Tanner, Golding and an Emotional Night Inside Moody Coliseum
Tanner, Golding and an Emotional Night Inside Moody Coliseum
ACU gave a warm pre-game welcome to a former head coach before giving a naughty departing gift with a win.
Everyone knows the story. Andrew Jones hits the 3-pointer to give 5-seed Texas a 52-51 lead over 12-seed Abilene Christian with 15 seconds to play in the first round of the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
14 seconds later, off a Damien Daniels miss, Joe Pleasant comes down with an offensive rebound and hits arguably the two biggest free throws in Abilene Christian men’s basketball history.
The 53-52 upset win over the Longhorns was a culmination of years in the making for then-head coach and ACU legend Joe Golding.
From the transition to Division I in 2013 to a second trip to the NCAA Tournament in two years to an upset win in the first round.
Not too shabby.
On Sunday night, Golding returned to ACU and Moody Coliseum for the first time since departing for the UTEP job in 2021.
In game that neither Golding or ACU head coach Brette Tanner wanted to play, the Wildcats got the best of the former head coach with an 88-82 win in the WAC/Conference USA Scheduling Initiative.
Here is Brette Tanner sharing his thoughts on the emotion of Sunday night.
Don’t let the final score fool you.
Sunday night featured two teams who got after it physically as well as on the defensive end of the floor.
But, it also featured two teams that did not back down from a fight…similar to their head coaches, who were together for 10 years before Golding departed for El Paso in 2021.
84 free throws were attempted. 38 turnovers were forced. Two players fouled out in the final two minutes.
And if you watched, the coaching styles between two best friends on opposite sidelines were a mirror image of one another.
It was such a game that many of the 1400-plus fans in attendance struggled with who to cheer for.
In fact, some fans wouldn’t even stand to cheer because they wanted both teams, and both coaches, to win the game.
“As a person, I don’t enjoy playing against my best friend,” Brette Tanner said. “I grew up with two sisters. Never had a brother. That dude (Joe Golding) is like my brother.”
That is where the intrigue starts.
In March, 2011, then-Abilene Christian athletic director Jared Moseley took a chance on Grant McCasland to revive the ACU men’s basketball program.
McCasland had success at the Division II level and at the JUCO level. The hire was a no-brainer.
However, four months after being hired, McCasland resigned to take an assistant coaching job under Scott Drew at Baylor.
Fortunately, Moseley had a former teammate that was doing some pretty solid things one state over at Arkansas-Little Rock.
90 minutes was all it took for former ACU Wildcat Joe Golding to tell his former teammate that he accepted the position as head coach of his Alma Mater.
Two years at the Division II level. Then the big transition to the Division I level in 2013.
Life wasn’t all roses for the ACU men’s basketball program when Golding took over.
In the first six seasons, ACU’s highest win total was 13 twice in back to back seasons in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
In 2017-18, ACU won 16 games.
However, in those first five seasons at the Division I level, ACU finished below .500 in Southland Conference play and had just one season where they finished at .500, which was the 2017-18 season.
Then, the 2018-19 season happened.
A program record 27 wins. A Southland Conference tournament title. And a first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.
As a 15-seed, ACU couldn’t hang around with 2-seed Kentucky and current NBA players, Keldon Johnson and Tyler Herro, among others.
As one Wildcat fan put it…“It was the ‘happy to be here’ finally mentality for a lot of us around ACU.”
The following season, ACU won 20 games for a second straight year. Covid defeated any chance at a second straight Southland Conference tourney title and trip to the NCAA Tournament.
But, things all came together in 2020-21.
Playing in the infamous Teague Center with makeshift bleachers and locker rooms that you wouldn’t wish on anyone, ACU finished the season undefeated at home, earning the 2-seed at the Southland Conference tournament.
Two wins later, in blowout fashion over Lamar and Nicholls State, and ACU was in its second NCAA Tournament in three years.
You know the rest. One free throw was the difference as a big underdog pulled the upset in a historical win for the ACU men’s basketball team.
An ACU fan put it best on Monday night when reminiscing about that win.
“It was a whole different mentality this time around. It was the ‘we belong and we are going to win’ mentality rather than just happy to be there.”
On Sunday night at the newly renovated Moody Coliseum, a place that Joe Golding played a big part in putting into motion, it was a nice to reminisce for many as well as celebrating former players that took the program to a new level.
Kolton Kohl, Hayden Faruqhar, Jaylen Franklin, Austin Cook, Chris Blakeley, Drake Green, Duran Porter, Isaiah Tripp, Parker Wentz, and Riley Payne were all recognized on Sunday night.
Reggie Miller is on Joe Golding’s staff at UTEP after playing for Golding and Tanner at ACU. And Dominique Daniels was also in attendance.
It was a game that neither wanted to play.
But, it was also an opportunity for a fan base to recognize what one of its own did for the program and a fan base to cheer on a pair of coaches that have been loyal to ACU for the better part of a decade.
Hopefully ACU fans and fans of Joe Golding enjoyed the game.
Because as long as Brette Tanner and Joe Golding are on different coaching staffs at different institutions, they will do all within their power to avoid playing each other.
It’s a brotherly love…one where neither enjoys beating the other. Rather they want to see each other succeed.
On Sunday night, it was the Wildcats who were the ones to succeed in an emotional night at Moody Coliseum.