That was a great documentary ...brought tears to my eyes with memories. Here are my many thoughts on that era - and the Big East, for those who care - but kind of random in order:
1) I was a teen, my Dad was the alumnus (class of '47), and I got to go to all the football and basketball games - we were season-ticket holders. Our seats were exactly at mid-court, 2nd row of the balcony at The Barn. Best seats in the house.
2) I remember listening to many of the road games on the radio. My strongest memory was sneak listening to the RU at USC game during Phil Sellers' freshman or sophomore year - it started at 10 PM or 11 PM EST - I hid the radio under my covers (I was 12 or 13). That was the game Sellers scored 43 points, and RU lost something like 83-82, or 82-80. USC had been ranked. After the game, the USC head coach was quoted as saying something like: "I am not sure what just happened to us with that Sellers kid, but I do know I never want to see it again."
3) The St. Bonaventure game was to single most amazing sporting event I have ever been to. The 2nd best event was the 1989 RU-PSU game, followed in 3rd place by the RU-Louisville football game in 2006. 4th best was the SF Giants versus Phillies National League Championship game 6 in 2010 or 2012, when the Giants beat the Phillies in Philly (I am a big Giants fan). Anyway, I digress ... in the last 10 minutes of the game, the game had to be STOPPED many times - often after an RU basket - because after every RU basket the crowd was so loud a RAIN of paint chips from the ceiling fell to the court, and the floor had to be swept. It FELT like play was stopped after every RU basket in the stretch, but I am sure that was just my memory playing tricks on me ... but the game WAS stopped at least several times for the floor to be swept.
4) The Barn was an amazingly loud arena ... though arena was the wrong term ... Bandbox, perhaps. The documentary got part of it right: The bleachers on 3 sides on the lower level made the noise almost unbearably loud: When the fans would start stamping on the bleachers they made an enormously loud rattling sound. But what made the sound amplified even more was that HUGE wall behind the teams. It was a wooden wall, a movable wooden wall, and behind the wall was a swimming pool ... meaning a big open space. When the fans got loud and stamping, the sound echoed and was amplified, and reverberated off that hollow wooden wall ... the wall acted almost like an eardrum, amplifying sound.
5) Vitale almost made it sound like he took the Detroit job before RU made the decision NOT to hire him for the RU job. That was not correct. While it might be true that Detroit hired Vitale before RU announced Tom Young, RU had decided NOT to hire Vitale. Understand, Vitale was a GREAT recruiter - as they said, maybe one of the best in the country. But he was VERY young, and very raw, at that time. We do not know, despite his success at Detroit (which was just 3 years), if he would have had legs as a head coach - after all he failed after just 1 or 2 years when hired as the head coach of the NBA Pistons. Certtainly, the history would have been different, as there would have been no Eddie Jordan or James Bailey under Vitale (not his style player) - maybe he would have gotten better players ... maybe not. RU wanted a head coach with head coaching experience. And though Tom Young was an indifferent recruiter, at best, he was a terrific player developer: And may indeed have been the perfect choice for the team make-up at the time.
6) James Bailey (more than Abdel Anderson - though Anderson was important also) was the missing link to turn a very good team into an all time great team. Palko was a serviceable, 6'8" center: Solid, mistake-free, but limited athletic ability and offensive ability. I remember telling my Dad after the 1st game in the 1975-76 season (it was actually the 2nd game we saw, because there had been an exhibition game also, I think), and this is my exact quote: "If Bailey is not starting by the 5th or 6th game then Tom Young needs to be fired." It was obvious even after just the 1st or 2nd game that Bailey would be a star ... just like it was obvious after Sellers' 1st game or 2 HE would be a star. And it was more than just Bailey's amazing athleticism: He had the "it" factor on the court. Plus, Bailey was the PERFECT player to play the style Young wanted to play: pressure and pressing defense and running.
7) I was shattered by the loss to Michigan. I could not go to the game (I think I was at a high school debate tournament) - but I listened on the radio. The documentary got it right: RU could not make a shot to save their lives - and theyt were easy shots, many of them. For all that Michigan's quickness surprised RU (first team all year that could nearly match RU's quickness), RU still got MANY easy shots, open shots ... that they just missed. I believe Sellers was literally crying after the game, during interviews, apologizing for his poor play and poor shooting.
8) That was an amazing Final Four, by the way. I think I will start a new thread on the Final Four story line - it deserves its own thread. Several 1st's though: First time 2 undefeated teams entered the Final Four, and 1st time 2 teams from the same conference were in the Final Four.
9) I think an RU-Indiana match-up would have been an interesting one: Not just 2 undefeated teams for the 1st time, but RU would have been an interesting match-up player by player. RU probably would have lost, though. Indiana was REALLY good.
10) The RU and the Big East story line was a confused one. By the way I NEVER heard RU had a 2nd shot at the Big East in 1981 or so ... that is a new item I heard for the 1st time in this thread. I do not think that is accurate. I KNOW one reason RU did not accept the Big East's original invite was due to its efforts to form an Eastern All Sports league: In 1978-9, RU and Penn State WERE aligned in favor ... but Pitt refused ... but there were hopes, with RU, Penn State and Pitt all in the Eastern 8 - and you could not have an Eastern football league at that time without BOTH Penn State AND Pitt. But never forget that at THAT time, despite PSU revisionists, it was PENN STATE that blocked the all sports league. By 1981, when PSU had dropped from the Eastern 8 to try to be independent - and effort that failed - that PSU decided to revisit the idea of an Eastern All Sports league, with football. THEN it was PITT that rejected the idea - and the Big East had a lot to do with that, as the Big East invited Pitt into the Big East, on the condition they drop the idea of a football league. Pitt was AWFUL in basketball at the time, and there was no actual reason for the Big East to add them as their 9th team - it made ZERO sense, and offered ZERO benefits to the Big East ... except ONE benefit: It preserved the Big East. If the Big East had not prevented an all sports league with football at that time, Syracuse and Boston College would have left the Big East at that time to join the Eastern All Sports league. I am certain RU was NOT invited into the Big East at that time: St. Johns and Seton Hall did not want them ... nor Villanova.
11) RU really should have made TWO Final Fours in a span of 4 years. RU should have made the Final Four in 1979, also. Tom Young, who was generally a GREAT game day coach, had perhaps his singe worst game as a head coach in a close loss to St. Johns in the 2nd round of the 1979 NCAA tourney. RU really should have won that game, and WOULD ABSOLUTELY have beaten Penn (RU would have been a nightmare match-up for Penn) to get to the Final Four. And then you would have had a RU-Michigan St match-up ... Magic Johnson vs James Bailey (though Abdel Anderson would have covered Johnson, and Maybe Kelser would have covered Bailey). MSU was a great team, of course, and Johnson a better player than Bailey ... but both were amongst the top 5-7 players in the country, and who knows what might have happened? And people forget that as great as Indiana St was that year (undefeated maybe, or just 1 loss?) with Larry Bird, that RU had BEATEN Indiana St the year before, when both teams had essentially the same key players (true, a close game, something like 57-56, and true that Bird scored 33 points on RU ... but a win was a win).
12) My parents offered to hire Eddie Jordan (he was a Senior at the time, I think) to run a basketball party for my 15th birthday. But I was too embarrassed, and turned them down ... I was an idiot, of course.
That is all for now.
