Hansen's Top Teams, No. 27: 'Thunder and Lightning' led Cats to 1994 Final Four

Michigan’s famed “Fab Four” walked into McKale Center a few minutes before Arizona ended its practice a day before the Dec. 29, 1993, Fiesta Bowl Classic championship game.

Everybody knew the Fab Four’s names and faces: Juwann Howard, Jalen Rose, Ray Jackson, Jimmy King.

A moment later, after Lute Olson excused the No. 12 Wildcats from practice, I was standing next to Jon Wilner, the Star’s beat writer, when Arizona senior guard Khalid Reeves approached.

“When are you going to get me some front-page pub?” Reeves asked in his quiet manner.

Wilner smiled and pointed to the Fab Four. “There’s the front-page pub,” he said without missing a beat.

But that all changed 24 hours later. Reeves scored 40 points as Arizona creamed the seventh-ranked Wolverines, 119-95. By season’s end, Reeves had become a bigger name than any of the “Fab Four.”

“Khalid is as good a player as I’ve had the misfortune to sit on the opposite bench and coach against,” said Michigan coach Steve Fisher.

And he was. The 1993-94 Wildcats won a rugged Pac-10, routed Missouri’s once-a-generation Big Eight champions 92-72 in the Elite Eight and Reeves set a still-standing Arizona record of 848 points in a season. He also set the UA’s season scoring record of 24.2 points per game.

The normally camera-shy guard from New York City led Arizona to a 29-5 record until it ran into Arkansas’ “40 Minutes of Hell” defensive force at the Final Four in Charlotte. The Razorbacks beat Arizona 91-82 as Reeves and fellow All-Pac-10 point guard Damon Stoudamire combined for their least productive game of the season, shooting 2 for 22 from 3-point distance.

Now, 28 years later, the Wildcats are viewed as a colossal success rather than the club that lost to Nolan Richardson’s national champs in North Carolina.

As with most Lute Olson teams, the 1993-94 Wildcats took on all comers. They went 8-4 against top-25 teams, a wickedly tough schedule that included victories over No. 5 Missouri, No. 8 UCLA, No. 9 Oklahoma State, No. 10 Louisville and a road win against a No. 18 Cal team blessed with formidable point guard Jason Kidd.

The Final Four first came into view in the championship game of the Maui Invitational in Hawaii two days before Christmas. Kentucky beat Arizona on a last-second shot, 93-92, but it was enough to convince Arizona fans that two difficult seasons — first-round NCAA losses to East Tennessee State in 1992 and Santa Clara in 1993 — wouldn’t be repeated.

080922-tuc-spt-hansenproject-p3 — Arizona star Damon Stoudamire's throng of quote-seekers grew after each tournament win in 1994. He scored 16, 20, 11, 27 and 16 points in five postseason games.
Rick Wiley, Tucson Citizen 1994

The 1993-94 Wildcats became known as “Thunder and Lightning,” a tribute to the backcourt of Reeves and Stoudamire, who combined to average 42.5 points per game, surely the best guard tandem in school history.

There was nothing superficial about Reeves. A day before Arizona was to meet Virginia in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Sacramento, Reeves was asked about Cornel Parker, Virginia’s defensive hotshot.

A week earlier, ESPN’s Dick Vitale had anointed Parker as the top defensive player in college basketball.

“Who’s that?” asked Reeves, who didn’t mean it as an insult; he wasn’t simply one who didn’t follow much college basketball news.

Parker was suitably motivated, but it didn’t help. Reeves scored 30 as Arizona hammered Virginia, 72-59.

Reeves and Stoudamire combined to score 53 points in the Final Four-clincher against top-seeded Missouri, and although the second-seeded Wildcats celebrated in their locker room, Olson didn’t join in.

In his press conference Olson spent 40 minutes roasting the media for being critical of his club’s first-round losses of 1992 and ‘93.

“I’m bitter,” he said. “I’ve been dealing with this for two years.”

There wasn’t much Olson could say after the Final Four loss. Arkansas, a No. 1 seed, was clearly the better team. There were no tears shed in the UA locker room; the Wildcats had got the most of their material. They averaged a school-record 89 points per game, which has only been topped by the 1997-98 UA club, the defending national champions.

“We weren’t happy just to get to the Final Four,” said Stoudamire. “I think years from now when we look back, we’ll be happy at what we accomplished.”