Indiana's Mitch Henderson busted brackets beating UCLA as Princeton player. As coach? Same

Mitch Henderson has been the underdog who prevailed before. Inside the RCA Dome in 1996, playing for Princeton in the first round of the NCAA tournament against UCLA, Henderson stood on a court surrounded by 40,000 raucous fans, including Pacers great Reggie Miller, wearing a UCLA ball cap.

Few inside the Indianapolis Colts stadium turned makeshift college basketball court actually believed No. 13 Princeton was good enough to humble the defending champions, No. 4 UCLA.

But Henderson, a 6-2 sophomore guard from Vincennes, Ind., "brought the RCA Dome to its feet," the Indianapolis Star reported, when he drained a 3-pointer, then followed it with a steal and a layup in the final minutes of the first half.

The crowd roared. Everybody loves an underdog.

At halftime, the teams went to their locker rooms, UCLA leading 19-18. As the second half played out, Princeton was looking like what a No. 13 seed playing a defending NCAA giant was expected to look like. They were down 41-34 with six minutes left in the game.

And then, for more than six minutes, Princeton held UCLA scoreless while putting up nine points of their own. The final score, 43-41, marked the greatest upset in NCAA tournament history at the time. A "shocker," Miller called it. "One of the best moments of his life," Henderson called it.

Seconds after the final buzzer sounded, Henderson leapt into the air, his arms stretched high. UCLA's Toby Bailey stood in the background, arms hanging, crestfallen. That photo, shot by Tom Russo with the Associated Press, has become an iconic vision of what the NCAA tournament is all about.

"It was just perfect timing, " said Jerry Price, who was manager of sports media relations at Princeton in 1996. "That picture tells the whole story."

The day after the victory, Henderson said, "I was asked if last night's moment, if there was something better than that. There wasn't. That doesn't mean I don't want something else to happen."

It took 27 years for something else like that to happen for Henderson, who is again known all over the country as the underdog. This time, he is the No. 15 seed. This time, he is the Princeton coach. And once again, he is the long shot who prevailed.

The 47-year-old Henderson and his Princeton team toppled No. 2 Arizona in the NCAA tournament's first round last week, then two days later knocked off Missouri. His team is headed Friday to play No. 6 Creighton in the Sweet Sixteen.

And those who know Henderson say anything is possible. Anything from a "grease lightning" fast player turned "intense, steady" coach who could maybe, just maybe, take his team all the way to the Final Four.

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Before he coached, he was passer extraordinaire

Henderson was a three-sport, high school athlete at Culver Military Academy in Indiana who turned down an offer from the New York Yankees after graduation to move into a dorm at Princeton and play basketball.

He was a Vincennes, Ind. native, whose dream as a boy was to play in the RCA Dome in the Indiana high school basketball state championships.

That didn't happen for Henderson as a basketball player at Culver. But he made his own mark as a high school football, basketball and baseball player, the first Culver athlete in history to win 12 varsity letters. He was named the 1994 South Bend Tribune Male Athlete of the Year.

Henderson had a raw, uncanny talent as an athlete, said Bill Carmody, who first saw Henderson play basketball at a 5-star camp when he was in high school.

"He was like a little wild, a little crazy," said Carmody, who went on to coach Henderson at Princeton, leading the program after Pete Carril retired, "but I knew he was good."

Henderson was good at baseball, too. Good enough to be drafted by the New York Yankees as an outfielder, 815th overall, in 1994. But as he weighed his future in sports, Henderson decided the basketball court was where he had to be. IndyStar requested an interview with Henderson, but the team did not respond.

As a player at Princeton, Henderson was a four-year starter. "He was very fast," Carmody said. "I used to say faster than grease lightning. I mean, he was fast. And Mitch could pass."

Carmody has been watching his former player in television interviews, after Princeton earned its Sweet Sixteen berth, and he's heard Henderson talking about one of his players who can make unbelievable passes.

"I heard him say, 'This guy's as good a passer as you will see.' I remember saying that about Mitch," Carmody said. "I remember saying, 'You're not going to see passes like this.' He was an exquisite passer, fabulous. You saw stuff you couldn't believe if you look at some tapes."

