The Louie and Bouie Show - Part 3

[SWC75]

1978-79

Marty Byrnes, Ross Kindell and reserves Kevin James and Bill Drew moved on. In came Rich Harmon, Ron Payton and Ed Gooding, not one of our more stellar recruiting classes. Payton would stick it out for four years, mostly as a reserve, before emerging as a key player as a senior. He briefly left the team with Harmon as a freshman, then suffered a knee injury and got Pipped by Eric Santifer. He helped hold things together in the injury-plagued 1981-82 season, replacing Tony Bruin and Leo Rautins at times. Orangehoops: “Payton was a muscular forward capable of giving the Orangemen valuable minutes off the bench, providing solid rebounding and quick passes…His senior season, he would be one of the most productive sixth men that the Orangemen have had, scoring nearly 11 points a game, with 4.7 rebounds per game.”

Harmon was a McDonald’s All-American, (the first to come here), who couldn’t understand why he wasn’t starting immediately. He was “a tall stocky guard with a reputation for tremendous ball handling skills…not as fast as the smaller guards around him.” He hurt his knee shortly after his return. “Harmon would again quit Syracuse at the end of the season because of a falling out with coach Jim Boeheim. He would transfer to Old Dominion. However, he would never play for the Monarchs as he would re-injure his knee severely in an intrasquad game, resulting in a staph infection and then a bone infection, which led to hospitalization for nine months.”

Gooding “was a tall and lean player with a nice shooting touch” who was also dissatisfied with his playing time and left with Harmon and Payton but did not return. He wound up at Iona, where he averaged 2.4 points per game, starting 8 games in three years.

So Louie and Bouie’s junior season would be carried by returning players. We had an impressive front line of Roosevelt Bouie backed up by Danny Schayes at center and flanked by Louie Orr and Dale Shackleford at forward. The Cohen-Headds, Hal Cohen and Marty Headd were in the backcourt, although Fast Eddie Moss started 9 games in place of Cohen, alleviating a speed deficit that would become critical in the final game of the season.

But the key returning players were Louis and Roosevelt. In fact, Orr wanted the ‘Show’ to be called that because he hated being called ‘Louie’. He wouldn’t have made it as a creator of advertising slogans. This is the year the iconic picture of Louie and Bouie was taken in a game at Manley:

Bouie: “We knew each other’s instincts. It was like we had a sixth sense and always knew not only where the other one was on the court but where was he going to be next…If Louis were a mean or nasty person, it might be a bad thing to be linked with him forever...But Louis? Louis is my friend.” Orr: “I couldn’t ask for a better teammate or a better friend. He was a presence from Day One. Defensively. Offensively. Physically. Rebounding. I mean to tell you, Roosevelt was the guy you had to deal with when you played Syracuse. I was real thin, so with him just being on the court, he took the pounding off me up to do some things.” Bouie: “We communicated so easily. He’d point with a finger, pointing me to which direction he wanted me to fill. He always said that if I beat my man, he'd give me the ball. I remember this one game during our senior year when Louis ended up with no points, about 14 rebounds and about 11 assists. And all of those assists were to me because I had the weakest link guarding me and Louis thought I should get the ball. Well, I did get the ball. All night, thanks to him, and we won. That’s all that mattered to him. On defense, he’d tell me he was going for the pass and I’d cover for him. If he missed the pass, I’d cover his guy and he’d get my guy and sometimes, he’d steal that pass.” Moss: “Roosevelt to me was the back line. No matter what you did, he’d clean it up for you. He was a joy to play with because that was the back line.” Cohen: “he was a great guy to have on your team, especially when you were playing with quick guards. If they got by you, they had to deal with Rosie.” Orr: “he was a presence, but he was a team guy. He was an under-rated offensive player. He never complained. He genuinely was a star, but he didn’t act like a superstar. He brought a lot of notoriety and attention to Syracuse. Rosie was the guy. He made my job and my life easier.” Mike Waters: “By the start of his junior season. Bouie had taken over as a team leader and, along with classmate Louis Orr, had formed the Louie and Bouie Show.”

A crisis occurred early in the season when Louis injured his knee. Pitoniak: “He refused to go under the knife for fear it would end his season and instead opted to subject himself to a new procedure known as arthroscopic surgery. The operation was a success and Orr wound up just missing one game.” Waters: “The doctors recommended draining the knee but Orr refused. ‘I didn’t want them sticking a needle in my knee.’ At the time, only two doctors in the entire country were performing the operation. ‘Don Lowe flew out to Utah with me. I had the surgery, spent the night, flew back and I was practicing three days later.” We’d hear that term, ‘arthroscopic’ again and again over the years.

We opened with blow-outs over Whittier, North Carolina A&T and Western Michigan, (average score 103-71). Then came a big challenge in the form of Jeff Ruland’s Iona team. Big Jeff, 6-11 240 on his way to 280, bulled his way to 21 points and 14 rebounds but the more mobile Bouie countered with 18 and 10 and had 8 blocks while Ruland was blamed for 10 turnovers. The star of the game was Dale Shackleford who hit 12 of his 13 field goal attempts for 30 points and 9 rebounds before fouling out, one of four players to do so in a 52 foul game. A turning point in the game came with SU leading 59-54 with 12:25 left. JB sent in Danny, who stepped out and hit three straight jumpers with Ruland staring at him. SU won 89-76. Shack got off to a fabulous start in his senior year, leading, (or tying), the team in scoring in 8 of the first 10 games, with 20 or more points six times and tying his career high of 30 in this big confrontation.

After beating Rhode Island and winning on the road at Penn State, the Orange traveled to Kentucky for another one of those chances to define this program on a national basis: the Kentucky Invitational, the sort of tournament the Carrier Classic never became. In one semi, the 11th ranked Wildcats took on 17th ranked Texas A&M. In the other was the highest ranked team, Syracuse, (8th) and 15th ranked Illinois. Would we get to play the Wildcats in the final? No. Both lost and we played them in the consy. Illinois won the title, beating us 67-64 and the Aggies 71-57.

Dale Shackleford came in averaging 21.8 points per game but the Illinois defense was all over him, holding him to 9 points on 3 for 11 shooting. The Illini was leading the nation in field goal percentage defense in the early going with 32.2%. They also owned the boards, 36-48. They got off to a 4-10 start and still led, 17-25 with six minutes left in the first half before Syracuse made it’s first move with an 8-0 run. 6-11 225 Derek Holcomb hit a couple of free throws to give his team a 27-29 halftime lead. SU finally took the lead early in the second half 35-32 but that was one of 14 lead changes. The Illini pulled ahead 43-48 but SU tied it at 58 with 1:25 to go. A steal and a missed jumper led to Illini fast breaks and trips to the foul line where they didn’t miss and a 58-62 deficit with 48 seconds left. With 12 seconds left, Louie Orr hit a 12 footer, giving him 12 of the last 18 SU points, Marty Headd intercepted the inbounds pass and passed to Shack, who was fouled. He made the first shot to get it to 61-62 but missed the second. Rob Judson made the final two free throws for Illinois. JB: “These were two well-balanced teams and I said whichever team made the big plays late in the game would win it. Both teams made some key plays but they made more….We didn’t lose the game defensively – we just didn’t shoot well. But give Illinois a lot of credit…. they work the ball around so much you can’t speed the tempo up. They made us shoot by plugging up the middle.” Orr had 16p/8r and Bouie 13p/12r.

All I could find on the Kentucky game was a box score. The first half was a 36-51 disaster. I remember listening to this on the radio and feeling embarrassed that we weren’t yet able to compete with an elite program yet. We made it respectable with a 51-43 second half, if you respect defeat. We won the boards, 32-29 and shot 55% from the field, (33 for 60). How did we lose? We had 22 turnovers to 17 and were called for 33 fouls, putting the Wildcats on the line 42 times, where they made 34 shots. The refs didn’t spare the home team with 29 calls that put us on the line 30 times, of which we made 21. And it was a regulation game. Shack had a good comeback game with 24 points. Marty Headd scored 21, including 9 for 10 from the line. Louie had 16/7. Rosey fouled out in 12 minutes with 3/6. Only three guys fouled out in the game but eight had four fouls.

