SWC75
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The most popular games of the 1966-67 season, outside of the St. John’s confrontation, had been the freshman games that preceded the varsity encounters. For years I have been an advocate of having double headers in the Dome with the men’s and women’s teams or of having a junior varsity for players not good enough or not ready for the varsity. It was always fascinating to come into Manley and see a game already going on while the stands filled up, especially when the stars of that team might be the stars of next year’s varsity. In 1966-67, we had a freshman team that might have beaten the varsity. It featured a smooth 6-8 center, Wayne Ward, who would be our answer to the Sonny Doves and Mel Daniels of the world. There was also Ernie Austin, a high scoring guard from Washington DC who was a cousin of former BC All-American John Austin. Ward averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds a game while Austin averaged 30 points a game for the freshman who won all 16 games they played. The two biggest games were against the Niagara freshmen, who were lead by Calvin Murphy who was producing an incredible 50 points a game as a frosh. These games were so anticipated that people were actually seen leaving after them and skipping the varsity game. SU won both of them, with the combined weight of Ward’s and Austin’s numbers overcoming the incredible scoring of Murphy.
In 1967-68 the varsity had four of five starters returning, losing only Dean, who would obviously be replaced by Ward. Meanwhile Steve Ludd left the team to concentrate on his studies. He knew that Austin was going to become the “2” guard on this team, joining Harper, Hicker and Cornwall in a team that would surely be superior to their predecessors.
Meanwhile, another great class had been recruited by Fred Lewis and his chief assistant, Roy Danforth. It contained a true “aircraft carrier”, 6-11 Bill Smith, who, according to Sports Illustrated, Lewis “compared favorably to (Lew) Alcindor”, (now known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar). Beside him was a high scoring 6-7 forward, Bob McDaniel and another good prospect, 6-5 Bill Finney. The frosh backcourt contained 6-0 distributor Tom Green and a local product, John Unger, from our high school in North Syracuse. This team averaged 98 points a game, losing only to nationally ranked junior college Broome Tech. Smith scored 21 a game and got 14 rebounds. McDaniel topped that with 25 a game and 16 rebs. Harper, Hicker and Cornwall were seniors but SU was looking at a line-up of Smith at center, surrounded by Ward and McDaniel, with Austin and Green in the backcourt for 1968-69. This was an era when the average center was about 6-7 and the average forward 6-4. We were going to go 6-8, 6-11, 6-7. Take that, Sonny Dove! Our team was going to look like a church, with the large steeple supported by flying buttresses. All you had to do was open the doors of Manley and see all the people who would come to see them.
This led to serious dreams of the ultimate ambition in college basketball at the time: to be the team that had the honor of losing to UCLA for the national championship. In those days, everybody knew before the season began who would win the title: that was UCLA’s by birthright. The glamour dream was to get to play them in the finals. Duke, Michigan, Dayton, North Carolina, Purdue, Jacksonville, Villanova, Florida State, Memphis State and Kentucky got that honor in the Wooden years. Imagine if Syracuse could have made that list? But we never got close. Instead, we went in a very different direction.
The 1967-68 season got off to a good start, with SU blowing out George Washington, 108-68 and winning four of their first five. The one loss was disturbing, an 18 point loss at Cornell, despite an 18 point second half run by SU, an indication of how far behind we had fallen. But Cornell just had a hot night. SU was going to be alright. A pesky newspaper writer named Bob Snyder said the 4-1 start meant “nothing”, that the team wasn’t playing well. I couldn’t wait for the team to shut him up. He’s still talking. Losses to Bowling Green and St. John’s followed. A win over Penn State was followed by losses to LaSalle and St. John’s. A win over Navy gave SU the last winning record it would have for a long time at 6-5. A seven game losing steak crushed SU’s season, including another loss to LaSalle and a 20 point blow-out at the hands of Bob Knight’s first really good Army team. But the most notable of these losses was the first confrontation with Niagara with Calvin Murphy on the varsity. It figured that with the SU varsity having 3 starters remaining from a 20-6 team and Ward and Austin having beaten Murphy’s Niagara frosh twice that SU would be able to win this game, which was the first one I recall televised by a local station, with it’s own announcers. Murphy got his 50, which is still the Manley Field house record but this time his team outscored SU, 107-116.
At this time, for reasons that have never been made clear in public, the team rebelled against the coach. We often hear about how verbally rough Jim Boeheim and other coaches can be on his players but a true rebellion, as happened to John Mackovic, the football coach at Arizona, recently, is extremely rare. Even Bobby Knight never had an entire team rebel against him. But something happened and Fred Lewis, the architect of the SU revival, was forced out. (Snyder in “Orange Handbook”, says he had irritated some administrators and was spending too much time hawking an exercise machine)The team wound up loosing 13 of its last 20. The penultimate game was another loss to Niagara. Things had gotten so bad that Lewis had decided we had to stall to hold the score down. We succeed in holding Murphy to a career-low, (I think it was 16), and won the game 50-49. But had it come to this? Did the team that almost scored 100 a game have to stall and score half that to win? Yes, it had.
