"I've never seen anything like that": An incredible shot and a Rams team that refused to quit

 

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — College basketball is synonymous with chaos. Chaotic fans, chaotic teams, and more than anything, chaotic moments.

A No. 1 seed falling in the NCAA Tournament, a mid-major taking down one of the blue bloods, a crazy shot that lives on forever — these are the things that we live for as passionate supporters of the game.

For fans of Colorado State men’s basketball, recent instances like the 2020 rally up in Laramie, Wyoming or the 2015 ‘Orange Out’ against UNLV are examples of games that were truly wild. Of all the wacky comebacks that have ever taken place inside Moby Arena, though, one moment truly stands alone.

On December 30, 2003, No. 22 Purdue traveled across the country for a rare road matchup with the knights of green and gold.

Despite entering the night as considerable underdogs, the Rams were able to take control of things early and even managed to maintain a 13 point lead well into the second half. As any CSU die-hard can tell you, though, the lead did not hold.

Trailing 56-43 with roughly 10 minutes left, Purdue was able to completely flip the script. Led by Brandon McKnight, who at one point was responsible for 14 consecutive points, the Boilermakers responded with a 26-7 run of their own,  seemingly spoiling CSU’s upset bid in the process.

The only problem is that Purdue did not account for Micheal Morris. With the Rams trailing by 4 with just seconds to play, Morris was able to shake his defender, advance the ball past mid-court and knock down a 3-pointer with seven-tenths of a second left on the clock.

For most teams, the shot would have been a final consolation prize after battling tough but still ultimately falling short in a big-time game. Morris and the Rams, however, had other ideas.

CSU’s Matt Williams was able to tip the ensuing inbound pass, which luckily happened to land right in Morris’ hands. And in one crazy motion Morris was able to catch the ball, throw up a desperation attempt and somehow find nothing but net. Rams shock the world 71-69.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like that,” Purdue’s former coach Gene
Keady said postgame.

“I credit our guys for hanging in there and persevering,” former Rams coach Dale Layer added. “We persevered, even in the face of a certain loss.”

The moment in itself was epic. Upsetting a Big-10 team in front of the home fans would have already been a memorable night — but to do it in such dramatic fashion made it truly legendary.

The funny thing is that 17 years later, Morris still can’t explain how he exactly was able to pull off the play.

“You always do goofy stuff like that when you’re a kid. Like when you’re playing Horse and you try to make a weird shot,” Morris recently told DNVR Rams.

“But when it’s actually live action, for all of that to come together in the moment, it was definitely all reactionary and not something I had a plan for.”

To this day, Morris says the 2003 Purdue game is still the craziest finish to any basketball game that he has ever seen.

“People are leaving because they think it’s over. You’ve got seven-tenths of a second left on the clock. And then the noise after the fact. It was just one of those crazy things that I’ll never forget.”

To fully appreciate what that win meant at the time, though, we actually have to start the story exactly one year before the upset in Fort Collins.

FOUND IN THE ARCHIVES: Michael Morris knocks down two 3's in 0.7 seconds to help @CSUMensBball beat No. 21 Purdue. Unreal sequence. #9sports pic.twitter.com/rq9MXQjvSo

— Reno Boyd (@Reno_Boyd) February 8, 2017

December 30, 2002.

The Rams travel to Mackey Arena for the first game in a two-for-one agreement with the Boilermakers.

After starting the year 10-2 with wins over Washington State and South Carolina, CSU had reason to feel confident going into the game — even in spite of the fact that Purdue has always owned one of the better home-court advantages in the country.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Morris said of his experiences in Mackey Arena.

Morris explained that he had actually played in a high school tournament at the venue so he had seen it before but didn’t truly appreciate the significance of it all. Going up against a Big 10 team, though, it was clear that this was no average basketball gym.

“They’re really into basketball out there,” Morris said. “It’s the middle of Indiana.  The Hoosier state, where it’s just basketball all the time. It’s an amazing arena.”

Unfortunately, Morris’ excitement quickly dissipated, as the then-freshman point guard experienced back spasms in the first half.  The injury severely limited his mobility and essentially completely took him out of the game. As Morris explained, things just snowballed for the whole squad from there — and in the end the Boilermakers were able to boat-race the Rams 84-56.

Although disappointing in the moment, this beatdown was actually the beginning of what would be one of the weirdest calendar years in CSU hoops history.