We couldn’t beat Illinois but we did beat Illinois State back at Manley, 82-72. Shack had 22 points and 13 rebounds. Then we romped over Pitt, 100-74, “with an outstanding defensive effort which led to easy points”. The team punched out wins over lesser opposition: 103-73 over American U, 85-70 over Penn State and 74-60 at Connecticut.

Then came the highest scoring game in SU history, against Siena. Our scoring record for football and basketball is the same. The football team beat Manhattan 144-0 in 1904 and the basketball team beat Siena 144-92 on January 17, 1979. (Even more amazing is the twin ‘44’s.) It was 69-38 at halftime. Then we topped that with a 75-54 second half for the 52 point win, our 39th in a row at Manley. Eight players were in double figures and a ninth had that many points. We were 55 for 90 from the field (61.1%). They were 26 for 64 (40.6%). We actually got out-rebounded 36-39. The box score on Orangehoops doesn’t give turnovers. But we had 36 assists to just 14 for the visitors. But the stars of the game we the referees, who called 73 – yes, 73 – fouls in a regulation game. At least they evened it out. We were whistled 36 times and Siena 37 times. But they got to the line more than we did, making 40 of 49 while we were just 34 of 42. Hal Cohen was the leading scorer with 25 points and 6 assists. Roosevelt Bouie and Danny Schayes both fouled out but Danny had a double-double (12/10) while Rosie was 16/3. Louie Orr had 13/5/3, Shack 17/2/5. The game helped SU to lead the nation that year in victory margin with 17.2 per game, a stat you don’t hear any more.

After a 103-92 trip to Canisius, (a game in which both Louis and Roosevelt scored 27 points), Rutgers, under Tom Young and with 6-9 James Bailey at center, came to town. This was starting to become a serious rivalry as these schools were probably the best programs in the east at this time. Rutgers had taken an undefeated team to the final four in 1976 and used that to recruit several good players, including Bailey, who was Rosey Bouie’s biggest competition as the best center in the east. The games with this team were rather chippy and postgame comments undiplomatic. All the makings of a good rivalry, the chance for which ended when Joe Paterno convinced the Scarlet Knights not to join the Big East. Boeheim’s team had beaten Young’s team in Manley 82-72 in 1977. Rutgers won in their place, 73-77, in 1978. Now came the third confrontation, also in Manley.

The Post Standard article on this game lauds “the return of the Zoo, absent from Manley since the days of the wooden track and Bob Dooms”. It was also the site of “as awesome offensive display by a visiting center likely to occur here for some time to come”. Bailey scored 24 points in 26 minutes. He hit 11 of 15 shots against Bouie, who hit 5 of 6 against Bailey but only scored 13 points. He did out-rebound Bailey 9-6 and blocked 6 shots. And Rosey’s team won 71-65 in “undoubtedly the most intense chess-game played in the new [?!?] Field House.” Rutgers led from the beginning, running out to a 5-18 lead until a Marty Headd lay-up made it 47-46, 1:51 into the second half. Marty had scored 14 of our last 19 points to wind up with 20. “The situation just called for some outside shooting. The shot wasn’t there in the beginning of the game. Later, I was coming off some real good picks, as and at the end of the first half, their guards looked winded.”

Per writer TR Reinman, “They looked a little beleaguered, too when SU went to its full-court press during that half-ending span. In fact, the entire team…folded up under the press and the crowd and the shooting. With 1:144 to go and the lead disappearing like a bankroll in Vegas, Bailey was accessed an offensive foul and coach Tom Young followed that up with a technical of his own. Somehow, it was his only one of the night.” Tom Young: “The last time I complained about officiating was when I was here two years ago. You can take that one guy, (Dick Siomkovski) and…I’ll give him to you for Christmas…When you take Bailey out for half the game, foul out two guys and give 4 fouls to others it sure does affect you. I don’t want to hear about Boeheim.” JB on Young: “Oh, he’s the biggest crier I’ve ever seen in my life. He forgot about last year when we played at Rutgers and they shot 40 free throws and we shot 12.” [Actually it was 33 and 18.] On this occasion, Rutgers was called for 30 fouls to 20 and we shot 27 free throws to 17.

With SU holding the ball with a 61-57 with 2:44 left, “Young, squatting in front of his bench, screamed at Boeheim, who responded in kind while the Zoo went wild and 10 players stood around trying to figure out how to handle this latest on-court development after spending the previous 15 playing at a frenetic pace.” JB: “He was yelling at me about the officiating. I just told him I’m not blowing the whistle out there.” Cohen hit 5 of 6 free throws to close it out. “It seemed like my old high school days.” Eddie Moss, dealing with a nagging ankle sprain, credited the “upstate guards” with leading the team to victory. SU out-rebounded the Scarlet Knights, 39-32, which offset 24 turnovers to Rutgers’ 19. Louie Orr had a quiet game with 8 points and 8 rebounds while Dale Shackleford had 11 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists.

The next game was against 16th rated Temple in Philadelphia, just two games later. Moss’s ankle was still bothering him and the upstate guards again had to carry the team to victory. Cohen responded with 24 points on 10/16 shooting, his second most productive career game. “I scored 25 points against Siena but it didn’t mean as much.” Marty Headd added 16 on 6 for 9 shooting, so the Cohenheadds shot 16 for 25 and scored 40 points – with no three point line.

Temple led 37-43 and extended that to 39-48 when Louie Orr got going, scoring 8 consecutive points on “a baseline jumper, a foul-line swish, a tap of a Shackleford miss and a follow of his own errant shot” to make it 47-50. SU got its first lead 64-62. The game was tied at 64, 66 and 68 when Bouie gave us the lead with a “muscular follow of a missed Shackleford bank” that gave Syracuse a 70-68 lead with 2:47 remaining. “After an exchange of possessions, the Owls worked nearly 30 seconds off the clock before getting the ball inside SU’s 2-3 zone to (6-6 forward Walt) Montford. The burly senior faked Bouie up and scored to tie the game with 50 seconds left.” The final possession of regulation was apparently a mess as Cohen almost got called for a charge and Marty Headd wound up trying to sink a 35 footer at the buzzer.

Cohen made two free throws and Orr stole the ball and got it to Bouie, who followed his own miss to give SU a 74-70 lead in overtime. Mumford hit two free throws and Orr threw the ball away against the press but made up for it with a dramatic block of a lay-up: “Keith Parham fed Ricky Reed who fed Neal Robinson, driving toward the basket. The 6-9 Orr cleanly blocked Robinson’s lay-in attempt.” SU continued to have trouble with the press and surrendered the ball on a 10 second call. But Shackleford stole the ball from Mumford, who had to hit the breaks when confronted by Bouie. There were 14 second left and Cohen got fouled and made two free throws to clinch a big 78-76 win. SU put five men in double figures. Besides the Cohenheadds, Louie Orr had 14 points and 10 rebounds with 3 assists. Shack had 12p 9r 6a. “Bouvie”, (that’s how it was spelled in the box score) had 12p 9r.

Syracuse smashed Manhattan, 113-68, (Danny Schayes said hello with 23 points), and handled West Virginia 90-74, with Shack scoring 27, many of them on feeds from Orr who had 20 points and 13 assists, (I don’t have the rebounds). Then SU had a date with South Carolina in Madison Square Garden. South Carolina was a big power in the 1970’s. Frank McGuire, who had led St. John’s to the national championship game in 1952 and North Carolina to a 32-0 national championship in 1957, had arrived in 1965 and by 1970 he had a 25-2 team that was ranked #3 in the nation. “The Gamecocks were denied an NCAA berth when they lost a controversial ACC championship game, in double overtime, to North Carolina State. In those days, only one team per conference was guaranteed a bid to the 25-team field.” (Wikipedia) They were so disgusted that the team voted not to play in the post-season at all. While the Gamecocks were never again quite that good. But they remained a strong program for years afterwards. They’d slipped a little by 1979 but McGuire was still storming the sidelines and playing the Gamecocks in the Garden was a made-for-TV game guaranteed to get high ratings.

“Syracuse, one of the best man-to-man offensive teams in the nation, blitzed a South Carolina zone for a 17 point halftime lead and held off various second half advances to down the Gamecocks, 71-64…Full court pressure harried the Gamecocks into 15 first half turnovers. But even when SU failed to score in transition, the Orange, paced by 12 first-half points from both Headd and Cohen, pierced Carolina’s 2-3 zone with regularity.” The biggest lead was 48-27 with 2:04 left in the first half, giving was to a 48—31 halftime score. To watch the Orange dominate a team that I viewed as being from a perennial power like that was exhilarating.

