Last time Wichita State met Vanderbilt, it became a national moment

Jamar Howard’s game-tying putback against Vanderbilt in the quarterfinals of the NIT was the No. 2 play on ESPN “SportsCenter’s” Top 10 on March 21, 2005.

It would have been a great memory for the end of Howard’s Wichita State basketball career, if only the next seven-tenths of one second were erased from history.

Instead, the careers of Howard, Rob Kampman and Randy Burns ended when Vanderbilt executed a full-court inbounds pass and a layup to defeat the Shockers and keep them from the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden. Vanderbilt’s game-winner was ESPN’s No. 1 play.

When it was revealed on Sunday that Wichita State plays Vanderbilt in an NCAA Tournament play-in game on Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio, the flashbacks began.

“That’s the last time I actually got a chance to play,” said Howard, who lives in Wichita. “Just losing like that, it wasn’t a good feeling.”

Trailing 63-61 with three seconds to go, WSU coach Mark Turgeon ordered Sean Ogirri to miss the second of two free throws, the first of many moving parts necessary for the Shockers to tie the game.

After Ogirri’s shot bounced off the back of the rim, the ball was tipped by a Vanderbilt player who was tussling for the rebound with Paul Miller. It dropped into Howard’s hands and he made a shot that kissed high off the backboard and straight through the net.

“You never have any doubt about winning,” Howard said. “You just hope for the best. Everything just clicked on that play and it happened, and I was the lucky one to put the basket back in. You never doubt on winning.”

Neither, apparently, did Vanderbilt. After a time-out, and with three Wichita State defenders near the opposite free-throw line, Corey Smith snuck behind all of them and caught a baseball pass from Jason Holwerda.

Smith’s only degree of difficulty was taking the shot in less than a second, but his timing was pure. As his layup fell, the Shockers slumped while Vanderbilt dogpiled behind the basket.

“I’ve been thinking about that for a while and I still haven’t come to a conclusion of what happened,” Howard said. “Obviously it was a miscommunication between teammates and everything, but we still don’t know how (Smith) got that wide open.”

The 2004-05 Shockers followed a pair of first-round NIT exits from earlier seasons by defeating Houston and Western Kentucky in the NIT for WSU’s first postseason wins since 1989. The Shockers, without Howard, Kampman and Burns, reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 2006.

“We never got a chance to make it to the NCAA, and we made it to the NIT three out of the four years I was there,” Howard said. “Each year, it seemed like we got better at playing against teams that we never faced before. I was excited that we actually made it that far.”

WSU has exorcised nearly all demons sprouted by that game. The Shockers won the NIT in 2011 and began a streak of five straight NCAA Tournament appearances, and counting, the following year.

But revenge against Vanderbilt hasn’t yet been accomplished, since the teams haven’t met since then. Howard will be following Tuesday’s game hoping some 11-year-old bad memories subside.

“Since it was our senior year, you still feel that burn,” Howard said. “But I’m always rooting for Wichita State, no matter who they play.”

This story was originally published March 14, 2016 at 12:47 PM with the headline "Last time Wichita State met Vanderbilt, it became a national moment."