Published: March 31, 2008 03:45 am         

'Wick had Final Four trip in '88

The "madness" is heating up for college basketball fans this weekend in San Antonio, where the NCAA Men's Final Four will be played.

Twenty years ago around this time, the Oneonta area had its attention on a Final Four with a local flavor. It was the year Hartwick College went to the Division III Men's basketball national championship round, held in Michigan.

No, they didn't win it all. But based on the fact that last month almost all of that year's team got together for a 20th year reunion of the event, "almost" seemed just fine to them.

Hartwick had completed an excellent regular season. They beat Staten Island and Buffalo State in the NCAA East Regional playoffs, and then faced Trenton State in the quarterfinals.

Before a sellout, noisy crowd at Binder Field House, Hartwick won 84-69. The win was Hartwick's 23rd of the season, which at the time established a new single-season record. This victory sent the Warriors, today called the Hawks, to the national semifinals at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

The other teams that had won their quarterfinals and arrived in Grand Rapids were the University of Scranton, Ohio Wesleyan and Nebraska Wesleyan.

First up for Hartwick was the University of Scranton on Friday, March 18. This was the fourth time to the Final Four for Scranton, a team that had won 28 games in the 1987-88 season.

Before the game, coach Nick Lambros said he would probably be the only one worried.

"The guys were loose as a goose before the Trenton game while I was scared to death," Lambros said. "It turned out I had nothing to worry about."

Lambros said it had already been a personally rewarding year, having been named East Region Coach of the Year in NCAA Division III.

"Hartwick College had a dream of a national championship but Scranton forward J.P. Andrejko turned it into a nightmare," The Daily Star reported the next morning. "Andrejko scored 26 points to help the University of Scranton to a 84-61 victory over Hartwick."

Hartwick played Nebraska Wesleyan in a consolation game on Saturday, also losing, 73-70.

"We wanted to go out with a win but we have nothing to be ashamed of," said then-senior Tim McGraw, who graduated as Hartwick's all-time leading scorer with 1,878 career points. The record still stands today.

"It was a great time, and there were a lot of good memories," McGraw said recently. "Just being there was quite an accomplishment."

Then and now, McGraw and other players had praise for their coach, Nick Lambros. Tom Hendricks, a Unatego grad, Anders Kvarnmyr and McGraw were all quoted in The Daily Star after returning from Michigan, saying Lambros helped them to be better players and individuals.

"He's the biggest competitor on the team," McGraw said at the time, "and if he had to put on the uniform he would."

At the team reunion in February, McGraw recalled that a teammate brought some old letters from Lambros. "We'd go on break for January, and Nick told us to stay in shape and reminded us of the schedule coming up when we get back. They were pretty neat to look at."

McGraw graduated and came back a couple years later to be the assistant coach for five years with Lambros, and then became Hartwick's head coach for a few years. McGraw, who lives in the area, met his wife at Hartwick and they have three children.

This weekend: Cooperstown's "Captain of Industry."

City Historian Mark Simonson's column appears twice weekly.

If you have feedback or ideas, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.