The Last Time Northeastern Made the NCAA Tournament …
After 24 years, Northeastern is going dancing.
The Northeastern University men’s basketball team topped William & Mary on Monday night to capture the Colonial Athletic Association championship. More importantly, the Huskies clinched their first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 1991.
Much has changed since the last time the Huskies played a role in March Madness. Back then, the 16-seeded Huskies lost by the not-so-close score of 101-66 to perennial power North Carolina in the opening round. They’re not any more likely to win it all this time around, but given the increasing parity in college basketball, you never know how they’ll fare. Here’s a look at what was different the last time NU was in the tourney.
— The most famous player in Northeastern history, Reggie Lewis, was in his fourth season with the Celtics. Lewis would make his first All-Star team a year later.
— The most famous coach in Northeastern history, Jim Calhoun, was in his sixth season at UConn and eight years from winning the first of his three National Championships.
– The second most famous player in Northeastern history, veteran NBA guard J.J. Barea (now in his second tour with the Dallas Mavericks) was 8 years old.
— Boston University still had a football team.
— The Red Sox were still cursed. In 1991, they came in second in the AL East, starting a stretch in which they missed the playoffs six times in seven years.
– The Patriots improved from 1-15 in 1990 to 6-10 in 1991 under first-year coach Dick MacPherson. They would drop back to 2-14 a year later, paving the way for Bill Parcells’ arrival in Foxborough.
— The No. 1 movie at the U.S. box office was The Silence of the Lambs.
— Nirvana played WFNX’s 8th Birthday Party concert at old Landsdowne Street club Axis the night before their seminal album “Nevermind’’ was released.
— The Bruins reached their third confrence final in four years
— Construction on The Big Dig began.
— Hurricane Bob blasted Massachusetts, the worst storm of its kind to hit the Bay State since Hurricane Carol in 1954. Bob’s impact would spawn the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, and the film adaptation starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.
— Operation: Desert Storm began in January.
— Four Los Angeles police officers were charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King.
— The Exxon corporation paid $1 billion in fines for its involvement in the Valdez oil spill
— The No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart was “Someday’’ by Mariah Carey.
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