Price, now Princeton's senior writer and historian, saw every game Henderson played in his four years as a starter.

"Mitch was the best passer I've seen play here," Price said. "He would pass the ball before the guy he was passing it to even knew he was on the receiving end. He anticipated. He saw things on the court. And he could do it with his right hand or left hand."

Beyond his basketball skills, Henderson "was a fierce competitor," Carmody said. "But a leader above all. I think everything he had as a player comes through as coach."

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'He didn't like to lose'

Brian Earl was a Princeton player one year behind Henderson. The two fought back and forth for the starting position during the 1995-96 season, and for minutes.

"We were at each other's throats a lot," said Earl, now Cornell's head basketball coach. "He was highly competitive, intense as a player. And he didn’t like to lose."

Henderson edged out Earl for the starting spot in Indianapolis against UCLA. And he brought the RCA Dome to its feet, scoring 8 points and recording 4 steals, 3 rebounds and 3 assists.

It was obvious few in the RCA Dome thought Princeton could pull off a win, but everybody there seemed to want them to, said Joe Scott, an assistant coach for Princeton at the time.

"I remember being in the arena and we're in a timeout and I'm listening to Carril and the place just goes crazy," Scott said. "What is going on? Why are 40,000 people screaming at a timeout?"

Scott looked up at the video board and there is Miller, a UCLA alum, sitting in the stands with his hat on backward. They showed his face and the stadium erupted.

"And he turned his hat around and it said 'UCLA' and the whole place booed," said Scott, now head coach at Air Force. "And that is the only time Miller was booed in Indiana."

The city was in love with Princeton.

"Over the next 24 hours, the Princeton players were the toast of Indianapolis," Sean Gregory wrote in a 2011 "Time" article on the upset. Gregory was a reserve guard on that 1996 team.

"That night, (Steve) Goodrich grabbed dinner with his family and a few friends at a sports bar: The fellow customers clapped for him," Gregory wrote. "While walking around a mall the next day, strangers asked us for autographs and offered hugs."

So many interview requests poured in for Princeton players, Price had to offer up team manager Miles Clark for a radio show.

"In the team hotel, Carril and the coaching staff stayed up until 5 in the morning after the UCLA game, drinking beer and wine," Gregory wrote. Starter Gabe Lewullis hadn't planned on a four-night trip that meant making it past the first round. He only packed for two nights. Lewullis washed his clothes in the hotel bathtub.

The next day, Princeton practiced at Butler University as the Pacers worked out at a gym next door.

"At one point, Miller walked into the gym and approached Carril," according to Gregory, and said, “'All my teammates rode me. I had to go eat crow and shake the man’s hand, the orchestrator’s hand. It was a beautiful performance.'”

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'It's exhilarating to watch him'

Princeton won three Ivy League championships with Henderson as player. During his 1997 season, the team won 19 games in a row on the way to a 14-0 Ivy League record, then drew California in the first round and lost by three points.

Henderson's senior season, Princeton went 26-1, won as a 5 seed in the first round over No. 12 UNLV then lost to No. 4 Michigan State.

It was fascinating to see the team develop, Earl said, to grow and mature and become even better than they were inside the RCA Dome when most players on that 1996 team thought that might be their peak.

And now, nearly three decades later, Earl gets to coach against his former Princeton teammate. "I don't get to," he said. "I have to."

Somehow, Henderson has taken all that was best about him as a player and morphed it into something even better as a coach, Earl said. Henderson is the first person at Princeton to win in the NCAA tournament as a player and a coach.

Scott, whose son Jack, plays for Henderson, said he saw many similarities between the Arizona game last week and the UCLA game in 1996.

"We did everything we needed to do to put ourselves in the position to win," he said. "Things didn't just go our way. We made them go our way. And that's what Princeton did against Arizona."

There is something about Henderson, say those who know him. A coach who was there 27 years ago as an underdog, as a player, who can bring a calm, steady presence to his team.

"It was exhilarating to watch him as a player," Carmody said. "It's exhilarating to watch him coach."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Princeton's Mitch Henderson: NCAA bracket buster as player and coach