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Rutgers Final Four Documentary

I have a DVD about that season from about 15 years ago. But there is almost no video footage of any of the games. I would love seeing how much video BTN was able to come up with. Still remember watching the Princeton game on TV and several others... St. John's at the garden. What an exciting team. Damn shame they couldn't shoot against Michigan. They would have lost to Indiana, but it would have been cool to have two undefeated teams in the final.
 
I have a DVD about that season from about 15 years ago. But there is almost no video footage of any of the games. I would love seeing how much video BTN was able to come up with. Still remember watching the Princeton game on TV and several others... St. John's at the garden. What an exciting team. Damn shame they couldn't shoot against Michigan. They would have lost to Indiana, but it would have been cool to have two undefeated teams in the final.
IIRC, the problems with video was that the games were mostly on NJN.. and they re-used the tapes. You'd think that at 20-0 they would have started saving them.. or transferring them to film or something. And we did poorly in the Final 4 where they might have a lot of film available.
 
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Both FB and BB had undefeated regular seasons. And damn, I wasn't at any of the games ( and limited TV cause of the times.) Lived in Chicago with 3 little kids. Also met a rookie RB for the Bears in a supermarket before first preseason. Came home and told wife "I don't think this rookie Walter Payton will amount to much" Thank God I was a better engineer than a judge of FB talent !
 
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I'm proud to say I was at almost every home game that season and previous 4 seasons, I went to every road NCAA tourny game including the Final 4 at The Spectrum in Philly. Easily bought tickets to the Final 4 for about $40. Indiana, Michigan and UCLA all had juggernauts that year. Indiana won it all with a tremendous team that all played in the NBA. Bobby Knights first NCAA Title I believe.
 
I was a student at U of F in Gainesville. I told anyone who would listen that RU was the deal. So I gathered 30 guys in front of the 1 common tv we had in the dorms and for 7 or 8 minutes we watched RU out hustle and out jump them like they were glued to the floor. But we just couldn't make a shot . And then the bottpm fell out.Slowly but surely everyone left but me and 1 other guy from Jersey. We stayed until the bitter end ..And then we drank..
 
It's tremendous. There is a thread on the BB board. I was at every game that year and 3 years before and many years later.
Got to go to all the road NCAA tourny games to as we were #1 seed in the East. Went to the Final 4 in Philly too. Tix were reasonable then. $40 to get in.

This piece is capturing everything beautifully and perfectly.
 
The 69 Mets and Knicks and Jets ...And the "76 Knights. My heroes. It is a real kick seeing Jamming James,Phil the thrill, Hollis . Dabs . EJ and Abdel but Jeff Kleinbaum is the everyman star of rhe show.
 
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If anyone knows if this will be re-run online at the B1G site please post those details. Thanks!

I saw the teaser on line. They used the "Run, Rutgers, Run!" album put together by the WRSU Sports staff. That's Arnie Kaplan calling the final seconds of the last game of the regular season that resulted in a 26-0 Rutgers. Others on that album were Jerry Donnelly as narrator, Paul Spychala, Greg Tabakin, Dave Ades, Paul Hubert and others who I can't think of right now.

I attended the first two games in The Barn that year against Bentley College and then Rutgers hung 119 on Seton Hall. After that, lines started to form overnight to get tickets for the 2,800-seat Barn. Rutgers opened the Barn Annex and let student bring in sleeping bags to stay out of the cold.

The last regular season game was against St. Bonaventure and I watched in my preceptors room on the third floor of Pell in the Quad on UHF Channel 52.

People and media from the New York area were calling in to WRSU to see if they could get the station on their radios that night.

After the victory, I ran down College Avenue to watch the team pull up in the bus to ring the bells of Old Queens and then ran along side the bus back to the area between The Barn and Brower Commons. It was nothing but a sea of Rutgers fans. Members of the team gave brief speeches from the top floor of the Barn looking down on the crowd but you couldn't hear a thing.

How exciting was it? You remember the build up and aftermath of the Rutgers-Louisville football game in 2006? Well, I would rate that a close second to the night of March 1, 1976 -- the greatest on campus sports night in my memory and definitely in my college years. Unbelievable and unforgettable!
 
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Brings back many fond memories and a sense of pride that has been lacking recently. Abro and I had a special connection , as a friend from Hackettstown was a member of the team. Mike Palko graduated from HHS a year after we did. Biggest memory was the Manhatten "scare" and the Michigan loss. Favorite player was Mike Dabney.
 
If anyone knows if this will be re-run online at the B1G site please post those details. Thanks!...
It's available on the BTN2Go app. Watching it now on there. Just search for shows "Big 10 Elite."
 
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