The giddiness evaporated in a 23-33 second half. SU went without a basket for a 5:25 stretch. At one point, the eastern USC got to within 64-60 and 66-62 but disaster was averted by making free throws: 1 by Shack and four by Mr. Automatic, Hal Cohen, who also ran the spread to run out the clock.
Cohen continued the best run of games in his career with 18 points on 6/12 for the field and 6/6 from the line. Marty Headd was 5 for 9 and scored 14. Rosey Bouie only shot 3 for 10 but had a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds and Louie Orr had a fine game with 17 points and 7 rebounds. Shack had only 7 points and 4 rebounds but also 5 assists. Again there were a lot of fouls (27-24). (There seems to have been a lot more of those and also of turnovers in that era.) SU ultimately won the game at the line, going 25/34 while the Gamecocks were just 12 for 19.

Boeheim: “Our weakness is supposedly our strength. But they are also the ones, (the Cohenheadds), who have been carrying our offense in the last 4-5 games.” McGuire: “Syracuse is a better man-to-man team than against the zone. That is, they usually are, but not tonight. Our 1-3-1 zone got us back somewhat in the second half, (they used a 2-3 in the first half), but we switched to man-for-man coverage with about 14 minutes left in the game. Basically, it was just to change the tempo – and it worked.” Boeheim: “We’ve faced so many zones lately we’re probably a bit rusty when teams switch to man. The whole key in the second half was that there just wasn’t any movement. But Eddie Moss is our key against man-for-man and he hasn’t played in two weeks to he’s going to be rusty and he was. He missed three or four one-and-ones early on and you could see he just wasn’t sharp.” Eddie was 0 for 5 from the foul line and 0 for 2 from the field in this game, although he had 4 assists. Bouie: “All our guys know how to play – we’re just doing it.” Cohen: We have three All-America caliber players up front. I guess this is the first year Marty and I have really played full-time. Other teams are leaving us open. If I were an opposing coach, I’d let us shoot when you consider the other alternative.” Boeheim: “a couple of passes just missed by inches. So if you’re not scoring -and what’d we get in the second half, only 23 points? – it’s nearly impossible to use pressure defense. But I don’t know. When you’re winning things just seem to go right and tonight they did.”

The next game was a visit to St. Bonaventure, which Syracuse won 74-69. I’d love to tell you more but I was unable to find an article, (Newspapers.com doesn’t have the Sunday Herald-American, which combined the efforts of the herald Journal and Post-Standard) or box score about that game and my memory fails me here and, considering that the Bonnies were probably our fiercest rival at the time, it much have been a memorable game. Orangehoops say Dale Shackleford was our leading scorer with 18 point, but that’s all I’ve got, although Mike Waters reports that Rosey Bouie said, “We had so much fun. I remember sitting and thinking: ‘Is it supposed to be fun like this?’”

Then came a home game against our perennial New York City litmus test, St. John’s. That was also a Saturday game, so I wasn’t able to get a newspaper article and I couldn’t get a box score and don’t recall any details myself. Orangehoops tells us we won that one, 79-72 as Louis Orr scored 20 points, (Louie’s great game against St. John’s came the next year).

The regular season finished with cakewalks over former rival Niagara 120-82, Colgate 113-62 and Lemoyne 92-60. It’s revealing that Rick Harmon and Ron Payton tied for the scoring lead against the Purple Eagles with 17 and that Harmon had 13 assists vs. Colgate. What might have been… That gave the Orange an 18 game winning streak going into the post season and an over-all 24-2 record and #6 national ranking.

Their first foe in the ECAC playoffs was the Bonnies in a game played in Rochester. From Rob Lawin’s article in the Post Standard: “The St. Bonaventure theory of basketball [the theorist: Head Coach Jim Satalin] is man against man. Even when one of their men is at a distinct disadvantage. But then Syracuse uses many different men in many different ways. And by making nearly two thirds of their shots against a team that could not – make that would not – adjust, whole rotating men and defenses to near perfection, the Orangemen proved that 1979 may indeed be their year.“

The Orange won by putting six men in double figures. The seventh, Dale Shackleford, had 6 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Louis Orr had only 10 points but shot 5 for 5 and had 8 rebounds. Roosevelt Bouie had only 5 rebounds but 16 points. The Cohenheadds had 25 points between them. Eddie Moss had a strong comeback game with 15 points, including 7 for 7 from the line. And Danny Schayes came off the bench to score 11 points, including 9 for 11 from the line. The Bonnies must have thought being a big guy, he could miss free throws for them. They forgot that his father, Dolph Schayes, led the NBA in free throw percentage three times, finishing at 85% for his career. Danny would be an 81% guy in his 19 season NBA career.

The Bonnies had 5 double-figure guys themselves, led by Marty Headd’s former CBA teammate, Earl Belcher with 16. And they hung with the Orange. There were 10 first half ties and 6 lead changes. But SU closed out the half on an 11-2 run and took at 43-34 halftime lead, which held up. The Bonnies never got to within 6 points in the second half and the Orange won 83-71. They won it by shooting 64% from the field compared to 42% for the Bonnies.

Satalin: “We’re not a very good zone team and we rebound much better out of the man-for-man”. Bouie had dominated his center, Tim Waterman. “Timmy’s gotta play. I’ll admit it. He was more than a bit tentative. He was pretty much out of it in the second half. But Roosevelt played well tonight. He was more active. It was as well as I’ve ever seen him play.” Bouie: “I knew he had foul trouble. And since he was behind me, the guys tried to get it to me and I took it to the hole. I sort of felt they would come out in a zone in the second half. But I’m not a coach.” Waterman: Bouie sets picks like [Raiders Hall of fame offensive lineman] Gene Upshaw. Meanwhile Syracuse “hindered the Bonnies with a vicious zone defense. But despite Waterman’s foul trouble, Moss’s effectiveness against the man-for-man and SU’s general dominance in personnel, the Bonnies decided they would rather fight than switch. And they lost the fight.”

Satalin found Syracuse “very deserving of their ranking because I don’t know if they really have a weakness. I’ll have to wait and see what they do against bigger teams. But right now, they are one of the five best in the country.”


The championship of the ECAC playoffs, which would secure an automatic bid to the NCAAs, (but, unlike South Carolina in 1970, SU would still be eligible for an at-large birth), would pit the Orange again a rival-to-come, a rival that would become more important than any we have had in the sport.

I remember playing Georgetown in the 1966-67 and 1967-68 seasons, when we beat them 108-95 and 95-78. At that time they were similar to Colgate or Cornell, or maybe a better comparison would be to American U. or George Washington, two other DC area schools we played in those days to help us recruit down there. Those Hoya teams were, (I’ve got to say it), all or mostly white – suburban kids who went there for the academics. Wikipedia: “Georgetown is ranked among the top universities in the United States and admission is highly selective. Georgetown's notable alumni include 13 Nobel Prize Laureates, 28 Rhodes Scholars, 32 Marshall Scholars, 33 Truman Scholars, 429 Fulbright Scholars, 2 U.S. Presidents, and 2 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as well as international royalty and 14 foreign heads of state. Among the world's leading institutions in government and international relations,[17] the school's alumni include more U.S. diplomats than any other university and many members of the United States Congress.” Unfortunately, those scholars, justices, diplomats, congresspersons, foreign royalty and heads of state were not very good at basketball and a low ebb was reached when the Hoyas went 3-23 in the 1971-72 season.

As their new coach, they took a big step in a somewhat different direction. They hired John Thompson (Jr.), a 6-10 DC native and a Roman Catholic, (Georgetown is one of many Jesuit schools to obtain prominence in basketball), who as a high school player had led Archbishop Carroll to a 48 game winning streak and three straight city championships, including one in a victory over Dave Bing’s Spingarn team. After graduating from Providence College, Thompson became Bill Russell’s back-up with the Celtics. When the newly-created Chicago Bulls selected him in the 1966 expansion draft. He decided to retire as a player and return to his roots as coach of St. Anthony’s high in DC. Then Georgetown hired him to turn their program around in the wake of the 3-23 disaster.

