Article from NJ.com:
http://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketball...le_remarkable_story_highlights_rutgers_1.html
http://www.nj.com/rutgersbasketball...le_remarkable_story_highlights_rutgers_1.html
Big Ten Elite: 1976 Rutgers Basketball - Monday @ 9pm on BTN
- Thread starter ColonelRutgers
- Start date
B1G wants to remind their viewers that at one time, we did have a basketball program.
Awesome documentary.
Backup Center Mike Palko was from my little Hackettstown HS, he was a year behind me, he turned down Princeton to come to RU. A great HS player who immediately became 2nd string when they got James Bailey.
Dick Vitale started it all by recruiting 5 star Phil Sellers , who was a man amongst boys the minute he stepped on the floor as a freshman.
Got to know Dip Dabney a bit, as he would come by Leupp Hall to find some 'goodies', lol.
I went to every home game for many years and the 76 season went to every road NCAA tourny game as they got the #1 seed in the East and the road trips were reasonable. Went to the Final 4 in Philadelphia and scalpers barely got face value, $40. Indiana won it all that year, Bobby Knights first Title, and awesome team with about 7 future NBA players.
Backup Center Mike Palko was from my little Hackettstown HS, he was a year behind me, he turned down Princeton to come to RU. A great HS player who immediately became 2nd string when they got James Bailey.
Dick Vitale started it all by recruiting 5 star Phil Sellers , who was a man amongst boys the minute he stepped on the floor as a freshman.
Got to know Dip Dabney a bit, as he would come by Leupp Hall to find some 'goodies', lol.
I went to every home game for many years and the 76 season went to every road NCAA tourny game as they got the #1 seed in the East and the road trips were reasonable. Went to the Final 4 in Philadelphia and scalpers barely got face value, $40. Indiana won it all that year, Bobby Knights first Title, and awesome team with about 7 future NBA players.
Watching these game highlights bring back unbelievable memories. As a sixteen year old high school student who knew how to sneak into the Barn with my buddies, those games were just amazing. They were more than games - they were events.
I was there all 4 years. This program captured the team perfectly. As you heard on the program they were a very close knit group and it remains that way. As tough as Sellers appeared to outsiders he was - and is - a good guy, as is the entire group. A different world, and watching the program brought back some real nice memories. 40 years ago and it seems like yesterday.
Incorrect bac
It was fred turning down the big east in the spring of 79.....Which became seton hall and not Rutgers in the big east in its hey dey in the 80s
Perhaps the greatest blunder the history of college athletic administration
They beat Michigan 6 or 7 times out of 10
Wrong day to shoot ice cold...even through we caused almost 30
Turnovers
Was my freshman year, went to so many games at the Barn with the paint chips falling from the rafters as the building got so loud and would shake. Lucky to have been at the Villanova and St . Bonnie's game. The win for the undefeated season was great but the scene on College Avenue that night was one of the greatest. Sheer bedlam with thousands of people climbing on buses. Drinking age was 18 and the pub seemed like it stayed open til 3 am that night..
Slept out for Final Four tickets and went to Philly very confidant. Just could not hit the right side of a barn that day. Eddie played against Ricky Green , an NBA player for several years and beat him all day and pulled up for foul line jumpers and they clanged off the rim. He shot 5-16 that day , Phil shot 3 air balls that day , which he had not done all year. We missed a lot of layups and 5-8 footers. Remember you couldn't dunk that year, and as Hollis said, that hurt us. Steve Grote the shooting guard had the game of his life for Michigan and Phil Hubbard had a really good game. If we played Michigan 10 times , I truly believe we would have beat them 7-10. It just was not our day.
We pressed full court, were extremely quick , and if the no dunk rule was not in effect we would have shattered all of today's records. We scored 90 over 20 times and 100 another 11 times. So much fun to watch . We were the best team in the east back then along with Syracuse and St. John's, and thought it would continue. I got hooked and why I am this crazy fan all these years later despite all the losing. Hoping we will get back to being the best team in the east.
Slept out for Final Four tickets and went to Philly very confidant. Just could not hit the right side of a barn that day. Eddie played against Ricky Green , an NBA player for several years and beat him all day and pulled up for foul line jumpers and they clanged off the rim. He shot 5-16 that day , Phil shot 3 air balls that day , which he had not done all year. We missed a lot of layups and 5-8 footers. Remember you couldn't dunk that year, and as Hollis said, that hurt us. Steve Grote the shooting guard had the game of his life for Michigan and Phil Hubbard had a really good game. If we played Michigan 10 times , I truly believe we would have beat them 7-10. It just was not our day.
We pressed full court, were extremely quick , and if the no dunk rule was not in effect we would have shattered all of today's records. We scored 90 over 20 times and 100 another 11 times. So much fun to watch . We were the best team in the east back then along with Syracuse and St. John's, and thought it would continue. I got hooked and why I am this crazy fan all these years later despite all the losing. Hoping we will get back to being the best team in the east.
That was great seeing some of those plays again. I remember being at the game in Jadwin when Dabney made the steal. Right before it happened, as Princeton dribbled around forever, the Rutgers crowd went berserk yelling for D. They willed it to happen.
and it was clear that RU higherups even at that time were not comfortable with big time, more half assed stuff which got us nowhere in both hoops and football
The invite to be an inaugural member of the Big East in 1979 could have been argued either way. It wasn't clear if the league would be a big deal. BUT, a second invite to Rutgers occurred about three years later when it was obvious that the Big East was a Big Deal. Then the athletic director should have taken us in but didn't. THAT decision cost Rutgers millions in revenue and sports prestige to come in the 1980s and 1990s.
