40 years ago this month

[RaleighWarrior]

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1082210/index.htm

Nice recap of the regional finals of the 1969 NCAA tourney and Marquette's OT loss to Rick Mount and Purdue in Madison. Interesting that George Thompson says in the article that the primary goal of MU that year was to get revenge against Kentucky. Shows how much the two teams hated each other.

[WellsstreetWanderer]

Marquette always(it seemed) had to play Kentucky at Kentucky in the NCAAs. Kentucky never had to travel. I've never forgotten. Also George was fouled out of a game while making a shot. He was called for an offensive foul despite the fact that the nearest kentucky player was nowhere close. I am sure he remembers that

[THEGYMBAR]

I was there:)

[muspc]

I was there as well. We had good seats for the Kentucky game, right next to the Kentucky traveling fan's section on the first level. The reason our players were rightfully upset was that the adult Kentucky alums-fans were using language toward our black players that was a cross between the ante-bellum South and the Scope's monkey trial. Even then it was hard to believe!I believe it wasn't until the following year that a black 7' center (whose name escapes me right now) broke the color barrier at Kentucky. Especially for younger posters who would hope that sort of thing ended well before 1969, George Thompson was not referring to a good old fashioned "college rivalry" when he talks about crushing Kentucky. Hopefully, that aspect of the "good ol times" are well behind us. P.S. I still have flashbacks to Rick Mount's shotin the Purdue game.

[THEGYMBAR]

I was six years old and still remember Rick Mount..he was unreal.

[RaleighWarrior]

It seems like the Marquette players had to deal with a lot of that stuff then. Wasn't there a brawl in the game at South Carolina sometime around 69, 70 or 71, something like that. I remember Marquette won that game.

[romey]

Yeah,  I think Bob Lackey from our team and Danny Traylor from USC were involved.  Maybe '71 or '72.

[classof70]

I remember Mount's jumper like yesterday.  It was painful.  I hated Purdue for decades after that!!  I got a little revenge when 2 years later I stole the women I married from a guy she was dating who went to Purdue!

[warriormom]

My dad had my 4th grade birthday party (about 8 little girls) watch the end of the game.  We were devasted and most of us were crying.
It ruined the end of my party.  I hated Purdue until my future brother-in-law went there.

[ATWizJr]

I was there and seem to recall that the game was played at the Dane County Coliseum or some such place that looked like it had a dirt floor and was a fairgrounds.  Mount was just unbelievable.  What a shooter!

[Tulsa Warrior]

I was at the game.  It was the old UW Field House and Mount's shot was a slow motion "oh sh%#" for thousands of Marquette fans who were sitting in the stands.  The D on him was pretty good the whole game.  I think Marquette missed some free throw in regulation that could have iced a W.(Ric Cobb?)  Purdue had a couple of big men but Cobb and Thomas handled them without a problem.

[RaleighWarrior]

Ok, I found a great SI article on the 1972 Marquette-South Carolina game and the fight.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1085704/index.htm

From the article......

Much earlier than this the game had grown extremely physical, until three minutes into the second half the muscling got out of hand. As Marquette's Bob Lackey and the Gamecocks' Tom Riker struggled for the ball, the guns went off. Lackey elbowed Riker in the neck; Riker flashed a left cross on Lackey's side-whiskers. Within moments several brawls had broken out—one featuring Chones against heavyweight Danny Traylor. "Let's stay out of this," Traylor said to Chones. "Can't do it," said Chones. "My man's in trouble." Then Chones opened a nasty cut under Traylor's eye.

Frank McGuire was in the middle of the floor, bodies whizzing past him, but Al McGuire remained on his bench with his reserve players. "A waltz," he was to say later. "A bar-hall bouncer wouldn't take his coat off for this one."

After a good three minutes of heavy punching on both sides, order was restored; immediately a hefty South Carolina state trooper charged the Marquette bench and went after Lackey. The Warriors' Larry McNeill grabbed a chair, but he and everybody else were finally restrained. Lackey and Riker were removed from the contest.

"The dude sucker-punched me," said Lackey. "Then they throw me out. If I'm leavin', I want some action."


Great stuff

[RaleighWarrior]

.....and an incredible article in SI about the 70-71 team.

http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1084515/1/index.htm

[MarquetteDano]

I was there as well. We had good seats for the Kentucky game, right next to the Kentucky traveling fan's section on the first level. The reason our players were rightfully upset was that the adult Kentucky alums-fans were using language toward our black players that was a cross between the ante-bellum South and the Scope's monkey trial. Even then it was hard to believe!I believe it wasn't until the following year that a black 7' center (whose name escapes me right now) broke the color barrier at Kentucky. Especially for younger posters who would hope that sort of thing ended well before 1969, George Thompson was not referring to a good old fashioned "college rivalry" when he talks about crushing Kentucky. Hopefully, that aspect of the "good ol times" are well behind us. P.S. I still have flashbacks to Rick Mount's shotin the Purdue game.

Great post.  I always find it shocking that black players would play for Kentucky after the history.  I mean the stadium is named "Rupp Arena" for Chrissake!  The guy was a unashamed racist and the university feels no qualms about naming their stadium after the guy.  I wonder how many older alums cheer mightily for their black players today that were just the guys muspc mentioned in his post throwing out racial epithets against other teams like Marquette in defense of their all-white team.

[MARQKC]

the stadium is named "Rupp Arena" for Chrissake!  The guy was a unashamed racist

That is my recollection, but the movie Glory Road (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385726/) is a bit kinder. Rupp (portrayed beautifully by Jon Voight) comes across in the movie as a guy who understood the emergence of blacks in college basketball but couldn't really do anything about it because he was beholden to his administration,  alumni and fans. What I remember feeling, though, was that Rupp and others in the SEC really didn't want those black kids playing basketball with white kids.

I think people sometimes underestimate the social as well as the athletic significance of Al's decision to bolt the NCAAs the following year for the NIT. Part of it was hatred for Kentucky and their SEC brethren, who dissed MU by moving them from the Mideast regional to the Midwest even though that had never happened before. (The head of the selection committee (I recall, but I could be wrong) was from Tennessee.) Rupp and his buddies hated Al for being among the northern schools to recruit the likes of George Thompson and Dean Meminger (i.e., black players from the 'hoods of NY), and sending MU to the Midwest regional was their retribution. Of course, Al chose the NIT and we won it, laying the groundwork for 1977. What's amazing -- and something for which I will always be grateful as an MU alumnus -- is that Al put up with all that NCAA political crap for another seven years to get us to '77.

This probably makes no sense if you're under age 30, but it was a whole different world back then.

Just my take. I'm no historian, but I like the way I remember stuff.

[Marquette Mama]

That is my recollection, but the movie Glory Road (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385726/) is a bit kinder.

Rupp's portrayal in the movie is maybe a bit more sublte but the point still comes through loud and clear, don't you think?  Glory Road is one of my favorite movies.  Any one who hasn't seen it, check it out

[bma725]

Of course, Al chose the NIT and we won it, laying the groundwork for 1977.

Funny thing is, in an interview with Dennis Krause in his later years Al called going to the NIT that year the biggest mistake he made at Marquette.  He said the only way the decision works out is if MU won the NIT, if they'd lost he'd have looked like a fool.