(NOTE: This is Part 9, the final part of Green Season: Inside the 2000 Greenfield basketball season.)
No matter what happened, March 18, 2000, was going to be the final game in one of the best seasons in Greenfield High School basketball history.
The Green Wave hopped on a bus and headed east, arriving at the Centrum Centre in Worcester for the second time in less than a week. Compared to the state semifinal a few days earlier, the stakes were infinitely higher.
Greenfield versus Charlestown for the MIAA Division II state title.
No previous Greenfield basketball team had ever won a state title. The program had appeared in two state finals prior to 2000, losing to a Mickey Curley-led Duxbury squad in 1994 and a Scoonie Penn-led Salem team in 1995. The Wave would again be the underdog entering the final against Charlestown, a team that entered with a sterling 26-1 record and its lone loss coming to eventual Division I state runner-up Boston English.
“It’s hard to calibrate your team and the level you’re on when you’re beating teams by 30 in the (Western Mass.) championship game and then you go play for a state title,” senior center Luke Martin recalled. “We knew (Charlestown) was going to be really good. But you don’t really know how you stack up until you get out there and play.”
Greenfield didn’t know it, but the impending state final was about to be the beginning of a dynasty. Charlestown was prepping for the first of what turned into four consecutive state championships, and the Townies were going to make an emphatic opening salvo.
Charlestown head coach Jack O’Brien was expecting a strong effort from the Green Wave. He thought he saw a lot of similarities in how Greenfield and his team operated on the floor.
“I honestly believe, when watching them, it’s a little of a mirror (image),” O’Brien told Recorder reporter Mark Durant for the game preview. “We try to do the same thing, play up-tempo and play solid defense. (Offensively) we shoot the ball and pass pretty good. We can play a half-court game, but we can go up and down the court with a purpose.”
Greenfield head coach Scott Thayer was worried about Charlestown’s athleticism. All year, that had been a source of strength for his team, but in the state final, Thayer admitted his squad may have a tough time matching up.
“They’re really athletic, they’re young, they’re strong and quick,” Thayer said. “I think we’re pretty quick and athletic, but not as much as them at every position. I hope we can do some different things to combat their athleticism and quickness.”
Charlestown boasted a pair of future Division I college players in Rashid Al-Kaleem (Florida) and Antonio Chatman (Ohio University), as well as a Division II talent in Basil Wajd (Merrimack). The only good news for Greenfield was that Townies’ leading scorer Frank Finklea was out with an injury and would miss the final.
“We weren’t going to beat that team,” Martin said. “Maybe if we played them 10 times, we might beat them once. They were that good. We were outmatched.”
Greenfield’s shot at an upset win disappeared almost immediately in the final. The Townies led 21-6 in the blink of an eye, and while the Wave cut the deficit to 31-23 thanks to a modest 17-10 run, Charlestown closed the first half on a run of its own to take a commanding 49-27 advantage at halftime.
“I remember pretty early on feeling we aren’t going to win this game,” said Martin, who now teaches history at his alma mater. “You never want to admit that, but one of my memories was that we could hardly get the ball up the court. They just pressured us so much.”
That’s how Greenfield sophomore point guard Tim Burns remembered it.
“We were struggling just to get the ball over half court,” Burns said. “It wasn’t just athleticism. We hadn’t played at that speed before. Your turnovers lead to dunks and layups on the other end.”
Greenfield could never cut into that deficit in the second half. It was more of the same, and the state final never proved to be much of a game.
“For the most part, we wore teams down all year, and (Charlestown) just wore us out,” Thayer said. “It wasn’t so much the physical fatigue, but the mental fatigue. They were all over us, making us have to make plays, mentally having to focus on where to throw the ball. Their press just wore us down mentally.”
For Burns, the loss only added fuel to his competitive fire. It wasn’t his night, but he had grown into a role of a leader, despite being a sophomore on a team full of seniors. With the season reaching its conclusion, he was ready to take control of the squad leading into next season.
“I know I turned the ball over way more than I should have in that game,” he recalled. “That’s your fuel to get better. It’s tough, and a little embarrassing to get beat like that. It’s probably how Hoosac felt in the Western Mass. finals.”
Martin led Greenfield with 17 points in the loss, while Billy Thomas and Aaron Clark scored 12 points apiece.
“The atmosphere was great, and we had a lot of support from students and the community,” recalled Clark, now the Associated Director of Sport Medicine at Boston College. “Charlestown was big; they were fast. No matter who we played around here (in Western Mass.), their skill and intensity was something we weren’t used to. In that environment, before we knew it, we were behind and couldn’t battle back. They were the cream of the crop in high school basketball.”
Burns went on to play collegiately at George Mason University, and he was part of that Cinderella 2006 NCAA Final Four team under coach Jim Larranaga. He’s now a professional basketball trainer who helps run Pro Hoops, a NYC-based basketball skills training company, with brother Ross.
“The staff at George Mason and coach Larranaga talked about how they recruited guys from a lot of teams that won things, had winning backgrounds,” Burns said. “There’s something to be said about that. When you’re part of that experience and you know what it looks like, it prepares you. I don’t think it was a coincidence that we had a lot of guys on my college team that won at the high school level.”
Greenfield finished its storied season 22-3 overall, just one win shy of the program’s first state title. The Wave haven’t won a Western Mass. championship since 2000. They’ve reached the sectional final three times (2001, 2004, 2013), losing to South Hadley all three times. That included a wild 2001 final, where Burns, then a junior, scored what appeared to be the winning basket in the waning seconds. It was ultimately wiped off the board when an official credited Thayer with a questionable timeout call. But that’s a story for another time.
People in Greenfield like to compare teams throughout history. How did the 1995 football team stack up to the ’79 squad? Which field hockey team was better, ’89 or ’99? When it comes to basketball, the 2000 team is certainly in the conversation, though teams from 1986, ’94 ’95 – and just about every team prior – would certainly have a say.
“It’s hard to compare us to anyone before the teams I saw play myself,” offered Martin. “People ask about it, or get caught up in our team versus those ’94-’95 teams. Who was the best? I don’t know. It certainly would be a good game to see those teams at their peak playing our team at our peak. Now that would be a game.”
“I think we’ve got to be in the conversation,” said Clark of which team is best. “I think we were just a deep team. We weren’t guys that would go out and score 1,000 points. We were deep, and we got it rolling.”