'The Ogre': In wild 1999 win, Casey Calvary roughed up Florida, then came up with the go-ahead tip-in that sent Gonzaga to the Elite Eight

Jan. 3—Editor's note: This is the fifth of a six-part look back at Gonzaga's wild run to the Elite Eight during the 1998-99 season.

Maybe the annual successes and the passage of 25 years have allowed Casey Calvary's famed 1999 tip-in against Florida to slip from its long-held consideration as the greatest basket in Gonzaga history.

Jalen Suggs' banked 40-footer at the buzzer to beat UCLA in the 2021 national semifinals had higher stakes and broader visibility.

And Jordan Mathews' late 3 against West Virginia in the regional semis allowed the Zags to progress to their first Final Four appearance in 2017.

But for those returning to Spokane this week for an event to recognize the 25th anniversary of the Zags' 1999 Elite Eight run, the phrase "tip-in" needs no further elaboration.

Calvary, a sophomore forward from Tacoma, put back an errant Quentin Hall floater from the lane with 4.4 seconds left in the West Region Sweet 16 for the 73-72 lead over the Gators. A frantic Florida shot at the buzzer failed.

By the time they untangled the roiling dog pile of Bulldogs on the court, the Zags realized that they were headed to the Elite Eight against Connecticut, and stood just 40 minutes away from a Final Four.

Trailing by a point, Calvary had taken the side-court in-bounds pass and kicked the ball to Hall, who drove toward the hoop. Calvary was still outside the 3-point arc when Hall rose from about 10 feet. With no one blocking him out, Calvary closed 20 feet or more in the time it took the ball to leave Hall's hand and ricochet off the back iron.

As Zags fans came to expect, Calvary was capable of rising over opponents and unleashing violent, backboard-shaking tip-jams. In this case, he rose a foot over the rim, but was still 3 or 4 feet from the hoop.

Not fully in control of the ball, he volleyball-blocked it back toward the rim, where it fell in.

It wasn't artful, but entirely appropriate. Had he bullishly charged and rose above the defenders to dunk the ball, he might have been called for over-the-back or an offensive foul.

Such precise, controlled levitation might have been expected from the son of an Army helicopter pilot.

In the locker room afterward, Calvary explained: "There were three or four guys in front of me ... but they were all down here (holding his hand below his waist)."

Calvary made more than just a winning basket that night. His combativeness was woven into Zag DNA for generations.

In later interviews, coach Mark Few said that Calvary was "part of what made our team so tough and competitive ... he simply did not tolerate weakness."

Assistant coach Bill Grier said he called Calvary "The Ogre," because he was so intense that "sometimes he gets those crazy eyes that look right into you."

Few later recalled a more impressive dunk from the 6-foot-8 Calvary, the following season against top-ranked Cincinnati, when Calvary took a feed on a lane drive and met the Bearcats' player of the year candidate Kenyon Martin at the rim.

Martin jammed an elbow into Calvary's left eye, opening a five-stitch laceration, but the Zag powered through it for a savage posterization.

The Zags lost that one 75-68, but, in their first game against a national No. 1-ranked team, they played close until the end, and surely reinforced the idea that their NCAA run the previous spring was no fluke.

The statement by Calvary, in that singular moment, was that neither he, nor Zags from ensuing generations, were going to be intimidated by anybody in the country.

Huge baskets by latter-day Zags can't be discounted as great moments, but the transformation of the program had been made by then.

It was Calvary's timely tip, and his audacious competitiveness, that sustained it all during that first rush of success.