Like Fred Lewis at Syracuse a decade before, Thompson made the Hoyas immediately competitive but not yet good: he was 12-14 his first season, then 13-13 the next. He started to break through in 1974-75 with an 18-10 record, including a win over our first Final Four team in Rochester in the Kodak Classic, overcoming a 13 point deficit to beat us 71-70. That team made the NCAA tournament but lost in the first round (to Central Michigan) and a 21-7 team did the same thing the next year, (to Arizona). 1976-77 was a slight step backwards as they went 19-9 and lost in the NIT first round, (to Virginia Tech). The next year they were starting to really show some muscle with a 23-8 record but that, too was an NIT team, (losing to NC State in the semis and then to Rutgers in the consey). The Hoyas had earned some respect in the region but not nationally. In 1978-79 they powered their way to a 22-5 regular season, including wins over Maryland, Indiana and St. John’s. I watched them take apart a good Holy Cross team, (with All-American Ron Perry) in their regular season finale using aggressive defensive pressure. Then they crushed Old Dominion in the ECAC semis. We were favored. But were we really better than they were?

Thompson had created this turn-around by recruiting the inner cities of Washington and Baltimore. These Hoyas looked nothing like the teams we pummeled in the late 60’s. Their players were not only talented but looked physically strong. And they started something that changed basketball – and not for the better, in my opinion. They wouldn’t try to play normal basketball defense- keep your man in front of you and challenge their shots and passes. Instead, they maintained almost constant physical contact, trying to establish the maximum they could get away with the refs. They didn’t avoid fouls. Instead they fouled constantly such that the refs couldn’t call everything or the game wouldn’t be able to finish. Instead, the refs would only call the most egregious sins – maybe. Physical teams always get away with more than finesse teams. We’ve always bene a finesse team and so many of our biggest rivals- Georgetown, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville under Pitino – played “Let’s see what we can get away with” defense. It produced ugly basketball where it was hard for the players to display the skills the fans had come to see. But it was certainly effective as the success of those schools demonstrates. Now the Louie and Bouie show would get its first taste of this new version of the sport.

But what were we afraid of? We were the best team in the East, having won 19 games in a row on the way to a 25-2 record and #6 national ranking, (#5 in the coach’s poll). The Hoyas were ranked #16 and had won 11 games in a row. The game took place in Maryland’s Cole Field House. From a 2015 Mike Waters article on the game in Syracuse.com, Rich Chvotkin, Georgetown's radio play-by-play voice for the past 42 years, said "The rivalry hadn't started yet. The rivalry started when John said "Manley Field House is officially closed.'' The games prior didn't have the emotional edge.'' And yet, “"It was a knock-down, drag-out game. It was a friggin' war. It was so physical with such great players on both sides.'' That sounds familiar.

“Georgetown's starting lineup featured guards John Duren and Eric "Sleepy'' Floyd. Forward Craig Shelton was the primary frontcourt threat. Freshman center Ed Spriggs and forward Steve Martin joined Shelton on the frontline.” Syracuse led 30-28 at halftime, but it’s obvious from that score that our offense wasn’t nearly as productive as it usually was. I remember the game as a frustrating slog where we were never able to pull away and then fell behind. But Jim Boeheim had one ace in the hole. Georgetown had one white player, a gangly back-up center named Jeff Bullis. Jeff played hard but was lacking in talent, especially at the foul line. This was the pre-Ewing era and Thompson didn’t have a lot of big guys. There was foul trouble and he had to put Bullis, who had hit on only 29% of this free throws that season in. JB knew that stat and told his team to foul Bullis. They did, over and over again, to try to terminate Georgetown possessions. Jeff came through for his teammates, hitting, as I recall, 13 of 15 free throws to close out the 58-66 Hoya win.

Afterwards, Jim complained about the number of free throws the refs had let Georgetown take. Even with the Bullis misadventure, he may have had a point. Per Water’s article, “Syracuse out-rebounded Georgetown 46-31, held the Hoyas to just 41 percent shooting and forced the Hoyas into 17 turnovers. Georgetown, however, got to the free-throw line 40 times. The Hoyas made 30 foul shots. In the second half alone, the Hoyas went 22-for-30 at the line. Syracuse, meanwhile, attempted just 12 foul shots for the entire game and made six. The 28-shot discrepancy in free throw attempts was clearly on Boeheim's mind after the game.” JB: "Our players know why we lost. Our shooting was one reason, and the other reason we lost, I'd rather not talk about. But unless the ECAC can get a neutral site, the playoffs are not a fair situation for either team.”

Bouie fouled out of the along, as did Orr and Schayes. Syracuse was whistled for 30 fouls, while Georgetown had just 18. Shelton fouled out of the game, but he would be the only Georgetown player with more than three fouls at the final buzzer. “Very simply, the referees took the game over,'' Bouie said, recalling the contest. "It doesn't take rocket science. Louis had a good game. I had a good game. They got their shots at the foul line. We beat them everywhere except to the whistle.''

A Washington Post article, (by Dave Kindred, a kindred soul to the Hoyas) had a more favorable view of the encounter:

“Georgetown Class Shows at Finish…What Georgetown University's basketball team has, and some others don't have, is class. Hemingway called it grace under pressure. At a basketball game, you can see it in the eyes of players. Forget the gripers and stompers, the moaners and weepers. If it's class you want, look at Steve Martin, [no, not that one], and John Duren, Craig Shelton and John Thompson. Georgetown won a championship yesterday, 66-58 over Syracuse, the nation's fifth-ranked team. Thompson, the coach, and the Martin-Duren-Shelton triumvirate that is the foundation of Georgetown's success go on to the NCAA tournament now. If these hands weren't busy typing, they would be applauding…Syracuse was a lock. It had a 25-2 won-lost record, had won 19 straight games and came in with a giant center just at a time when Georgetown's big man was hurt and a freshman would have to take his place. Here was Syracuse, rated No. 5, against Georgetown, which in its hometown is so unappreciated it barely half-fills Cole.

Georgetown controlled the game from start to end. The losing coach, Jim Boeheim, screamed about the officiating, which is standard behavior for losers, but it was not the zebras who allowed Georgetown to create a rhythm of play that made victory possible. Martin and Duren did that by running the Georgetown offense with poise and patience, forcing nothing, never wasting a motion. So total was Georgetown's control that Syracuse, averaging 90 points a game, scored fewer than 61 points for the first time all season…It was gorgeous to watch. Basketball can be poetry, each line crafted precisely, or it can be cacophony, everyone tooting his own horn according to his whims. Thompson is creation's largest poet…

Georgetown leads, 35-32, early in the second half. Even now, Syracuse's frustration is palpable. You can see that look in the eyes of the Orangemen, that self-pitying look of defeat imminent. Syracuse never caught up, and it wasn't because it didn't have the raw talent. Roosevelt Bouie, the 6-foot-11 center, had a 6-11 buddy and a 6-7 friend -- all of them playing against a Georgetown line of 6-9, 6-7, 6-4. For the season, Syracuse was shooting above 53 percent. None of it mattered yesterday, for the three giants all fouled out and its shooters settled for 40 percent…

Again falling into a loser's standard refrain, the Syracuse coach, Boeheim, said the one-for-11 shooting of a guard did in his Orangemen. The more objective appraisal would be an examination of why the poor fellow was so off form. Such an examination might show the Georgetown defense -- now a man to man, now a zone, now a full-court press -- left the poor fellow wondering why he hadn't taken up, say, dominoes.”

What’s not to like about that? The rivalry may not have begun, but the contempt that was its basis had already started.


No matter, we were safely in the NCAA tournament, formally seeded for the first time. We were given a #4 seed in the East, matched with another future rival – Connecticut, the #5 seed. This was the pre-Jim Calhoun UCONN. They were a respected New England program but nothing more than that. With the Big Conference in the negotiation stage, they needed to show some muscle and Coach Dom Perno, an alum, was trying to provide it with some big-time recruiting: 6-8 230 Cornellius “Corney” Thompson averaged 22.5p/18.8r at Middletown High, a first team high school All-American and honorable mentions 6-5 Mike McKay and 6-2 Jim Sullivan. Perno told Street & Smith’s ”Our task will be to blend this talent into a smooth-working team”. They did and steamed to a 21-7 record, although there were no big names in the victory column until they smashed Boston College 91-74 in New England’s equivalent of the ECAC playoffs to earn a rematch with the Orange, who had beaten them 74-60 on January 13th in Storrs.

