Giant Killers on the Court: Troy Basketball’s Power Five Wins
2001 Mississippi State.
2004 Missouri.
2007 Oklahoma State.
2017 LSU.
2018 Nebraska.
Troy fans know the football team’s Power Five wins like the back of their hand. Those wins have a page in the media guide and a wall in the football facility.
But what about Troy’s basketball team? The Trojans have played out of their league many times, even before making the postseason.
It’s just a bit trickier in hoops; on the one hand, Troy has been Division I longer than it’s been FBS. On the other, the “Power 5” title has less standing in basketball.
Still, there are six real “Power Five” wins In Troy’s portfolio. They go back beyond the Division II football championships, beyond the Don Maestri era, and beyond the Reagan administration.
Wes Bizilia became Troy’s fourth head coach in 1973, the Trojans’ third season in the Gulf South Conference and its third season with the name “Trojans.”
Bizilia’s Trojans put together 34 wins in two seasons, dropped to a one-loss season because of a dumb forfeit, then struggled to get above 10 wins for the rest of his tenure.
Troy State put SEC and ACC teams on the pre-conference schedule those years, and that included Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Florida State and a few games against Georgia Tech.
The Trojans went into the 1980 calendar year with a 2-4 record before doubling that win total and adding just a single loss. Georgia Tech welcomed Troy to Atlanta, having won the previous two seasons.
The Yellow Jackets had also enjoyed double-digit win totals the past five years, as they bounced around conferences. Tech’s first year in the ACC was a total flop, picking up just eight wins.
That didn’t include Troy.
The Trojans escaped Atlanta with a 10-point win, evening their record and eventually only winning four conference games. That’s four times as many as Tech head coach Dwayne Morrison had before he was fired.
He couldn’t conquer the Trojans though.
Georgia Tech’s 1980-81 year was even worse than the year before. The Yellow Jackets didn’t win a single conference game that season.
Fortunately, they hired Bobby Cremins the next year, the best coach in school history.
Troy picked up Don Maestri the year after that, and he led the Trojans to the promised land: Division I.
It took Maestri more than 20 years to do what Bizilia did in 6, though: topple a Power 5 team.
We covered the Trojans’ 2002-03 run last year, so I’ll make it brief.
Troy was 6-1, and the Razorbacks were on a four-year tourney streak, two years removed from an SEC title.
Ben Fletcher scored 23 points. He said one of Troy’s heartbreaking defeats on the football field inspired them.
Just a few weeks before, Troy football 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 Montgomery 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.”
What I didn’t mention in that article is that was Arkansas coach Stan Heath’s first year. The Razorbacks went 9-19 and ended the year in the bottom of the division.
He got Arkansas back to the tournament, but he was fired in 2007 and replaced by the coach from that team in Mobile, incidentally. Heath’s career in Fayetteville began with one end of the Belt and ended with the other.
The Trojans joined South in the Sun Belt in 2005, and the conference’s success forced Maestri to rebuild. Luckily, he got Troy back to 20 wins in just five seasons.
That’s when he conquered a Power Five team even closer to home.
This was one of Maestri’s signature wins, and likely one of the greatest in Troy history. The Trojans went up to the Plains and conquered Auburn for the first time.
It’s still Troy’s only win over Auburn or Bama.
The Trojans took a seven-point lead with about 15 minutes left in the game. Auburn fought back and took the lead with less than two minutes left, but Troy pulled ahead again.
With 28 seconds left, Auburn sophomore Frankie Sullivan missed a game-tying three-pointer. Troy added three free throws, so when Sullivan made a three with four seconds left, it made no difference.
Brandon Hazzard dropped 28 points, Michael Vogler scored 14 and led the team with nine assists, and Richard Delk picked up 10 rebounds.
Troy ended the season 20-13, 13-5, the Sun Belt regular season champions, and made the program’s second-ever NIT appearance. The Tigers went 16-17 and replaced Jeff Lebo with Tony Barbee.
The Trojans accomplished a massive feat, having beaten a Power Five team twice, an SEC team, and an in-state SEC team. Besides taking down a ranked team, the only other step to take was beating a Power Five team at home.
Trojan Arena opened on August 10, 2012, but the home team didn’t take the court until November 5, an exhibition game against Alaska-Anchorage. Still, the date everyone had circled was November 9, when Troy welcomed Mississippi State to christen the new venue.
5,120 people packed the new arena, a record that stands to this day.
Just seven minutes into the game, Jeff Mullahey hit a three and put Troy up 10-8. The Trojans never trailed again.
The Bulldogs did tie it up at 53 with 1:08 left in the game, though. Neither team scored for the next minute, and that’s when Troy’s Emil Jones got the inbounds pass.
The Trojans pulled out the win, setting a standard for the new building.
If anything, this is Troy basketball’s Missouri game. It was a new era, the beginning of the season, and a massive win in front of a raucous home crowd.
Both games were the test run of a new look. You see the Power T on the shorts, not the shield, which made its debut at the Mizzou win.
The difference is while the 2004 Trojan football team made a bowl game, the 2012 Troy basketball team won just two games in February and fell to 12-21. Legendary coach Don Maestri retired after the season, and Troy replaced him with Phil Cunningham.
The Bulldogs barely got to 10 wins themselves, and brand new head coach Rick Ray only made it three seasons.
Cunningham’s Trojans captured a Sun Belt Tournament title, sending Troy dancing for just the second time, but Cunningham failed where the previous two coaches succeeded: He never took down a Power Five team.
Enter Scott Cross.
After two rebuilding years, the Trojans made their second CBI appearance in 2022, and their first 20-win season since Cunningham’s 2017 Sun Belt title.
The next season had high hopes, and after two wins over much smaller schools, Troy kept the momentum going.
The lead went back and forth in the first half, but the Trojans held onto the lead the first ten minutes of the second half. FSU got to 50 points first, but Christyon Eugene hit a layup and an and-one free throw to pull back ahead.
Troy never looked back, going on an 8-0 run with two minutes left in the game and holding off the Seminoles. It was Troy’s first ACC win in 41 years, and it continued Troy’s streak of Power 5 wins every 10 seasons going back to the 1992-1993 Division II National Championship run.
Or the DeVry win, whichever you prefer.
The Trojans went 20-12 for the second season in a row. The Seminoles couldn’t get half those wins, but managed seven conference victories.
The clear link in all these games is a bad Power Five team. Most of these opponents struggled to get to 10 wins, and a surging Troy team was able to take advantage of that mediocrity.
Troy came close to adding to this list a few times—2011 Texas Tech, 2015 Ole Miss, 2023 Oregon State—but in each case the Trojans failed to pull away in the second half.
The outcomes don’t always point to a successful season for Troy. That being said, the Trojan Arena opening was the only modern win not to result in a 20-win year.
Regardless, these six games deserve their place in Troy history alongside the football Power Five wins.