This was another game that I attended but do not have a game tape of. Does anyone have a copy of this game? It was one of our most crushing defeats ever but I would like to see this game again to see exactly in my mind how it unfolded. I remember us losing on McKoy's basket at the buzzer and seeing the ball fall through the basket as a red light went off on the backboard. My friend and I drove all the way home after the loss as we knew we would not be able to sleep that night. We led almost the entire game before losing and we only would have to defeat Penn to make the Final Four again if we had held on.
St. John's game in the NCAA at Greensboro, NC in 1979
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I don't remember the ending like that
I do remember us blowing the 9 pt lead with 8-9 minutes to go with Wayne McKoy on the bench with four fouls and Tom Young slowed it down instead of putting the foot on the gas and we lost momentum
The ending was not quite how I remember...We did make a turnover with about 30 seconds to go....Louie called time out to set up a play...(remember the announcers making a bi deal out of Carnasecca using the chalk actually on the floor)....and how RU had beaten St John's 5 out of 6 coming into this game...
They set up a play and McKoy did score with 4 seconds to go
I remember we called time out (we had two left) with the idea that we would set up a play to get the ball to mid court on a pass to quickly call time out to set up one last play from half court....but I remember the pass being poor and we turned it over so we never got the last shot
Maybe I'm wrong but that what I remember
A painful blown opportunity...
I do remember us blowing the 9 pt lead with 8-9 minutes to go with Wayne McKoy on the bench with four fouls and Tom Young slowed it down instead of putting the foot on the gas and we lost momentum
The ending was not quite how I remember...We did make a turnover with about 30 seconds to go....Louie called time out to set up a play...(remember the announcers making a bi deal out of Carnasecca using the chalk actually on the floor)....and how RU had beaten St John's 5 out of 6 coming into this game...
They set up a play and McKoy did score with 4 seconds to go
I remember we called time out (we had two left) with the idea that we would set up a play to get the ball to mid court on a pass to quickly call time out to set up one last play from half court....but I remember the pass being poor and we turned it over so we never got the last shot
Maybe I'm wrong but that what I remember
A painful blown opportunity...
This is my recollection as well. Bailey blocked McCoy's initial attempt. Went right back to him and with Bailey out of position after the block, was able to get an easy lay-in. Darius Griffin couldn't handle the subsequent inbounds pass.
Shack, maybe you are right or maybe I am. I do remember Tom Brown get picked while dribbling at mid court with about 30 seconds left. I will check my scrapbook for the article on the game. I just found the article. You are correct Shack. The article says that Reggie Carter broke open with 6 seconds left and shot from the right baseline. The shot missed and McKoy got the rebound and pushed the ball into the basket from about 8 feet away. There were 4 seconds left and Darius Griffin's inbounds pass bounded away from a diving Tom Brown and out of bounds with 3 seconds left. That sealed it. The article states that RU led most of the way and Bailey scored 19 but 12 were in the first half. The Redmen collapsed around Bailey in the second half and he only scored 7 in that half. The article also mentions that Daryl Strictland missed 3 of 4 foul shots before St. John's tied the score at 65-65. RU never elected to hold the ball outside to force the Redmen out of their tight zone for a more open man to man defense. Either way I hope someone has a copy of this game.
I was at that game also..... for some reason I thought Jeff Allen, a transfer big from RU to st John's, hurt us late in that game... don't know if it was the final shot though
Jeff Allen never amounted to much otherwise
Very painful loss and ride home.... unfortunately I was in the same hotel where many St John's fans stayed..... loud night.
Jeff Allen never amounted to much otherwise
Very painful loss and ride home.... unfortunately I was in the same hotel where many St John's fans stayed..... loud night.
Jeff Allen was not on that team. He was a freshman the following year. He was the same year as Roy Hinson and wound up transferring when it became obvious that Roy was the much better player.
that's funny and thanks for sharing..because I remembered it the same way you did..I listened on the radio and thought it was right at the buzzer. oh the memories of those teams/games.
I was in a Winnebago on spring break and was in the back listening on radio. The WRSU signal started to fade. However, my radio could pick up TV channel audio and I distinctly remember listening to the end of that game via a TV station out of Philadelphia. Perhaps you could see if KYW or another of the Philly stations have a copy of that broadcast.
In regards to older footage, would you happen to have the 1988 game vs St John's played at Madison Square Garden? I've been searching for this game for years. Think it was played in January of '88. This was the game that was part of the movie 'Coming to America' with Eddie Murphy. I would be glad to convert to digital and provide you with a disk....and of course I'll handle the shipping each way. Any help is much appreciated. Thanks
I'm mistaken. That game against St John's wasn't in the movie. The game in the movie was ST J / Marist. However, still interested in the game at the Garden vs St John's
That was the last of the Littlepage years. RU fans have burned all tapes from that season and the two seasons prior. [winking]
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/13/s...l-jones-leads-st-john-s-by-rutgers-73-55.html
I am however still looking for a tape of that 1979 game at Greensboro vs. St. John's. Someone must have a copy. Thanks for any help.