The final score of this game was closer, 89-81, but that was deceiving. I could find no article on the game but Orangehoops reports that SU had a 25 point first half lead on their way to 52-35 at the half. What I recall of the game is that Syracuse was back to looking like the powerhouse I thought we were after the quicksand of the Georgetown game and any doubt I had about a strong NCAA run was banished. Orangehoops has a box score of this game: We had a balanced attack with five guys, Eddie Moss, Dale Shackleford, Marty Headd, Louis Orr and Roosevelt Bouie all scoring between 13 and 19 points. Rosey led with 19 points, 6 rebounds a couple of blocks and a steal. Louis had 18 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. But Shack had the best all-round game with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, although he also had 6 turnovers, which was still not as bad as the 7 Marty had to go with his 18 points. Eddie Moss had 13 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 turnovers.

Those turnovers, (27 in total) and the Huskie’s 35-41 edge on the boards enabled them to get back within range but I don’t recall the game getting any closer than the final score. Thompson had 18p/12r and McKay led all scorers with 21 points but it wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that we out-shot them 60%-34%.

Not only was that win good news for the Orange: even better news was that #1 seed North Carolina had been knocked off by Pennsylvania, 72-71. Now we only had to get past the 9th seeded Quakers to get to a regional final against either St. John’s or Rutgers, both of whom we’d already beaten. Final Four, here we come! – this time with a team that could win it all!

Pennsylvania had had quite a time of it in the 70’s under Coaches Dick Harter and Chuck Daly and now Bob Weinhauer, who had had a combined 221-55 run since the 1969-70 season, including 5 top ten teams. It was the last Ivy program to be a true powerhouse on the national scene. But they’d faded a bit with 17-9, 18-8 and 20-8 seasons the previous three years before Weinhauer had them at 23-6 going into the Sweet 16 game with the Orange. He had an outstanding forward in 6-6 Tony Price, (19.8p/8.7r/3.3a), a decent big man in 6-10 Matt White (11.7p/7.5r/0.9a) and a good small forward in 6-5 Tim Smith (13.4p/6.4r/2.7a). But what I remember was their uber-quick backcourt, 5-11 James Salters, (9.3p/1.0r/2.4a) and 6-2 Bobby Willis (9.1p/2.1r/4.2a).

I remember that Eddie Moss’s ankle had not fully healed and was bothering him. And the Cohenheadds could shoot and they could play but quickness was never their strength. The NCAAs were all about match-ups. UNC Charlotte had beaten us in ’77 because their guards were so much taller than ours we couldn’t shoot or pass over them and their guys could do so at will. Against Western Kentucky in ’78, it was a classic example of a superior team just letting an inferior team hand around and then not making the plays to win at the end of the game. The Pennsylvania game was all about Salters and Willis running past Cohen and Headd and a hobbled Moss as Penn just ran the Orange off the floor in the first half to build an insurmountable lead.

The Orange seemingly had a break when Penn’s only legit big man, Matt White, got his second foul with 14:31 left in the first half and was pulled by Weinhauer, who went with a small, quick line-up and switched his defense “from a man-to-man to man to a much more effective floating 2-3 zone.” (From Rob Lawin’s article in the Post Standard) A 19-14 advantage morphed into a 29-46 deficit, a game-crushing 10-32 run. Lawin blamed it on “a lack of penetration on offense coupled with some blatant turnovers…made all the more imposing by SU’s lack of execution from the foul line”.

SU managed to get the score back to 37-50 by halftime but never erased the deficit in the second half. Missing the front end of three one-and-ones didn’t help. SU got within 5 points at 64-69 and with 6:49 left. “Then the game turned for the final time. After a steal, Moss drove the lane, made his shot but was called for a charge on Willis. The foul was ruled before the shot and when (Mark) Cubit was called for a blocking foul on Price on the ensuing inbounds play, SU went over the limit”. Price made both ends of a one-and-one as did Ken Hall a minute later and it was 64-73. The Orange again cut the lead to five at 70-75 with 2:51 left. But the Quakers made their fouls shots, (22 of 26) while SU didn’t (12/23) and Penn won, 76-84, to end the third season of the Louie and Bouie show.

Price had a great game with 20p/7r/6a. Smith had a very good one with 18/8/3. White had 11/8/3 and Hall, another quick guard, had 11 points, all from the foul line in an 11 for 12 performance that sealed SU’s fate. But the guys I remember were Salters who scored 14 and Willis who had 8 points and 6 assists. We just couldn’t keep up with them in that first half. Cohen was shut out. Headd scored 13 points but on 5 for 14 shooting. Eddie Moss managed 11 points with 3 rebs and 2 assists. Rosey Bouie had a double-double and 14/14 and 6 blocks. Louis had 12/6 with 3 assists. But they were a combined 6 for 12 from the foul line. Dale Shackleford, in his last game in an SU uniform, had a good same with 16/4/6. Rebounds were even at 35. As in many games of this era, there were amazing turnover numbers: 25 for us, (15 in the first half) and 23 for them. Cohen had 2 in 13 minutes. Headd, Bouie and Shack had 5 each.

Jim Boeheim: “There were two things I’ve said all year. Two things have hurt us many times this year – turnovers and foul shooting. We’ve played 30 games this year and gotten away with a couple of bad halves, but you just can’t do what we did in a tournament situation and expect to survive. Still, I’m proud of this team. We’re in a situation where we are out of the ballgame against a smart team that doesn’t make many mistakes. We then force them into an awful lot of turnovers and many clubs have done that to them. But, when we do this, when we start to get back on defense, we don’t make the free throws. I felt we made as good an effort as we could have, though.”

But the good news was that there was still one more year of the Louie and Bouie Show to come – one more chance to get back to the Final Four with a team that could win it before the two stars left.

 

[BillSU]

1978-79

Marty Byrnes, Ross Kindell and reserves Kevin James and Bill Drew moved on. In came Rich Harmon, Ron Payton and Ed Gooding, not one of our more stellar recruiting classes. Payton would stick it out for four years, mostly as a reserve, before emerging as a key player as a senior. He briefly left the team with Harmon as a freshman, then suffered a knee injury and got Pipped by Eric Santifer. He helped hold things together in the injury-plagued 1981-82 season, replacing Tony Bruin and Leo Rautins at times. Orangehoops: “Payton was a muscular forward capable of giving the Orangemen valuable minutes off the bench, providing solid rebounding and quick passes…His senior season, he would be one of the most productive sixth men that the Orangemen have had, scoring nearly 11 points a game, with 4.7 rebounds per game.”

Harmon was a McDonald’s All-American, (the first to come here), who couldn’t understand why he wasn’t starting immediately. He was “a tall stocky guard with a reputation for tremendous ball handling skills…not as fast as the smaller guards around him.” He hurt his knee shortly after his return. “Harmon would again quit Syracuse at the end of the season because of a falling out with coach Jim Boeheim. He would transfer to Old Dominion. However, he would never play for the Monarchs as he would re-injure his knee severely in an intrasquad game, resulting in a staph infection and then a bone infection, which led to hospitalization for nine months.”

Gooding “was a tall and lean player with a nice shooting touch” who was also dissatisfied with his playing time and left with Harmon and Payton but did not return. He wound up at Iona, where he averaged 2.4 points per game, starting 8 games in three years.

So Louie and Bouie’s junior season would be carried by returning players. We had an impressive front line of Roosevelt Bouie backed up by Danny Schayes at center and flanked by Louie Orr and Dale Shackleford at forward. The Cohen-Headds, Hal Cohen and Marty Headd were in the backcourt, although Fast Eddie Moss started 9 games in place of Cohen, alleviating a speed deficit that would become critical in the final game of the season.

