1989 NCAA Tournament interviews with Pete Carril and Bob Scrabis

March 17, 1989 is the date of one of the most famous first round NCAA Tournament games of all time – 16 seed Princeton’s one point loss to top-ranked powerhouse Georgetown.

While the contest has only grown in legend since it was played, re-airing hundreds of times on ESPN Classic and being called “The Game That Saved March Madness” by Sports Illustrated, the following recordings have been heard by only an exclusive few since original broadcast.

From WPRB’s transmission of this famous game, here are pre-game interviews with senior captain Bob Scrabis and head coach Pete Carril.

Both were taped between Selection Sunday and the Tigers’ trip to Providence.

Pete Carril interview:

 

Bob Scrabis interview:

 

With 25 years of hindsight, it is fascinating to hear the discussion with both men of the Ivy League’s chance of losing its automatic tournament bid, or the possibility that Carril would leave Princeton after the 1988-89 season was over.

Also from the same reel-to-reel, enjoy Michael Braun’s detailed, well-researched review of Princeton’s prior NCAA tournament appearances (starts a few sentences in).

“The Most Significant Princeton Tigers NCAA Contests”:

 

Audio courtesy princetonbasketball.com.

Finally, here’s a Sports Illustrated multi-media piece about the game, plus the original ESPN broadcast in its entirety norsk automater.

 

Oh, and that’s my original ticket stub from the game at the top of this post!

Jon Solomon