Achieving Madness: Troy’s 2003 Tournament Run

Thomas Gleaton November 2, 2022November 2, 2022

Troy basketball has a history of postseason appearances, from the 1950s NAIA tournament to the 1993 D-II championship run, but its modern success is sparse by comparison.

Coaches Cross and Cunningham have each led Troy to the postseason. Cross’s current Trojans are certainly primed for more action, but Cunningham managed a feat only the legendary Don Maestri accomplished once: a spot in the Madness.

Ten years after the D-II championship loss, Maestri pushed the Trojans farther than ever… by just getting into the Big Dance.

The Trojans’ first few years at the D-I level missed the mark on success, mostly due to a mandatory eight-year postseason ban. The Trojans cracked .500 once in the first six years.

Though the ban seems pointless, it no doubt impacted recruiting in that time.

Troy never let up, though. Maestri worked to get back on the winning side, and eventually it worked.

In 2000, Troy State took home the A-Sun regular season championships, falling in the conference tournament. The next year, the Trojans made it to the conference title game, falling to Georgia State 79-55.

In 2002, Troy again took the regular season crown… then lost to rival Jacksonville State 69-62 in the conference tournament.

Courtesy: Montgomery Advertiser archives

That 2002 loss was particularly painful. The Trojans beat the Gamecocks in both previous meetings, including one just five days before.

Coach Maestri said that loss was “worse, much worse” than the 2000 loss.

“We have a very outstanding basketball team, and this league is tougher than it was two years ago,” Maestri told the Anniston Star at the time. “We had high expectations — which you normally have when you have a good team.”

Over the summer, that good team lost three massive pieces to graduation, at least when it comes to experience:

Robert Rushing, first-team all-conference
Lamayn Wilson, first-team all-conference
Donnie Pemberton, a four-year letterman

That October, despite returning starters Ben Fletcher and LaCedrick Pettway, as well as six other players with significant playing time, Maestri himself saw 2002-03 as a rebuilding year, at least initially.

“We have a very difficult schedule in front of us,” He told the Montgomery Advertiser. “We lost a lot of talent from last year’s team and we’re not going to be able to replace that overnight. With all the games on the road, it gives our team a chance to get experience playing on the road early in the year.”

In order to make up for the lost experience, the Trojans added four players from the JuCo ranks, including Eddie Baker, Greg Davis and Kendrick Johnson. Maestri made it clear these guys had to step up.

“Three of them have to play immediately, and need to play 20-plus minutes every game,” Maestri told the Advertiser in November.

Whatever the case, the whole team bought in. Troy State started the season 6-1, losing to Southern Miss the day before Thanksgiving.

More importantly, Troy took down Arkansas, who was two years removed from an SEC conference title, and fresh off four-straight tournament appearances.

“This is a big win for our kids and our program,” Maestri said. “When you play against a team in the Southeastern Conference, you know you have to play very well to compete….

“We beat a good basketball program from one of the top conferences in the nation.”

Ben Fletcher scored 23 in the 74-66 win. He said one of Troy’s heartbreaking defeats on the football field inspired them.

Just a few weeks before, the Troy football team lost to Utah State. Troy led 16-7 at halftime, but a touchdown and a field goal in the last three minutes of the game sent them to overtime.

A field goal gave the Aggies the win.

“We learned from watching the football team’s game against Utah State,” Fletcher told the Advertiser. “You never let up. You never think you’re going to win until you actually do. That’s our philosophy.

“No matter how far you’re behind or how far you’re ahead, the game’s not over until the final buzzer sounds.”

Losses to Georgia Tech and Auburn put Troy State at 9-3 in the 2002 calendar year.

Then conference play came.

The Trojans did not let up.

The Trojans lost five games the entire regular season, something they hadn’t done since that 1993 D-II title run.

Troy State cracked CollegeInsider’s Mid Major Poll Top Ten. ESPN called the Trojans a “Cinderella in waiting.”

They didn’t care, though. The final buzzer hadn’t sounded.

“We haven’t talked about our ranking or winning a conference championship one time,” Maestri told the Advertiser. “We just tell them to try to keep improving, and that’s what they’ve done.”

Come March, winning a conference championship was the task at hand, and Mercer was the team to beat.

The season before that would’ve seemed ridiculous. The Bears won just 6 games in 2002, but in 2003, that was the number in the loss column.

Their 17-game turnaround was the largest in D-I history at the time.

Despite tying the in-season series and splitting the regular season crown, Mercer was awarded the top seed.

Then UCF got hot, upset the Bears and met the surging Trojans in the conference championship.

Troy was prepared, if not jet-lagged. The Trojans played the night game against host Georgia State, winning on a 15-0 run with less than seven minutes remaining.

The title game was the next morning.

That same scenario played out ten years earlier when Troy made it to the D-II National Championship. The Trojans lost the title 85-72.

“We were dead the next day,” Former Trojan Brian Simpson said, recalling the game with the Advertiser. “Our legs were shot. Every three we took was short.”

Simpson watched the game right behind his successors on the bench. Advertiser Editor Tom Ensey noted “Simpson wasn’t cheering the last four minutes.”

That’s because the Trojans never let up.

Troy State followed its 15-0 run in the previous game with a 14-4 start to the A-Sun title game. In the second half, that score ballooned into a 17-point lead.

Then Troy started letting up, milking the clock. Of course, with a minute left to play, UCF cut that lead down to six.

By that point, UCF was forced to foul, but the Trojans sank 7 of their 10 free throws with less than 90 seconds to play.

The Trojans didn’t forget the Utah State lesson. They fought through the final buzzer, never trailed, won the conference title and earned their first trip to the Big Dance.

“Simpson didn’t relax until the final seconds dribbled off the clock,” Ensey wrote. “Then he wiped his eyes and smiled.”

Everyone associated with Troy State smiled.

The epilogue is of course, Troy lost to Xavier 71-59. Xavier got out to an early lead, and Troy’s second-half charge wasn’t enough to complete the comeback.

At the time, the players were hoping to play Cinderella, but Maestri said the goal was the same as it was from the get-go.

“We didn’t have any expectations about how this season would go,” Maestri said before the Xavier game. “We had two goals. First, we wanted to improve each week. That’s still our goal today.