But the key returning players were Louis and Roosevelt. In fact, Orr wanted the ‘Show’ to be called that because he hated being called ‘Louie’. He wouldn’t have made it as a creator of advertising slogans. This is the year the iconic picture of Louie and Bouie was taken in a game at Manley:

Bouie: “We knew each other’s instincts. It was like we had a sixth sense and always knew not only where the other one was on the court but where was he going to be next…If Louis were a mean or nasty person, it might be a bad thing to be linked with him forever...But Louis? Louis is my friend.” Orr: “I couldn’t ask for a better teammate or a better friend. He was a presence from Day One. Defensively. Offensively. Physically. Rebounding. I mean to tell you, Roosevelt was the guy you had to deal with when you played Syracuse. I was real thin, so with him just being on the court, he took the pounding off me up to do some things.” Bouie: “We communicated so easily. He’d point with a finger, pointing me to which direction he wanted me to fill. He always said that if I beat my man, he'd give me the ball. I remember this one game during our senior year when Louis ended up with no points, about 14 rebounds and about 11 assists. And all of those assists were to me because I had the weakest link guarding me and Louis thought I should get the ball. Well, I did get the ball. All night, thanks to him, and we won. That’s all that mattered to him. On defense, he’d tell me he was going for the pass and I’d cover for him. If he missed the pass, I’d cover his guy and he’d get my guy and sometimes, he’d steal that pass.” Moss: “Roosevelt to me was the back line. No matter what you did, he’d clean it up for you. He was a joy to play with because that was the back line.” Cohen: “he was a great guy to have on your team, especially when you were playing with quick guards. If they got by you, they had to deal with Rosie.” Orr: “he was a presence, but he was a team guy. He was an under-rated offensive player. He never complained. He genuinely was a star, but he didn’t act like a superstar. He brought a lot of notoriety and attention to Syracuse. Rosie was the guy. He made my job and my life easier.” Mike Waters: “By the start of his junior season. Bouie had taken over as a team leader and, along with classmate Louis Orr, had formed the Louie and Bouie Show.”

A crisis occurred early in the season when Louis injured his knee. Pitoniak: “He refused to go under the knife for fear it would end his season and instead opted to subject himself to a new procedure known as arthroscopic surgery. The operation was a success and Orr wound up just missing one game.” Waters: “The doctors recommended draining the knee but Orr refused. ‘I didn’t want them sticking a needle in my knee.’ At the time, only two doctors in the entire country were performing the operation. ‘Don Lowe flew out to Utah with me. I had the surgery, spent the night, flew back and I was practicing three days later.” We’d hear that term, ‘arthroscopic’ again and again over the years.

We opened with blow-outs over Whittier, North Carolina A&T and Western Michigan, (average score 103-71). Then came a big challenge in the form of Jeff Ruland’s Iona team. Big Jeff, 6-11 240 on his way to 280, bulled his way to 21 points and 14 rebounds but the more mobile Bouie countered with 18 and 10 and had 8 blocks while Ruland was blamed for 10 turnovers. The star of the game was Dale Shackleford who hit 12 of his 13 field goal attempts for 30 points and 9 rebounds before fouling out, one of four players to do so in a 52 foul game. A turning point in the game came with SU leading 59-54 with 12:25 left. JB sent in Danny, who stepped out and hit three straight jumpers with Ruland staring at him. SU won 89-76. Shack got off to a fabulous start in his senior year, leading, (or tying), the team in scoring in 8 of the first 10 games, with 20 or more points six times and tying his career high of 30 in this big confrontation.

After beating Rhode Island and winning on the road at Penn State, the Orange traveled to Kentucky for another one of those chances to define this program on a national basis: the Kentucky Invitational, the sort of tournament the Carrier Classic never became. In one semi, the 11th ranked Wildcats took on 17th ranked Texas A&M. In the other was the highest ranked team, Syracuse, (8th) and 15th ranked Illinois. Would we get to play the Wildcats in the final? No. Both lost and we played them in the consy. Illinois won the title, beating us 67-64 and the Aggies 71-57.

Dale Shackleford came in averaging 21.8 points per game but the Illinois defense was all over him, holding him to 9 points on 3 for 11 shooting. The Illini was leading the nation in field goal percentage defense in the early going with 32.2%. They also owned the boards, 36-48. They got off to a 4-10 start and still led, 17-25 with six minutes left in the first half before Syracuse made it’s first move with an 8-0 run. 6-11 225 Derek Holcomb hit a couple of free throws to give his team a 27-29 halftime lead. SU finally took the lead early in the second half 35-32 but that was one of 14 lead changes. The Illini pulled ahead 43-48 but SU tied it at 58 with 1:25 to go. A steal and a missed jumper led to Illini fast breaks and trips to the foul line where they didn’t miss and a 58-62 deficit with 48 seconds left. With 12 seconds left, Louie Orr hit a 12 footer, giving him 12 of the last 18 SU points, Marty Headd intercepted the inbounds pass and passed to Shack, who was fouled. He made the first shot to get it to 61-62 but missed the second. Rob Judson made the final two free throws for Illinois. JB: “These were two well-balanced teams and I said whichever team made the big plays late in the game would win it. Both teams made some key plays but they made more….We didn’t lose the game defensively – we just didn’t shoot well. But give Illinois a lot of credit…. they work the ball around so much you can’t speed the tempo up. They made us shoot by plugging up the middle.” Orr had 16p/8r and Bouie 13p/12r.

All I could find on the Kentucky game was a box score. The first half was a 36-51 disaster. I remember listening to this on the radio and feeling embarrassed that we weren’t yet able to compete with an elite program yet. We made it respectable with a 51-43 second half, if you respect defeat. We won the boards, 32-29 and shot 55% from the field, (33 for 60). How did we lose? We had 22 turnovers to 17 and were called for 33 fouls, putting the Wildcats on the line 42 times, where they made 34 shots. The refs didn’t spare the home team with 29 calls that put us on the line 30 times, of which we made 21. And it was a regulation game. Shack had a good comeback game with 24 points. Marty Headd scored 21, including 9 for 10 from the line. Louie had 16/7. Rosey fouled out in 12 minutes with 3/6. Only three guys fouled out in the game but eight had four fouls.

We couldn’t beat Illinois but we did beat Illinois State back at Manley, 82-72. Shack had 22 points and 13 rebounds. Then we romped over Pitt, 100-74, “with an outstanding defensive effort which led to easy points”. The team punched out wins over lesser opposition: 103-73 over American U, 85-70 over Penn State and 74-60 at Connecticut.

Then came the highest scoring game in SU history, against Siena. Our scoring record for football and basketball is the same. The football team beat Manhattan 144-0 in 1904 and the basketball team beat Siena 144-92 on January 17, 1979. (Even more amazing is the twin ‘44’s.) It was 69-38 at halftime. Then we topped that with a 75-54 second half for the 52 point win, our 39th in a row at Manley. Eight players were in double figures and a ninth had that many points. We were 55 for 90 from the field (61.1%). They were 26 for 64 (40.6%). We actually got out-rebounded 36-39. The box score on Orangehoops doesn’t give turnovers. But we had 36 assists to just 14 for the visitors. But the stars of the game we the referees, who called 73 – yes, 73 – fouls in a regulation game. At least they evened it out. We were whistled 36 times and Siena 37 times. But they got to the line more than we did, making 40 of 49 while we were just 34 of 42. Hal Cohen was the leading scorer with 25 points and 6 assists. Roosevelt Bouie and Danny Schayes both fouled out but Danny had a double-double (12/10) while Rosie was 16/3. Louie Orr had 13/5/3, Shack 17/2/5. The game helped SU to lead the nation that year in victory margin with 17.2 per game, a stat you don’t hear any more.

After a 103-92 trip to Canisius, (a game in which both Louis and Roosevelt scored 27 points), Rutgers, under Tom Young and with 6-9 James Bailey at center, came to town. This was starting to become a serious rivalry as these schools were probably the best programs in the east at this time. Rutgers had taken an undefeated team to the final four in 1976 and used that to recruit several good players, including Bailey, who was Rosey Bouie’s biggest competition as the best center in the east. The games with this team were rather chippy and postgame comments undiplomatic. All the makings of a good rivalry, the chance for which ended when Joe Paterno convinced the Scarlet Knights not to join the Big East. Boeheim’s team had beaten Young’s team in Manley 82-72 in 1977. Rutgers won in their place, 73-77, in 1978. Now came the third confrontation, also in Manley.

The Post Standard article on this game lauds “the return of the Zoo, absent from Manley since the days of the wooden track and Bob Dooms”. It was also the site of “as awesome offensive display by a visiting center likely to occur here for some time to come”. Bailey scored 24 points in 26 minutes. He hit 11 of 15 shots against Bouie, who hit 5 of 6 against Bailey but only scored 13 points. He did out-rebound Bailey 9-6 and blocked 6 shots. And Rosey’s team won 71-65 in “undoubtedly the most intense chess-game played in the new [?!?] Field House.” Rutgers led from the beginning, running out to a 5-18 lead until a Marty Headd lay-up made it 47-46, 1:51 into the second half. Marty had scored 14 of our last 19 points to wind up with 20. “The situation just called for some outside shooting. The shot wasn’t there in the beginning of the game. Later, I was coming off some real good picks, as and at the end of the first half, their guards looked winded.”

