A Redlands Connection is a concoction of sports memories emanating from a city that once numbered less than 20,000 people. From pro football’s Super Bowl to baseball’s World Series, from dynamic soccer’s World Cup to golf’s and tennis’ U.S. Open, major auto racing, plus NCAA Final Four connections, Tour de France cycling, more major tennis like Wimbledon, tiny connections to that NBA and a little NHL, major college football, Kentucky Derby, aquatics and Olympic Games, that sparkling little city sits around halfway between Los Angeles and Palm Springs on Interstate 10. Imagine an NCAA Division I basketball powerhouse showing up to play tiny University of Redlands.
Villanova University’s Allan Ray hit for 38 points, Randy Foye had 25, Will Sheridan 23 and Mike Nardi had 19 in its 114-103 triumph over hosting University of Redlands. This game? Unreal. That date was Nov. 22, 2003.
Villanova University’s Allan Ray hit for 38 points, teammate Randy Foye added 25 with Will Sheridan’s 23 and Mike Nardi hit 19 in its 114-103 triumph over hosting University of Redlands. This game? Unreal. That date was Nov. 22, 2003.
Repeat that: Major NCAA Division I well-scholarshipped basketball team was taking on an NCAA Division III, non-scholarship program inside a small, very old gymnasium well over an hour away from, say, UCLA or USC or even Pepperdine.
Amir Mazarei kicked off his Redlands collegiate career with 15 points. He was only part of Redlands’ counter-attack against Villanova on that 2003 date.
Redlands, playing its up-tempo defensive and offensive brand of organized mayhem, led 50-49 at halftime and really put a scare into those one-time 1985 NCAA champions. It was a game that included six ties and five lead changes.
Afterward, Wildcats’ coach Jay Wright reflected that Redlands “put the scare into us.”
“They should’ve been scared,” said Bulldog coach Gary Smith, moments afterward. Redlands’ longtime coach, who uniformed up to play between 1961-64, had a full game plan to throw out against these Wildcats.
Eventually, Mazarei became Redlands’ all-time leading scorer, even leading the entire NCAA – that’s D-1 through D-3 – with an average of 6.2 three-point field goals a game in 2005. That 2003-2004 season, he was second in Division 3 at 28.6 points a game.
Smith, for his part, rotated his much larger roster in and out of that game against the eight-man Wildcats’ squad. Villanova needed every ounce of skill and discipline to knock off the physically smaller Bulldogs.
“I started my career coaching at Division 3 University of Rochester,” said Wright, “so I know how good those players are – very skilled, very talented. They maybe aren’t as big or as athletic.”
Redlands’ Donald Brady remembered his first play in that game, “coming down the court with Randy Foye guarding me. He deflected a pass. I couldn’t believe how quick he was. Luckily, someone came up with it. I almost committed a turnover.”
Villanova had more turnovers, 23, than Redlands’ 18.
Redlands led by 10 points with nine minutes left. Ray hit a pair of difficult baseline jumpers, eight-footers that helped lift the Wildcats.
“We missed a lot of lay-ups,” said Redlands’ Carson Sofro, whose team shot 36 percent to Villanova’s sizzling 63 percent.
“We might’ve had the advantage on talent,” Wright told me afterward, “but you and I know that. It doesn’t matter what a coach tells his players. What matters is what they hear.”
So why Redlands? Villanova had been penalized with six games off a pre-season violation from players. Those players sat out three games one season earlier, then needed to sit out three more in 2003.
“We’ve got a tournament in Hawaii,” Wright told me, “so we’ve got to get our players cleared so they could all play.”
Funny note. It was a previous season when a dozen Villanova players were suspended over unauthorized use of its university telephone card. Punishment? They played just five for all but two minutes of a game against Georgetown in a Big East tournament matchup.
The Hoyas won, 46-41.
In a far less important game, the Wildcats beat Redlands.
In that game, Derek Flegel and Billy Shivers combined on 51 Redlands’ points. Ryan Pelo netted six. Brady and Sofro barely saw action.
Flegel hit a game-opening three-pointer, lifting his smallish-gym’s capacity crowd to its feet. “The place erupted,” said Sofro, “after he hit that shot.”
That Currier Gym crowd was ready for anything.
In a way, I guess some of Redlands’ players were saying, it might’ve been an honor to lose such a game.
Fast forward some 27 months: Those Wildcats, at times ranked No. 2 in their 2005-2006 season, were a No. 1 seed in the following year’s NCAA Tournament.
Villanova, coached by Wright, led the Wildcats to national championships in 2016 and 2018. Now that Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski and Bobby Knight are no longer coaching, Wright may well be considered college hoops’ top current coach – Kansas’ Bill Self, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Michigan’s Tom Izzo, among others, also included in that list.
None of those coaches showed up in Redlands, like Wright did, fighting off those Bulldogs.
Baker Dunleavy, son of then-Los Angeles Clippers’ coach Mike Dunleavy, was a 6-5, red-shirt junior — held scoreless at Redlands in a limited role.
The Wildcats (18-17 in 2003-2004) failed to reach that season’s NCAA Tournament field, eventually losing to Rutgers in the NIT quarterfinals.
“They’ve come a long way,” said Brady, a couple years later, “since they played us.”
Redlands finished 8-14 overall in 2003-2004, fifth in that season’s Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
“A lot of us became Villanova fans after we played them,” said Mazarei, adding with a chuckle, “If they beat someone (like Duke or North Carolina), it makes us look better.”
Off that 2003-2004 Villanova team that took on Redlands, Nardi, Ray and Sheridan were still playing when Villanova lost to Florida in Elite Eight play two seasons later.
Foye, a 6-4 senior, and Ray, a 6-2 senior, were Villanova’s top scorers at 20.3 and 18.9 points a game. Nardi, 6-2, a junior, who had 13 assists against Redlands, averaged 11 ½ points. Sheridan, a 6-foot-8 junior, netted five points a game.
In 2005-2006, Villanova, ranked No. 2 behind Duke heading into a Big East loss at Connecticut, was 22-2 after that game. Wright’s team was gunning for an NCAA Tournament championship to cap that season’s March Madness.
Foye was a No. 1 pick in the 2006 NBA draft by Boston, but started his career in Minnesota. Ray’s full NBA career began in Boston.
And A Redlands Connection was struck forever.
