Today in Philly Sports History: Allan Ray's Phantom Travel Against UNC, 2005

Villanova had a pair of current NBA pros helping to key its 2005 tournament run in Wizards combo guard Randy Foye and Rockets combo guard Kyle Lowry (Jay Wright sure knows how to crank 'em out, huh?), but the team's leading scorer was an ultimately undrafted player named Allan Ray. Ray averaged 16 points that year, made the all-conference second team, and led the Wildcats to a 22-7 record and their first NCAA appearance of the new millennium. The Cats beat New Mexico and Florida in the first two rounds, but saw their fantastic season come to an end on March 25th, 2005, thanks to one of the more controversial calls in recent college hoops.

With ten seconds left to go in the game, Villanova were within three of #1 seed and heavy favorite North Carolina, thanks largely to 18 and 7 from Lowry and a career-high 28 points from Foye. With the ball on the wing, Ray drove to the hoop or a tough layup and a whistle, apparently going to the line with a chance to tie the game. But the whistle wasn't for an and-one like the Carrier Dome crowd thought--it was for a travel, which many in attendance suspected (and replay would later more-or-less confirm) was something of a phantom call. Rashad McCants made a free throw at the other end to put the game out of reach, and the Tar Heels ended up winning 67-66.

Ray, Foye, Lowry and company would regroup the next season for another run at it in '06, and despite making it one round further than in '05, they would ultimately fall short to eventual-champ Florida in the Elite Eight, with Ray going just a combined 8-34 in the Cats' final two games. After not being selected in the '06 NBA Draft, Ray was eventually signed as a free agent by the Boston Celtics, where he played just one season and averaged a scant 6.2 points a game on 38% shooting. He was cut by the C's in 2007 and went overseas to play ball in Italy--regrettably, missing out by one year on a possible chance to be teammates with kindred spirit in nomenclature Ray Allen.

Of the travel call itself, Allan refused to use it as a scapegoat for the loss. ""I feel we should have never put ourselves in that position anyway," said Ray. "I can't say that's the reason we lost, because of that one play."