Per writer TR Reinman, “They looked a little beleaguered, too when SU went to its full-court press during that half-ending span. In fact, the entire team…folded up under the press and the crowd and the shooting. With 1:144 to go and the lead disappearing like a bankroll in Vegas, Bailey was accessed an offensive foul and coach Tom Young followed that up with a technical of his own. Somehow, it was his only one of the night.” Tom Young: “The last time I complained about officiating was when I was here two years ago. You can take that one guy, (Dick Siomkovski) and…I’ll give him to you for Christmas…When you take Bailey out for half the game, foul out two guys and give 4 fouls to others it sure does affect you. I don’t want to hear about Boeheim.” JB on Young: “Oh, he’s the biggest crier I’ve ever seen in my life. He forgot about last year when we played at Rutgers and they shot 40 free throws and we shot 12.” [Actually it was 33 and 18.] On this occasion, Rutgers was called for 30 fouls to 20 and we shot 27 free throws to 17.

With SU holding the ball with a 61-57 with 2:44 left, “Young, squatting in front of his bench, screamed at Boeheim, who responded in kind while the Zoo went wild and 10 players stood around trying to figure out how to handle this latest on-court development after spending the previous 15 playing at a frenetic pace.” JB: “He was yelling at me about the officiating. I just told him I’m not blowing the whistle out there.” Cohen hit 5 of 6 free throws to close it out. “It seemed like my old high school days.” Eddie Moss, dealing with a nagging ankle sprain, credited the “upstate guards” with leading the team to victory. SU out-rebounded the Scarlet Knights, 39-32, which offset 24 turnovers to Rutgers’ 19. Louie Orr had a quiet game with 8 points and 8 rebounds while Dale Shackleford had 11 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists.

The next game was against 16th rated Temple in Philadelphia, just two games later. Moss’s ankle was still bothering him and the upstate guards again had to carry the team to victory. Cohen responded with 24 points on 10/16 shooting, his second most productive career game. “I scored 25 points against Siena but it didn’t mean as much.” Marty Headd added 16 on 6 for 9 shooting, so the Cohenheadds shot 16 for 25 and scored 40 points – with no three point line.

Temple led 37-43 and extended that to 39-48 when Louie Orr got going, scoring 8 consecutive points on “a baseline jumper, a foul-line swish, a tap of a Shackleford miss and a follow of his own errant shot” to make it 47-50. SU got its first lead 64-62. The game was tied at 64, 66 and 68 when Bouie gave us the lead with a “muscular follow of a missed Shackleford bank” that gave Syracuse a 70-68 lead with 2:47 remaining. “After an exchange of possessions, the Owls worked nearly 30 seconds off the clock before getting the ball inside SU’s 2-3 zone to (6-6 forward Walt) Montford. The burly senior faked Bouie up and scored to tie the game with 50 seconds left.” The final possession of regulation was apparently a mess as Cohen almost got called for a charge and Marty Headd wound up trying to sink a 35 footer at the buzzer.

Cohen made two free throws and Orr stole the ball and got it to Bouie, who followed his own miss to give SU a 74-70 lead in overtime. Mumford hit two free throws and Orr threw the ball away against the press but made up for it with a dramatic block of a lay-up: “Keith Parham fed Ricky Reed who fed Neal Robinson, driving toward the basket. The 6-9 Orr cleanly blocked Robinson’s lay-in attempt.” SU continued to have trouble with the press and surrendered the ball on a 10 second call. But Shackleford stole the ball from Mumford, who had to hit the breaks when confronted by Bouie. There were 14 second left and Cohen got fouled and made two free throws to clinch a big 78-76 win. SU put five men in double figures. Besides the Cohenheadds, Louie Orr had 14 points and 10 rebounds with 3 assists. Shack had 12p 9r 6a. “Bouvie”, (that’s how it was spelled in the box score) had 12p 9r.

Syracuse smashed Manhattan, 113-68, (Danny Schayes said hello with 23 points), and handled West Virginia 90-74, with Shack scoring 27, many of them on feeds from Orr who had 20 points and 13 assists, (I don’t have the rebounds). Then SU had a date with South Carolina in Madison Square Garden. South Carolina was a big power in the 1970’s. Frank McGuire, who had led St. John’s to the national championship game in 1952 and North Carolina to a 32-0 national championship in 1957, had arrived in 1965 and by 1970 he had a 25-2 team that was ranked #3 in the nation. “The Gamecocks were denied an NCAA berth when they lost a controversial ACC championship game, in double overtime, to North Carolina State. In those days, only one team per conference was guaranteed a bid to the 25-team field.” (Wikipedia) They were so disgusted that the team voted not to play in the post-season at all. While the Gamecocks were never again quite that good. But they remained a strong program for years afterwards. They’d slipped a little by 1979 but McGuire was still storming the sidelines and playing the Gamecocks in the Garden was a made-for-TV game guaranteed to get high ratings.

“Syracuse, one of the best man-to-man offensive teams in the nation, blitzed a South Carolina zone for a 17 point halftime lead and held off various second half advances to down the Gamecocks, 71-64…Full court pressure harried the Gamecocks into 15 first half turnovers. But even when SU failed to score in transition, the Orange, paced by 12 first-half points from both Headd and Cohen, pierced Carolina’s 2-3 zone with regularity.” The biggest lead was 48-27 with 2:04 left in the first half, giving was to a 48—31 halftime score. To watch the Orange dominate a team that I viewed as being from a perennial power like that was exhilarating.

The giddiness evaporated in a 23-33 second half. SU went without a basket for a 5:25 stretch. At one point, the eastern USC got to within 64-60 and 66-62 but disaster was averted by making free throws: 1 by Shack and four by Mr. Automatic, Hal Cohen, who also ran the spread to run out the clock.
Cohen continued the best run of games in his career with 18 points on 6/12 for the field and 6/6 from the line. Marty Headd was 5 for 9 and scored 14. Rosey Bouie only shot 3 for 10 but had a double-double with 14 points and 12 rebounds and Louie Orr had a fine game with 17 points and 7 rebounds. Shack had only 7 points and 4 rebounds but also 5 assists. Again there were a lot of fouls (27-24). (There seems to have been a lot more of those and also of turnovers in that era.) SU ultimately won the game at the line, going 25/34 while the Gamecocks were just 12 for 19.

Boeheim: “Our weakness is supposedly our strength. But they are also the ones, (the Cohenheadds), who have been carrying our offense in the last 4-5 games.” McGuire: “Syracuse is a better man-to-man team than against the zone. That is, they usually are, but not tonight. Our 1-3-1 zone got us back somewhat in the second half, (they used a 2-3 in the first half), but we switched to man-for-man coverage with about 14 minutes left in the game. Basically, it was just to change the tempo – and it worked.” Boeheim: “We’ve faced so many zones lately we’re probably a bit rusty when teams switch to man. The whole key in the second half was that there just wasn’t any movement. But Eddie Moss is our key against man-for-man and he hasn’t played in two weeks to he’s going to be rusty and he was. He missed three or four one-and-ones early on and you could see he just wasn’t sharp.” Eddie was 0 for 5 from the foul line and 0 for 2 from the field in this game, although he had 4 assists. Bouie: “All our guys know how to play – we’re just doing it.” Cohen: We have three All-America caliber players up front. I guess this is the first year Marty and I have really played full-time. Other teams are leaving us open. If I were an opposing coach, I’d let us shoot when you consider the other alternative.” Boeheim: “a couple of passes just missed by inches. So if you’re not scoring -and what’d we get in the second half, only 23 points? – it’s nearly impossible to use pressure defense. But I don’t know. When you’re winning things just seem to go right and tonight they did.”

The next game was a visit to St. Bonaventure, which Syracuse won 74-69. I’d love to tell you more but I was unable to find an article, (Newspapers.com doesn’t have the Sunday Herald-American, which combined the efforts of the herald Journal and Post-Standard) or box score about that game and my memory fails me here and, considering that the Bonnies were probably our fiercest rival at the time, it much have been a memorable game. Orangehoops say Dale Shackleford was our leading scorer with 18 point, but that’s all I’ve got, although Mike Waters reports that Rosey Bouie said, “We had so much fun. I remember sitting and thinking: ‘Is it supposed to be fun like this?’”

