Eastern Michigan Athletics
A Walk Through History: Prelude to a Championship
3/31/2026 9:55:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By T.C. Cameron
YPSILANTI, Mich. (EMUEagles.com) -- Eastern Michigan's 1995-96 Men's Mid-American Conference basketball championship team — the team that became the first in over 40 years to defeat Duke in the first round of the NCAA tournament — would not occur in today's landscape of NIL and the Transfer Portal.
"Keeping this team together in today's climate of college sports would be extremely difficult," says Lee Reed, Athletic Director at Georgetown University, who in 1995-96 was Eastern's Special Assistant to the President. "A handful of them would be 4 and 5-star recruits in today's era, and with NIL the Transfer Portal available, keeping them together would be next to impossible. Ben Braun spending 10 years as Head Coach is unlikely, too."
But the players and coaches who produced this memorable season offer no regret. The players, coaches, administrators, and fans remember it fondly. Players embrace their EMU experience and remain connected to one another today, many of them able to rattle off phone numbers and social media handles to find one another quickly.
They played home games at Bowen Field House, which, at face value, was one of the worst facilities in all of college basketball, but Bowen was a fortress of brick and steel and delivered Eastern a tremendous home court advantage. Over his 11 seasons at EMU, Braun compiled an impressive 106-35 home record, bringing unprecedented success to Ypsilanti..
On campus, the men's track and cross country program had won every MAC title from 1990 through 1995 —sans an outdoor MAC Championship outcome in 1993 that will never be conceded by anyone from EMU who witnessed it. The men's swimming and diving program was regularly winning the MAC, too. Charlie Batch was setting every passing record in the EMU football record book, while Brian Tolbert, Derrick Dial, and Earl Boykins were one of the best guard trios in the nation.
Brent Bass, now Athletic Director at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., was in charge of EMU Athletics Ticketing and Marketing with a powerhouse promotional combo of Batch and Boykins.
"Our walk-up crowds wrapped around the parking garage, and our deposit amount in basketball was almost as much as it was in football," Bass said. "I was escorted to the bank by two armed police officers to make our deposit."
Publicity for EMU's athletic teams was different in the Internet age, too. EMU publicized teams through posters and wallet-sized schedule cards, which athletic departments frantically distributed at campus locations and local businesses before the season. While media guides haven't been printed in almost 15 years, you can still find schedule cards — they're for sale on eBay as collector items. Every Sunday, EMU Sports Information Director Jim Streeter and his handful of staffers would gather everyone in the office at Bowen and mail out a printed brief on every EMU team to a list of 250 media contacts.
"That's when EMU sponsored 21 sports, so you're talking about seven to 10 briefs going out every Sunday during each of the three seasons," Streeter said.
On game days, the in-game, halftime, and postgame stats provided for the teams and media members on press row came from a Ditto machine wheeled into the Field House on a cart. The individual stat sheets carried a distinct fragrance and were wet from a combination of alcohol-based solvent and purple ink and were cranked out by hand.
Streeter's wife, Mary, captained the bank of press row phones while her two young boys played on the high jump pit pad behind the stands. She reported EMU's current score to any other school or reporting agency which called. Between taking calls, she was making calls to other schools to give and receive updates on the other MAC games.
This is a snapshot in time of a different information age and an unforgettable season in Eastern Michigan's history, worth celebrating.
Author T.C. Cameron is a 1995 graduate of Eastern Michigan University. As EMU's preeminent athletics historian, he has crafted the definitive record of the people and moments which have shaped EMU athletics over the past 50 years. A native of Royal Oak, MI, Cameron now lives in Lowes Island, Va. after 16 years in Annapolis, Md.
"Keeping this team together in today's climate of college sports would be extremely difficult," says Lee Reed, Athletic Director at Georgetown University, who in 1995-96 was Eastern's Special Assistant to the President. "A handful of them would be 4 and 5-star recruits in today's era, and with NIL the Transfer Portal available, keeping them together would be next to impossible. Ben Braun spending 10 years as Head Coach is unlikely, too."
But the players and coaches who produced this memorable season offer no regret. The players, coaches, administrators, and fans remember it fondly. Players embrace their EMU experience and remain connected to one another today, many of them able to rattle off phone numbers and social media handles to find one another quickly.
They played home games at Bowen Field House, which, at face value, was one of the worst facilities in all of college basketball, but Bowen was a fortress of brick and steel and delivered Eastern a tremendous home court advantage. Over his 11 seasons at EMU, Braun compiled an impressive 106-35 home record, bringing unprecedented success to Ypsilanti..
On campus, the men's track and cross country program had won every MAC title from 1990 through 1995 —sans an outdoor MAC Championship outcome in 1993 that will never be conceded by anyone from EMU who witnessed it. The men's swimming and diving program was regularly winning the MAC, too. Charlie Batch was setting every passing record in the EMU football record book, while Brian Tolbert, Derrick Dial, and Earl Boykins were one of the best guard trios in the nation.
Brent Bass, now Athletic Director at E.L. Haynes Public Charter School in Washington, D.C., was in charge of EMU Athletics Ticketing and Marketing with a powerhouse promotional combo of Batch and Boykins.
"Our walk-up crowds wrapped around the parking garage, and our deposit amount in basketball was almost as much as it was in football," Bass said. "I was escorted to the bank by two armed police officers to make our deposit."
Publicity for EMU's athletic teams was different in the Internet age, too. EMU publicized teams through posters and wallet-sized schedule cards, which athletic departments frantically distributed at campus locations and local businesses before the season. While media guides haven't been printed in almost 15 years, you can still find schedule cards — they're for sale on eBay as collector items. Every Sunday, EMU Sports Information Director Jim Streeter and his handful of staffers would gather everyone in the office at Bowen and mail out a printed brief on every EMU team to a list of 250 media contacts.
"That's when EMU sponsored 21 sports, so you're talking about seven to 10 briefs going out every Sunday during each of the three seasons," Streeter said.
On game days, the in-game, halftime, and postgame stats provided for the teams and media members on press row came from a Ditto machine wheeled into the Field House on a cart. The individual stat sheets carried a distinct fragrance and were wet from a combination of alcohol-based solvent and purple ink and were cranked out by hand.
Streeter's wife, Mary, captained the bank of press row phones while her two young boys played on the high jump pit pad behind the stands. She reported EMU's current score to any other school or reporting agency which called. Between taking calls, she was making calls to other schools to give and receive updates on the other MAC games.
This is a snapshot in time of a different information age and an unforgettable season in Eastern Michigan's history, worth celebrating.
Author T.C. Cameron is a 1995 graduate of Eastern Michigan University. As EMU's preeminent athletics historian, he has crafted the definitive record of the people and moments which have shaped EMU athletics over the past 50 years. A native of Royal Oak, MI, Cameron now lives in Lowes Island, Va. after 16 years in Annapolis, Md.
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