I added this '79 game to my 'Want List' of a game trading board site that I'm on. Maybe it will surface. Some of the older tourney games pop up despite the limited technology back then
I was a big Tom Young fan, but he pulled a Guy V. Lewis in that one. No reason we should have lost it, and although you hate to assume, I think we handle Penn in the regional final.
Perhaps, just perhaps, two Final Fours in four years might have been enough, at least for a few years, to stand out from the shadow of that conference that began play the following fall ...
Perhaps, just perhaps, two Final Fours in four years might have been enough, at least for a few years, to stand out from the shadow of that conference that began play the following fall ...
If I recall correctly Rutgers slowed things down which let the johnnies get back in it. Rutgers had already beaten them twice. That game was a real bummer. Probably the last time the team was legitimately good.
The only other time my Dad screamed at the TV more, was when Bucky Dent homered against the Red Sox in that AL East one game playoff. He was distraught. He also screamed alot during the 1983 tourney game. Cursing Fred Grunninger that we didn't go with Cuse and the Johnnies into the Big East.
We did have a VCR in 1979. If my Dad taped that game, the tape didn't last long.
We did have a VCR in 1979. If my Dad taped that game, the tape didn't last long.
I have long railed about Young's poor coaching job in that 1 game - possibly the worst single game coaching job in Young's career - certainly the most impactful bad single game coaching job while Young was at RU.
There is no doubt RU would have beaten Penn - and easily. Not that Penn was not good, and after all, Penn then beat St. Johns. But RU was just a particularly bad match up for Penn, in a way St. Johns was not. Penn had no tools to handle a Bailey - St. Johns just did not have a player that created such a bad match up for Penn.
And then ... RU would have been playing that great Michigan State team with Magic Johnson, Greg Kelser - and Jay Vincent. THAT would have been a fascinating match up. I have always speculated that Abdel Anderson (RU's best man on man defender - and to save Bailey from foul trouble) would have covered Magic Johnson. Anderson was the RU player designated to cover Larry Bird of Indiana State the prior year when RU beat Indiana St. in the NIT. I believe Kelvin Troy (in his So year) or Strickland would have covered Kelser, and Bailey would have covered Jay Vincent or Ron Charles (MSU's starting center). If Strickland covered Kelser, then Troy would have covered Vincent or Charles.
MSU probably would have won - they had the best player in Magic, and 2-3 other NBA players (Kelser and Vincent for sure). But I wonder ... RU had good match-up possibilities. People also forget that as good as Indiana State was (#1 and uindefeated), the last team to beat Indiana State prior to MSU in the NCAA finals in 1979, was Rutgers, in the NIT the prior year.
I will contest 1 statement, though, that the 1979 RU team was the last time RU was "legitimately good." The 1983 team was legitimately good, and a legitimate NCAA team. Same with the 1991 team. I really felt RU could have beaten St. Johns in the 2nd round of the NCAA in 1983 (I know RU was a big underdog, but I really felt they had a shot). And RU SHOULD have beaten Arizona in the 1st round in 1991 - but blew a close game. RU's 1991 success could not be sustained, since it was built on 3 transfers who were all graduating: Hughes, Duncan and Dabbs. Wenzel just had not recruited enough of a base.
Thanks Jelly. I went to the game in 83 against the johnnies as well. You are right that team was pretty good. But I felt like there were holes in the lineup we didn't have in 79 and also i knew that once Roy graduated we would be in trouble. That was the basis for my comment as you not d - sustainability.
Jelly
I love the analysis....One thing though about speculating against a RU-Michigan State 1979 game
That 78-79 team played A LOT of 2-3 zone. A lot, unlike previous Tom Young teams which ran and played up tempo and man defense
If you remember from that year...we started 15th ranked, and part of the high expectations was the return of Bailey and Abdel, the development of younger players Rodney Duncan and Kelvin Troy, and newcomer Darryl Strickland to help provide offense with the loss of Hollis Copeland to graduation
We started that season with the idea of continuing to play FAST. The season before the team averaged 78 ppg on the way to a 24-7 season....
