current Connecticut coach Dan Hurley. He was in the front row as a spectator alongside URI guard EC Matthews, who played for Oats at a Detroit high school and for Hurley with the Rams. Matthews and Hurley reached the NCAA Tournament in each of the next two years, a golden era in Kingston that also included Atlantic 10 Tournament and regular-season titles.
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Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct an omission. Providence also hosted the tournament in 1975.