This was a great show. I attended 13 games in the 1975-76 season. I really want to find a copy of that St. Bonnie's game. I wrote the BTN network and hope they can tell me who might have a copy of the game. That season we beat Purdue by 8 points at MSG. Indiana beat Purdue twice I believe by like 4 and 3 points. I really hoped that we could have played IU in the championship game with 2 undefeated teams playing each other. I also think we let the moment get to us. We were I believe better than Michigan but we had never played in front of so many people. Hopefully I can live long enough to see us make the NCAA once again.
I say this almost every time this comes up. WE had Penn State, Pittsburgh, West Virginia and Villanova (still D1 before dropping football and coming back as IAA) on our side. No reason to believe an all-sports conference couldn't happen. ESPN and the Big East had a synergy that seems almost predestined now, and when the Big East took Villanova and then Pittsburgh, it was for the same reason the ACC would raid the Big East many years later. Not until then was it obvious that we were doomed for decades.
Those who think the Big East was a no-brainer need to dial back their memories a few years earlier, because it was not so obvious in 1979. If big-time football programs had the same financial universe then as we do now, the Big East NEVER would have been what it was, when it was, and instead would be more what it is now: a damn good basketball conference without Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Penn State, West Virginia or Rutgers in it.
Gruninger did not have that kind of authority. He couldn't even hire a coach without sending his name to a "committee." The great myth of Rutgers sports is that Uncle Freddy ruined everything. I'm not saying he didn't agree with what happened, or even that he didn't advocate it, because I don't know, but I do know he did not have the authority to make that call on his own.
82, man did I get goosebumps watching that tonight. My story was very similar to yours. I was a 14 year old city kid who snuck into every game at the Barn and thanks to a wonderful female college aged usher, I was able to sit under the basket in the front row of visitor section every game. That allowed me to be able to make it quickly onto the court after big wins and I saw myself tonite raising my left arm at end of Bonnie's game and storming the court and man did that bring back great memories. For those interested R U produced a great DVD a few years ago called Kights to Remember and I'd recommend it highly to any hoops fan but especially a fan of the 75-76 team.
Last edited:
GORU, nice writeup. Like i wrote I was 14 years old and lived down the street from Mr.Gruninger. He took me to some games. Next year I am a freshmen in high school and my history teacher is a Rutgers grad and told me he was going to game that night. I go home and get a call from the Gruninger family. They have a ticket for the game that night vs Duquesne and the great Norm Nixon. I go to game and I am sitting behind my history teacher. Had no idea I was going to that game.
Source:
it was absolutely the right decision in the spring of 1979...
We were an established basketball school. Period. We were selling out the Garden. If the NCAA were 64 teams back then we would have went to 6 straight NCAAs...
We were offered to be in a conference with the other best basketball programs in the east...Syracuse, St Johns, Boston college, Providence, UConn and Georgetown. Only Villanova wasn't in it from the start.
It was a no brainer. Instead fred was concerned about the auto bid to the NCAAs and Penn State.
It was a MAJOR blunder
The second time in 1981-1982,...that Fred turned down....was beyond freaking criminal
Ask Tom Young sometime about Charles Smith....
Those guys were INSANLEY GOOD. They were players. Watch the highlights. Those guys on the run...were something.
They averaged 93 ppg in an era where there was NO DUNKS, NO 3 PT SHOT, and NO SHOT CLOCK....so teams tried to slow it down to no avail...
The Michigan game was a shame....we play that game ten times....we win it 6 or 7 times. The one time out of 10 we lose big was the actual game
Indiana 32-0 v Rutgers 32-0....would have been really tough for Rutgers. Think Indiana wins it 7 or 8 times out of ten...but hated that we will never know because Michigan was beyond a disaster.
They averaged 93 ppg in an era where there was NO DUNKS, NO 3 PT SHOT, and NO SHOT CLOCK....so teams tried to slow it down to no avail...
The Michigan game was a shame....we play that game ten times....we win it 6 or 7 times. The one time out of 10 we lose big was the actual game
Indiana 32-0 v Rutgers 32-0....would have been really tough for Rutgers. Think Indiana wins it 7 or 8 times out of ten...but hated that we will never know because Michigan was beyond a disaster.
I was a junior and was at the RU/Princeton NCAA game in Providence. My roommate and I were under the basket where Malloy missed the 2 foul shots. We were going and crazy and it was a big deal to see ourselves on the 6 and 11PM sports reports on the local TV channels. A little bit of trivia. Indiana and Rutgers were playing a doubleheader at MSG during the regular season, both undefeated at that time. I don't remember who our respective opponents were but there was a mad dash/attempt to switch the opponents so that we could play Indiana that night. Never found out the reason why it didn't happen but there was a real attempt to pit the 2 undefeated teams at that time.
Syracuse and BC had joined so they would have to leave if some all sports football conference was formed, RU could have done this as well, there was no harm at all of joining the league. There wasnt going to be an all sports league formed because if there was it would have happened, no point in waiting around declining bids and especially the 2nd time when Pitt was getting invited, sorry thats clueless to do something like that. RU was a basketball leader at the time, not a follower so declining made senses, remember this was before any stuff about football driving the bus not to mention the fact that basketball drove the bus at RU easily at the time. Such a stupid decision which killed the program for years.
Gruninger hung tightly on JoePa's coattails, thinking he was the big honcho in the eastern sports world. What Fred failed to see was that JoePa would do what's best for PSU, not any of his eastern brethren. Fred was foolish in passing up the first opportunity to join the BE and negligent in passing up the second opportunity. Tom Young saw the handwriting on the wall and left to coach Old Dominion, which wasn't even a lateral move at the time. Fred should have stuck to golf, the only sport he had any decent knowledge about.