But the slow start to the season...2-2, including the smack down by Villanova on the road ...and the dismissal of Rodney Duncan really left the backcourt thin and not really athletic to play high tempo and in your face man defense. Tom brown took over the point...and the back ups were Billy Clarke (transfer from St Johns) and Matt Madlinger....neither of which were man pressure defenders
So Tom switched strategies to slowing the game down....played a more control tempo game, and definitely mixed in a lot of 2-3 zone which masked the guard depth issues and their lack of man-ball defense skills
And it showed in the score board...team went 22-9....and with the scoring offense dropping to around 71 ppg....with four Bailey getting 18 and Anderson, Stickland and Troy getting 11-12 ppg
Had RU had a point guard (or if Duncan stepped up like his off season) that team would have been a notch better all the way around...as Brown was solid and serviceable, but really only a 12-15 mpg depth guy
Also forgot they had frosh darrius griffin ...who could play man defense but drove tom nuts as he was wild with the ball in his hands and limited his playing time
A few random thoughts on this thread: I was still in high school in 79 and forgot how close we came to another Final Four that year. Jeff Allen was not on the '79 St. John's team. He was actually a freshman at RU in 79-80 (along with Roy Hinson) and transferred out after that year. As for the 91 team, I was in the car getting off the turnpike in the Meadowlands on the way to the Seton Hall game in December when I heard on the radio that Tom Savage (the first Tom Savage) was through. That still turned out to be a good team, but with Savage I think we were a legitimate Sweet Sixteen caliber team and then who knows?
From The NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/17/a...y-thwarts-rutgers-st-johns-and-penn.html?_r=0
GREENSBORO, N.C., March 16 —The code was passed on, from Joe Lapchick to Lou Carnesecca, and it will be passed on again.
For nine years, Carnesecca sat next to Lapchick on the St. John's bench, and for nine years he learned at St. John's that you do not use a zone defense.
“I detest to use it,” Carnesecca said. He detested it a little less tonight, when a 3‐2 zone and a converted rebound by Wayne McKoy with five seconds to go helped St. John's to defeat Rutgers, 67‐65, and advance to the final of the East regional basketball tournament. The Redmen, the 10th‐seeded team in the region and the 40th and last team selected for the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, will play against Pennsylvania, seeded eighth, on Sunday. The Quakers defeated Syracuse, 84‐76, in the first semifinal game before a disappointing crowd announced as 9,102 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
The victory was the third of the last five for St. John's that had been won in the final seconds. The last time the Redmen had gone this far in the tournament was in 1952, when they lost to Kansas in the natonal champion4iip game. If Pennsylvania wins on Sunday, it would become the first Ivy League team to reach the national semifinals since the 1965 Princeton team.
“Here we are,” Carnesecca said. “The undies.”
That was short for underdog.
St. John's fell behind by as much as 10 points late in the first half. The Redmen went ahead by a point on a layup by Frank Gilroy, a sophomore forward, XI seconds into the second half.
Then there were serious problems: McKoy was charged with his fourth foul almost three minutes into the half, Gilroy picked up his fourth 29 seconds iater. Then, 33 seconds after that, Ron Flair, a sophomore forward, w:r:riven his fourth.
Switch to the Zone
It was then that John Kresse, the assistant who will leave for the College of Charleston after this season, talked his boss into using a zone.
“To try to slow Rutgers down,” Kresse said. “To try to preserve our foul situation. And we really had small team out there, and we could collapse on Bailey.”
“You can stop anybody if you put three or four guys on him and give up .he 15‐foot jumper,” said Tom Young, the Rutgers coach. After early success against the zone, however, the Scarlet i ;nights would not try to shoot over it, “There's no sense in us trying to come down and beat them from 20 feet,” Young said.
With the score tied at 65 and Rutgers in possession, Reggie Carter, a junior :guard, forced Daryl Strickland of the !:nights into a five‐second violation. The ensuing jump ball went to Rutgers, and Strickland was fouled, but he missed the first shot in a one-and-one situation with 40 seconds to play.
Again, the Duke Play
“I knew it was win or lose,” Strickland said. “I didn't go up there thinking win or lose, I went up there thinking win. It was just off. My follow through was bad.”
Gilroy took the rebound. The Redmen held the ball until they called time out with 17 seconds to go, and Camesecca called the same play that beat Duke last Sunday. Carter took the same jump shot from the right baseline
with 8 seconds to go, but this time he missed. The ball went to McKoy on the right side of the lane, and he made his shot before he came down.
Rutgers missed its last chance when a half‐court pass to Tom Brown, a senior guard, bounced off him and rolled out of bounds.
GREENSBORO, N.C., March 16 —The code was passed on, from Joe Lapchick to Lou Carnesecca, and it will be passed on again.
For nine years, Carnesecca sat next to Lapchick on the St. John's bench, and for nine years he learned at St. John's that you do not use a zone defense.
