Chaos Won This ‘Game of Century’

They played the first half with a girls’ ball. The first jumpshot sailed three feet over the backboard. Passes ended up in the stands.

It took 2 1/2 hours to play, with 53 fouls--107 free-throw attempts, 67 missed--four technical fouls, one coach ejected, one dim bulb and one TKO.

And this was the Game of the Century?

On Saturday night, March 15, 1986, a crowd of 12,390 filed into the Los Angeles Sports Arena to watch Crenshaw and Mater Dei decide the Southern California Regional boys’ basketball championship.

The winner would earn more than a spot in the state championship game against the Northern California Regional champion the following Saturday in Oakland.

Crenshaw, the defending state champion, came in with a 23-2 record. The Cougars called themselves the “1985 World Champions” after winning a high school tournament in Denmark that season.

Mater Dei was 30-0. The Monarchs had won 59 consecutive games, spanning two full seasons, but missed the 1984-85 regionals when the Southern Section voted against participating in the state playoffs. They were second-ranked in USA Today’s national poll and had a chance to move to No. 1 after top-ranked Simeon High of Chicago was beaten in the Illinois State Tournament the week before.

“It’s a game we’ve been looking forward to all year,” Mater Dei Coach Gary McKnight said then. “This is the state championship. The one in Oakland is just token.”

And maybe on another night, in another arena, in another city, the Crenshaw-Mater Dei game would have been, as McKnight predicted, “the game of the century.”

Instead there was chaos.

No one could have known it would be that way. The game featured an all-star cast.

Mater Dei’s McKnight and Crenshaw’s Willie West are still considered two of the Southland’s best coaches.

The starting lineups were a who’s-who of high school basketball in 1986.

For Crenshaw: Stephen Thompson went on to play at Syracuse, Dion Brown to the University of Washington, Ronald Caldwell to Washington and later Cal State Fullerton and Troy Batiste to San Jose State.

For Mater Dei: LeRon Ellis went first to Kentucky then joined Thompson at Syracuse, Tom Peabody to Loyola Marymount, John Mounce to Southern California College, Jim Dwyer to Columbia and Stu Thomas to Stanford and then Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The referees were highly respected--going into the game at least.

Simon Peters was joined by John Starkins, a former Marshall High standout who once held the City Section single-season scoring record.

But trouble was brewing well before the tipoff.

The preceding girls’ game between Lynwood and Point Loma started late, then went to overtime, ending at almost 9 p.m. After a lengthy awards ceremony, Crenshaw and Mater Dei finally took the floor to begin their warm-ups.

In their haste to get the boys’ game going, someone apparently forgot to substitute a boys’ game ball; the girls’ ball is an inch smaller in circumference and two ounces lighter.

“Jim Dwyer goes to shoot from the left wing, and it goes about three feet over the basket,” McKnight said recently. “Stu Thomas is shooting a free throw (an airball) and tells the ref, ‘Hey, I think there’s something wrong with the ball.’ The ref says, ‘Shut up.’ ”

Said Dwyer: “It was like playing with a balloon.”

But McKnight and West had greater concerns than the ball.

Almost immediately, every whistle from Peters and Starkins brought a barrage of screaming from the benches. Every call seemed to require some explanation, first to one bench then the other. Shuttle diplomacy replaced the fast break.

“It was Simon Peters’ (fault),” McKnight remembers. “Every call was a major discussion. But I don’t remember all of it. I was asked to leave.”

Early in the first half, McKnight stormed onto the court to yell at Starkins--while the ball was in play--resulting in technical foul No. 1.

No. 2 came just before halftime when McKnight again went on the court to scream at Starkins. No 3 came late in the fourth quarter. Angered by yet another call, McKnight tossed a towel into the air and caught it.

“Exit stage right,” McKnight said.

He watched, or rather heard, the rest of the game from beneath the stands.

“I shouldn’t have lost control,” McKnight said. “It was ridiculous on my part.”

West did not escape the officials’ wrath, picking up a technical for arguing a procedural point in the first half.

“There was just too much talking,” West said the next day. “But the referees left a lot of things to be answered.”

The biggest question was the small ball.

McKnight was told by Peters and Starkins at halftime. “(That) was ridiculous,” McKnight said.

West had no idea until a reporter told him Sunday afternoon. “Really?” he said. “That might explain the way we shot in the first half.”

The ball was replaced for the start of the third quarter. But other questions lingered. And there were no immediate answers.

Early on, Dwyer pounced on a loose ball and came up with elbows swinging, catching Thompson flush on the jaw. Thompson reeled from the free-throw line, where he’d been hit, to the baseline, where he collapsed.

After several minutes on the Cougar bench with a trainer waving smelling salts under his nose, Thompson returned.

“I was out,” he would say later. “I didn’t know where I was.”

No foul was called.

Late in the game, the Mater Dei assistants, having taken over for McKnight, decided to substitute for a tired Mounce while Monarch Kevin Rembert prepared to shoot the second of two free throws.

Mike O’Connor ran to the scorer’s table to check in, but Peters stopped him. Peters then visited both benches before allowing O’Connor to enter. Rembert made the free throw, and the buzzer sounded again.

It was Mounce, who by then had caught his breath and was ready to replace O’Connor. Peters waved him into the game.

But the rule book says he couldn’t. Play hadn’t resumed. And Crenshaw’s bench screamed at Peters and Starkins.

Finally, after five minutes more, it was decided Mounce would have to wait until the next dead ball to enter.

Later, with 1 minute 25 seconds left in overtime and Crenshaw leading, 56-55, players dived on a loose ball on Mater Dei’s end of the court, and a held ball was called.

Heads turned toward the scorer’s table where the possession arrow was pointing toward . . . nowhere. It had been turned off.

Ugh.

A groan rose from the crowd.

Quickly somebody flipped the switch back on, showing Mater Dei ball . . . which was incorrect.

More screaming from the Crenshaw bench. More high-level meetings at the scorer’s table.

Finally, the ball was properly awarded to Crenshaw.

Somewhere along the line, some pretty good basketball was played.

Crenshaw, behind the great leaping ability of Thompson and Brown, ran out to an early lead. Brown’s dunk off a lob from Batiste put the Cougars up, 18-9.

But led by O’Connor, who hadn’t played in more than a month because of a groin injury, Mater Dei rallied.

Finally, with McKnight pacing the corridor out of sight, Mater Dei pulled even. Two free throws by Ellis with six seconds left sent the game into overtime.

But three free throws by Batiste, who’d missed all seven of his field goal attempts, clinched an uneasy 59-57 victory for Crenshaw.

Later, McKnight addressed his tearful players in a postgame meeting. It had been two years since Mater Dei had lost, and this was an especially tough one to take.

But in the midst of the emotional scene, Peabody’s mind was elsewhere.

“I guess this really isn’t that important right now,” he said to no one in particular, “but has anyone seen my jacket?”

It was that kind of night.