When the new coach, Lewis’ assistant and the coach of those highly successful freshman teams, Roy Danforth, took over, there were statements in the paper that the players were delighted because they felt Danforth related to them better. Eight years later, when Danforth left to coach Tulane and his assistant Jim Boeheim, took over, the players said the same thing. I suspect that if Jim Boeheim were to retire and be replaced by, say, Mike Hopkins, the players will say these things again. Typically, assistants relate to players better than head coaches because they are simply closer to them. It’s the nature of the job. Danforth was a studious-looking fellow who could do eccentric things like leading the fans in cheers or joining a recruit in the shower, fully clothed to talk to him, (as told to Bud Poliquin by Dennis DuVal). He would ride out one of the worst seasons SU ever had and pull the team through the long, slow ascendancy to the national prominence we all hoped for.
In 1967-68 the varsity had four of five starters returning, losing only Dean, who would obviously be replaced by Ward. Meanwhile Steve Ludd left the team to concentrate on his studies. He knew that Austin was going to become the “2” guard on this team, joining Harper, Hicker and Cornwall in a team that would surely be superior to their predecessors.
Meanwhile, another great class had been recruited by Fred Lewis and his chief assistant, Roy Danforth. It contained a true “aircraft carrier”, 6-11 Bill Smith, who, according to Sports Illustrated, Lewis “compared favorably to (Lew) Alcindor”, (now known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar). Beside him was a high scoring 6-7 forward, Bob McDaniel and another good prospect, 6-5 Bill Finney. The frosh backcourt contained 6-0 distributor Tom Green and a local product, John Unger, from our high school in North Syracuse. This team averaged 98 points a game, losing only to nationally ranked junior college Broome Tech. Smith scored 21 a game and got 14 rebounds. McDaniel topped that with 25 a game and 16 rebs. Harper, Hicker and Cornwall were seniors but SU was looking at a line-up of Smith at center, surrounded by Ward and McDaniel, with Austin and Green in the backcourt for 1968-69. This was an era when the average center was about 6-7 and the average forward 6-4. We were going to go 6-8, 6-11, 6-7. Take that, Sonny Dove! Our team was going to look like a church, with the large steeple supported by flying buttresses. All you had to do was open the doors of Manley and see all the people who would come to see them.
This led to serious dreams of the ultimate ambition in college basketball at the time: to be the team that had the honor of losing to UCLA for the national championship. In those days, everybody knew before the season began who would win the title: that was UCLA’s by birthright. The glamour dream was to get to play them in the finals. Duke, Michigan, Dayton, North Carolina, Purdue, Jacksonville, Villanova, Florida State, Memphis State and Kentucky got that honor in the Wooden years. Imagine if Syracuse could have made that list? But we never got close. Instead, we went in a very different direction.
The 1967-68 season got off to a good start, with SU blowing out George Washington, 108-68 and winning four of their first five. The one loss was disturbing, an 18 point loss at Cornell, despite an 18 point second half run by SU, an indication of how far behind we had fallen. But Cornell just had a hot night. SU was going to be alright. A pesky newspaper writer named Bob Snyder said the 4-1 start meant “nothing”, that the team wasn’t playing well. I couldn’t wait for the team to shut him up. He’s still talking. Losses to Bowling Green and St. John’s followed. A win over Penn State was followed by losses to LaSalle and St. John’s. A win over Navy gave SU the last winning record it would have for a long time at 6-5. A seven game losing steak crushed SU’s season, including another loss to LaSalle and a 20 point blow-out at the hands of Bob Knight’s first really good Army team. But the most notable of these losses was the first confrontation with Niagara with Calvin Murphy on the varsity. It figured that with the SU varsity having 3 starters remaining from a 20-6 team and Ward and Austin having beaten Murphy’s Niagara frosh twice that SU would be able to win this game, which was the first one I recall televised by a local station, with it’s own announcers. Murphy got his 50, which is still the Manley Field house record but this time his team outscored SU, 107-116.
At this time, for reasons that have never been made clear in public, the team rebelled against the coach. We often hear about how verbally rough Jim Boeheim and other coaches can be on his players but a true rebellion, as happened to John Mackovic, the football coach at Arizona, recently, is extremely rare. Even Bobby Knight never had an entire team rebel against him. But something happened and Fred Lewis, the architect of the SU revival, was forced out. (Snyder in “Orange Handbook”, says he had irritated some administrators and was spending too much time hawking an exercise machine)The team wound up loosing 13 of its last 20. The penultimate game was another loss to Niagara. Things had gotten so bad that Lewis had decided we had to stall to hold the score down. We succeed in holding Murphy to a career-low, (I think it was 16), and won the game 50-49. But had it come to this? Did the team that almost scored 100 a game have to stall and score half that to win? Yes, it had.
When the new coach, Lewis’ assistant and the coach of those highly successful freshman teams, Roy Danforth, took over, there were statements in the paper that the players were delighted because they felt Danforth related to them better. Eight years later, when Danforth left to coach Tulane and his assistant Jim Boeheim, took over, the players said the same thing. I suspect that if Jim Boeheim were to retire and be replaced by, say, Mike Hopkins, the players will say these things again. Typically, assistants relate to players better than head coaches because they are simply closer to them. It’s the nature of the job. Danforth was a studious-looking fellow who could do eccentric things like leading the fans in cheers or joining a recruit in the shower, fully clothed to talk to him, (as told to Bud Poliquin by Dennis DuVal). He would ride out one of the worst seasons SU ever had and pull the team through the long, slow ascendancy to the national prominence we all hoped for.