Following the road loss to Purdue, CSU went 4-2 over its next six games and generally seemed poised to at least be competitive in the Mountain West. From February 3, 2003 through March 1, 2003, though, the Rams proceeded to lose seven consecutive league games.

CSU did manage to win two of three to close out the regular season but after starting the year so hot, finishing 19-14 overall was definitely disappointing for everyone involved.

For one reason or another, CSU was able to rediscover the swagger that they started the season with, in the 2003 Mountain West Tournament. The sixth-seeded Rams took down Wyoming, BYU and UNLV to claim the program’s first and only MW Tournament title. And as a result the Rams punched a ticket into the NCAA Tournament.

“That whole tournament run we were just playing, instead of being robotic about how we have to come down and do this or that,” Morris said.

“We were just taking the lead of our seniors, Brian Greene, Andy Birley and Darian Burke. They just were not ready to be done. They were like, ‘we’re going to play as hard as we possibly can.’ Even though you would’ve thought that we could have done that before the tournament. But they just took the lead from everything. Coaches stepped back and those three guys carried us and willed us into our next game.” 

Five days after cutting down the nets at the Thomas and Mack Center, the No. 14 Rams were tasked with trying to take down No. 3 Duke in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

CSU made things interesting in Salt Lake City, Utah, by taking the Blue Devils to the wire. In fact the Rams only trailed by a single possession with less than 2 minutes to go and missed a pair of crucial free throws to tie the game. But even if the magical run came to an end, going toe-to-toe with Coach K’s Blue Devils on the nation’s biggest stage, gave the Rams the mindset that they could compete with anyone at any time.

“Coming off of my freshman year, it gave us some confidence because we actually knew how to play in big games,” Morris said. 

That confidence carried over into the 2003-04 season. Even if it didn’t exactly translate to the red-hot start that the Rams were hoping for, the fact that so many of the guys on the roster had big-game experience, made it so that they genuinely believed they were capable of making a similar run.

After starting the year 4-4, with tight losses to both Colorado and the University of Denver, things started to click for the group a little bit around Christmas time.

Starting on Dec. 20, 2003, the Rams took down Stetson and South Florida in consecutive road games — which according to Morris, was a crucial point for the Rams as a unit.

“When we got to Florida, it was like a team-building experience where all the guys were getting closer to each other. We weren’t just off on our own,” Morris said. 

This of course set the stage for the rematch against Purdue. One year after getting embarrassed on the road, the Rams had a shot at revenge — this time on their home floor.

Dec. 30, 2003

With most students home for the holiday break, a feisty Rams squad prepares for No. 22 Purdue, knowing that they will not have the benefit of a packed house to feed them energy.

“We were like, man, we’ve gotta do this for us,” Morris said. “We can’t play for anybody else. And the fact that we had lost to them the year before — we were really ready to play that game.”

In the early stages, it looked the Rams were going to dominate the visiting Boilermakers. CSU built up a double-digit lead relatively quickly, and held Purdue to just 29 points in the first half.

But the second half was a completely different story. Brandon McKnight went on an absolute terror, scoring 20 of his game-leading 21 points to help Purdue take a 69-65 lead.

With 6.9 seconds left on the clock, all McKnight had to do was sink a pair of free throws to ice the game and secure the road win for Purdue. After missing the first attempt, McKnight initially made the second but it was overturned for a lane violation.

The Rams were still down two possessions but that little glimpse of hope was all a battle-tested CSU team needed to find a way to win.

As Morris explained, Buzz Williams, who was an assistant under Layer at the time and is now the head coach at Texas A&M, had completely prepared the group for this moment.

“I always say that Buzz Williams is one of the best coaches in the country because he does more than just X’s and O’s,” Morris said.

“I remember him that whole week being like, ‘You can’t give up. You’ve gotta be tougher.’ We did toughness drills. ‘You’ve gotta be tougher than the guy in front of you. You can’t give in, you can’t be weak. Exert your will.’ And that’s basically what we thought about going into that whole game.”

Over those final 7 seconds or so, the Rams did exactly that. After Morris sunk the first 3-pointer, Matt Williams deflected the inbound pass and Morris completed the miracle.

“We weren’t going to give up until that last buzzer sounded,” Morris said. “They had taken the lead towards the end of the game, but we were still confident with 8 seconds left. I’m like, I’m not giving up. I’m ready to play because our practices were tougher than games — and they’re supposed to beat us but they’re not going to beat us in our house.”

Despite the ending being somewhat controversial — with the game not being televised, there wasn’t a replay for the officials go back and consult — and so the rest is history. Rams win.