“I detest to use it,” Carnesecca said. He detested it a little less tonight, when a 3‐2 zone and a converted rebound by Wayne McKoy with five seconds to go helped St. John's to defeat Rutgers, 67‐65, and advance to the final of the East regional basketball tournament. The Redmen, the 10th‐seeded team in the region and the 40th and last team selected for the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament, will play against Pennsylvania, seeded eighth, on Sunday. The Quakers defeated Syracuse, 84‐76, in the first semifinal game before a disappointing crowd announced as 9,102 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
The victory was the third of the last five for St. John's that had been won in the final seconds. The last time the Redmen had gone this far in the tournament was in 1952, when they lost to Kansas in the natonal champion4iip game. If Pennsylvania wins on Sunday, it would become the first Ivy League team to reach the national semifinals since the 1965 Princeton team.
“Here we are,” Carnesecca said. “The undies.”
That was short for underdog.
St. John's fell behind by as much as 10 points late in the first half. The Redmen went ahead by a point on a layup by Frank Gilroy, a sophomore forward, XI seconds into the second half.
Then there were serious problems: McKoy was charged with his fourth foul almost three minutes into the half, Gilroy picked up his fourth 29 seconds iater. Then, 33 seconds after that, Ron Flair, a sophomore forward, w:r:riven his fourth.
Switch to the Zone
It was then that John Kresse, the assistant who will leave for the College of Charleston after this season, talked his boss into using a zone.
“To try to slow Rutgers down,” Kresse said. “To try to preserve our foul situation. And we really had small team out there, and we could collapse on Bailey.”
“You can stop anybody if you put three or four guys on him and give up .he 15‐foot jumper,” said Tom Young, the Rutgers coach. After early success against the zone, however, the Scarlet i ;nights would not try to shoot over it, “There's no sense in us trying to come down and beat them from 20 feet,” Young said.
With the score tied at 65 and Rutgers in possession, Reggie Carter, a junior :guard, forced Daryl Strickland of the !:nights into a five‐second violation. The ensuing jump ball went to Rutgers, and Strickland was fouled, but he missed the first shot in a one-and-one situation with 40 seconds to play.
Again, the Duke Play
“I knew it was win or lose,” Strickland said. “I didn't go up there thinking win or lose, I went up there thinking win. It was just off. My follow through was bad.”
Gilroy took the rebound. The Redmen held the ball until they called time out with 17 seconds to go, and Camesecca called the same play that beat Duke last Sunday. Carter took the same jump shot from the right baseline
with 8 seconds to go, but this time he missed. The ball went to McKoy on the right side of the lane, and he made his shot before he came down.
Rutgers missed its last chance when a half‐court pass to Tom Brown, a senior guard, bounced off him and rolled out of bounds.
This afternoon I went to the Elizabeth Main Public Library. I checked whether this game was definitely televised and it was on channel 11 at 10 PM so definitely some people must have a tape of it. I also wrote to St. John's today to see if they might have a copy of the game tape. I also checked on 3 other games in Elizabeth. I will list this on a new thread so as many as possible know the story.
Our March 6, 1976 game vs. St. John's in the ECAC final at MSG that we won 70-67 was televised on Channel 4 at 3 PM.
Our last NCAA Win on March 18, 1983 vs SW Louisiana in Hartford that we Won 60-53 was not televised live but was shown on ESPN Saturday morning March 19, 1983 at 8 AM.
Our NCAA game that we Lost to St. John's 65-56 in Hartford on March 20, 1983 was televised on channel 2 at 4 PM.
Somewhere there should be at least one person who has a tape of each of these.
Our March 6, 1976 game vs. St. John's in the ECAC final at MSG that we won 70-67 was televised on Channel 4 at 3 PM.
Our last NCAA Win on March 18, 1983 vs SW Louisiana in Hartford that we Won 60-53 was not televised live but was shown on ESPN Saturday morning March 19, 1983 at 8 AM.
Our NCAA game that we Lost to St. John's 65-56 in Hartford on March 20, 1983 was televised on channel 2 at 4 PM.
Somewhere there should be at least one person who has a tape of each of these.
I have a friend with the 3/27/76 game vs Michigan......no luck on the others though
Does the 76 game with Michigan have sound? If it does I would be interested in a copy of that one if possible. All I've ever heard of on that game was without sound. Please let me know. You can email me at arostel@yahoo.com Thank you.
From memory: I think Dick Enberg announced the game. IMO Rutgers was out of if quickly. The game never seemed close.
Seems like Jordan was fast...Green was faster. Bailey was big...Hubbard more effective. Neither Dabney nor Sellers could get untracked.
I remember at half? they played "Nobody Ever Died for Dear Ol Rutgers" (with Phil Silvers singing the lead).
Very disappointing end to a magical season.
MO
We played awful. We trailed I think 45-29 at the half and we missed so many close shots. I think we shot 29%. I think Tom Young later said that we seemed to let the big atmosphere get to us.
I'm trying to find out. My buddy is out of the country right now....should know in a couple weeks
