The beginning of the good old days | Syracusefan.com

The beginning of the good old days

Orangeyes

R.I.P Dan
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SYRACUSE

The basketball outlook was so bad here until Coach Fred Lewis arrived two years ago from Southern Mississippi that Syracuse could not even give away basketball scholarships. The team lost 27 at one stretch, an NCAA record. Alumni felt disgraced. With Lewis, Syracuse went to 8-13 last year, and the figures should at least be reversed. Lewis has a spectacular sophomore, Dave Bing, and Chuck Richards, 6-foot-8 transfer from Army, among other goodies. The schedule is going national, there is another good freshman team and the town of Syracuse, which just lost its pro team, has something to be proud of again

SI December 9, 1963

For once there was some semblance of order in the attack against Syracuse. After some typically bad moments with their old nemesis, the full-court press, and Syracuse sophomore Dave Bing's superb jump-shooting (he scored 31 points), the Violets got together. They moved the ball purposefully, Happy Hairston and Barry Kramer teamed up for 49 points, and NYU won 77-68.*

SI March 23, 1964

*Footnote

Went to dinner last night with the point guard from NYU who played in that game. He said JB hit him with so many sharp elbows that he had bruises for weeks.
 
I wish I could have been there. Appreciate the invite.

I'm a few years younger than GF, but when I was in my mid-late teens I hung around with some guys from St Vincents and Sacred Heart. They told me that he was by far the best high school basketball player in Syracuse when he was in school. City or Parochial.

I never saw him play a high school game, he was out of school before I moved to Syracuse.

Anyway...maybe you can remember an NYU BB game that was televised in Syracuse? As you know, televised live college basketball was not real common back then. The reason I ask...I remember seeing him on TV playing for NYU, but I can't remember who they were playing against. There might have been more than one NYU game televised upstate when he was there?

That's the only time I ever saw him play.

JB was an on court sharp object. Sharp elbows, sharp knees, sharp shoulders, sharp nose. Defending him must have been hazardous duty.
 
The place to be, (and I wasn't there), was the Hurricane Classic, where SU, with Dave Bing, beat Princeton with Bill Bradley and Miami with Rick Barry for the title. It was the last tournament of any kind we won until the 1975 ECAC post season tournament, which got us into the NCAAs and gave us a shot at what became our first Final Four.

Some of the players visited Muhammed Ali's training camp, (for the first Liston fight), and he repaid the visit by attending a game, from what I've read.

That was a week that was.
 
The place to be, (and I wasn't there), was the Hurricane Classic, where SU, with Dave Bing, beat Princeton with Bill Bradley and Miami with Rick Barry for the title. It was the last tournament of any kind we won until the 1975 ECAC post season tournament, which got us into the NCAAs and gave us a shot at what became our first Final Four.

Some of the players visited Muhammed Ali's training camp, (for the first Liston fight), and he repaid the visit by attending a game, from what I've read.

That was a week that was.
Yes. Remember hearing it on the radio.
 
Alibrat and I were there (we're old). It was just amazing ... going from the then-all-time losing record ... to the magic that occurred with the opening of Manley and the Bing freshman class. You had to be there... to understand how amazing it was.
 
I wish I could have been there. Appreciate the invite.

I'm a few years younger than GF, but when I was in my mid-late teens I hung around with some guys from St Vincents and Sacred Heart. They told me that he was by far the best high school basketball player in Syracuse when he was in school. City or Parochial.

I never saw him play a high school game, he was out of school before I moved to Syracuse.

Anyway...maybe you can remember an NYU BB game that was televised in Syracuse? As you know, televised live college basketball was not real common back then. The reason I ask...I remember seeing him on TV playing for NYU, but I can't remember who they were playing against. There might have been more than one NYU game televised upstate when he was there?

That's the only time I ever saw him play.

JB was an on court sharp object. Sharp elbows, sharp knees, sharp shoulders, sharp nose. Defending him must have been hazardous duty.
Reply from Gene & he wasn't angry as caps usually point to:

THANK YOU FOR THE FOND MEMORY OF POSSIBLY BEING THE FIRST OF TWO OR THREE NYU NATIONALY TELEVISED GAMES. BELIEVE THE FIRST WAS AGAINST ST JOHNS WITH KEVIN LAUGHERY, LERON ELLIS, AND ONE MORE GREAT PLAYER...LERON ELLIS MAY SOUND FAMILIAR SINCE IT WAS HIS SON WHO PLAYED FOR SYRACUSE WHEN SU HAD OWENS, ELLIS, COLEMAN AND WERE CONSIRERED THE GREATEST FRONT COURT AT THE TIME.
 
Reply from Gene & he wasn't angry as caps usually point to:

THANK YOU FOR THE FOND MEMORY OF POSSIBLY BEING THE FIRST OF TWO OR THREE NYU NATIONALY TELEVISED GAMES. BELIEVE THE FIRST WAS AGAINST ST JOHNS WITH KEVIN LAUGHERY, LERON ELLIS, AND ONE MORE GREAT PLAYER...LERON ELLIS MAY SOUND FAMILIAR SINCE IT WAS HIS SON WHO PLAYED FOR SYRACUSE WHEN SU HAD OWENS, ELLIS, COLEMAN AND WERE CONSIRERED THE GREATEST FRONT COURT AT THE TIME.

Wouldn't Daddy Ellis have been Leroy Ellis, not Leron? That's what I remember.
 
Did fans write letters to newspapers debating whether the Knicks should select Bing over Cazzie Russell?
 

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