Then came a home game against our perennial New York City litmus test, St. John’s. That was also a Saturday game, so I wasn’t able to get a newspaper article and I couldn’t get a box score and don’t recall any details myself. Orangehoops tells us we won that one, 79-72 as Louis Orr scored 20 points, (Louie’s great game against St. John’s came the next year).

The regular season finished with cakewalks over former rival Niagara 120-82, Colgate 113-62 and Lemoyne 92-60. It’s revealing that Rick Harmon and Ron Payton tied for the scoring lead against the Purple Eagles with 17 and that Harmon had 13 assists vs. Colgate. What might have been… That gave the Orange an 18 game winning streak going into the post season and an over-all 24-2 record and #6 national ranking.

Their first foe in the ECAC playoffs was the Bonnies in a game played in Rochester. From Rob Lawin’s article in the Post Standard: “The St. Bonaventure theory of basketball [the theorist: Head Coach Jim Satalin] is man against man. Even when one of their men is at a distinct disadvantage. But then Syracuse uses many different men in many different ways. And by making nearly two thirds of their shots against a team that could not – make that would not – adjust, whole rotating men and defenses to near perfection, the Orangemen proved that 1979 may indeed be their year.“

The Orange won by putting six men in double figures. The seventh, Dale Shackleford, had 6 points, 4 rebounds and 5 assists. Louis Orr had only 10 points but shot 5 for 5 and had 8 rebounds. Roosevelt Bouie had only 5 rebounds but 16 points. The Cohenheadds had 25 points between them. Eddie Moss had a strong comeback game with 15 points, including 7 for 7 from the line. And Danny Schayes came off the bench to score 11 points, including 9 for 11 from the line. The Bonnies must have thought being a big guy, he could miss free throws for them. They forgot that his father, Dolph Schayes, led the NBA in free throw percentage three times, finishing at 85% for his career. Danny would be an 81% guy in his 19 season NBA career.

The Bonnies had 5 double-figure guys themselves, led by Marty Headd’s former CBA teammate, Earl Belcher with 16. And they hung with the Orange. There were 10 first half ties and 6 lead changes. But SU closed out the half on an 11-2 run and took at 43-34 halftime lead, which held up. The Bonnies never got to within 6 points in the second half and the Orange won 83-71. They won it by shooting 64% from the field compared to 42% for the Bonnies.

Satalin: “We’re not a very good zone team and we rebound much better out of the man-for-man”. Bouie had dominated his center, Tim Waterman. “Timmy’s gotta play. I’ll admit it. He was more than a bit tentative. He was pretty much out of it in the second half. But Roosevelt played well tonight. He was more active. It was as well as I’ve ever seen him play.” Bouie: “I knew he had foul trouble. And since he was behind me, the guys tried to get it to me and I took it to the hole. I sort of felt they would come out in a zone in the second half. But I’m not a coach.” Waterman: Bouie sets picks like [Raiders Hall of fame offensive lineman] Gene Upshaw. Meanwhile Syracuse “hindered the Bonnies with a vicious zone defense. But despite Waterman’s foul trouble, Moss’s effectiveness against the man-for-man and SU’s general dominance in personnel, the Bonnies decided they would rather fight than switch. And they lost the fight.”

Satalin found Syracuse “very deserving of their ranking because I don’t know if they really have a weakness. I’ll have to wait and see what they do against bigger teams. But right now, they are one of the five best in the country.”


The championship of the ECAC playoffs, which would secure an automatic bid to the NCAAs, (but, unlike South Carolina in 1970, SU would still be eligible for an at-large birth), would pit the Orange again a rival-to-come, a rival that would become more important than any we have had in the sport.

I remember playing Georgetown in the 1966-67 and 1967-68 seasons, when we beat them 108-95 and 95-78. At that time they were similar to Colgate or Cornell, or maybe a better comparison would be to American U. or George Washington, two other DC area schools we played in those days to help us recruit down there. Those Hoya teams were, (I’ve got to say it), all or mostly white – suburban kids who went there for the academics. Wikipedia: “Georgetown is ranked among the top universities in the United States and admission is highly selective. Georgetown's notable alumni include 13 Nobel Prize Laureates, 28 Rhodes Scholars, 32 Marshall Scholars, 33 Truman Scholars, 429 Fulbright Scholars, 2 U.S. Presidents, and 2 U.S. Supreme Court Justices, as well as international royalty and 14 foreign heads of state. Among the world's leading institutions in government and international relations,[17] the school's alumni include more U.S. diplomats than any other university and many members of the United States Congress.” Unfortunately, those scholars, justices, diplomats, congresspersons, foreign royalty and heads of state were not very good at basketball and a low ebb was reached when the Hoyas went 3-23 in the 1971-72 season.

As their new coach, they took a big step in a somewhat different direction. They hired John Thompson (Jr.), a 6-10 DC native and a Roman Catholic, (Georgetown is one of many Jesuit schools to obtain prominence in basketball), who as a high school player had led Archbishop Carroll to a 48 game winning streak and three straight city championships, including one in a victory over Dave Bing’s Spingarn team. After graduating from Providence College, Thompson became Bill Russell’s back-up with the Celtics. When the newly-created Chicago Bulls selected him in the 1966 expansion draft. He decided to retire as a player and return to his roots as coach of St. Anthony’s high in DC. Then Georgetown hired him to turn their program around in the wake of the 3-23 disaster.

Like Fred Lewis at Syracuse a decade before, Thompson made the Hoyas immediately competitive but not yet good: he was 12-14 his first season, then 13-13 the next. He started to break through in 1974-75 with an 18-10 record, including a win over our first Final Four team in Rochester in the Kodak Classic, overcoming a 13 point deficit to beat us 71-70. That team made the NCAA tournament but lost in the first round (to Central Michigan) and a 21-7 team did the same thing the next year, (to Arizona). 1976-77 was a slight step backwards as they went 19-9 and lost in the NIT first round, (to Virginia Tech). The next year they were starting to really show some muscle with a 23-8 record but that, too was an NIT team, (losing to NC State in the semis and then to Rutgers in the consey). The Hoyas had earned some respect in the region but not nationally. In 1978-79 they powered their way to a 22-5 regular season, including wins over Maryland, Indiana and St. John’s. I watched them take apart a good Holy Cross team, (with All-American Ron Perry) in their regular season finale using aggressive defensive pressure. Then they crushed Old Dominion in the ECAC semis. We were favored. But were we really better than they were?

Thompson had created this turn-around by recruiting the inner cities of Washington and Baltimore. These Hoyas looked nothing like the teams we pummeled in the late 60’s. Their players were not only talented but looked physically strong. And they started something that changed basketball – and not for the better, in my opinion. They wouldn’t try to play normal basketball defense- keep your man in front of you and challenge their shots and passes. Instead, they maintained almost constant physical contact, trying to establish the maximum they could get away with the refs. They didn’t avoid fouls. Instead they fouled constantly such that the refs couldn’t call everything or the game wouldn’t be able to finish. Instead, the refs would only call the most egregious sins – maybe. Physical teams always get away with more than finesse teams. We’ve always bene a finesse team and so many of our biggest rivals- Georgetown, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Louisville under Pitino – played “Let’s see what we can get away with” defense. It produced ugly basketball where it was hard for the players to display the skills the fans had come to see. But it was certainly effective as the success of those schools demonstrates. Now the Louie and Bouie show would get its first taste of this new version of the sport.

But what were we afraid of? We were the best team in the East, having won 19 games in a row on the way to a 25-2 record and #6 national ranking, (#5 in the coach’s poll). The Hoyas were ranked #16 and had won 11 games in a row. The game took place in Maryland’s Cole Field House. From a 2015 Mike Waters article on the game in Syracuse.com, Rich Chvotkin, Georgetown's radio play-by-play voice for the past 42 years, said "The rivalry hadn't started yet. The rivalry started when John said "Manley Field House is officially closed.'' The games prior didn't have the emotional edge.'' And yet, “"It was a knock-down, drag-out game. It was a friggin' war. It was so physical with such great players on both sides.'' That sounds familiar.

“Georgetown's starting lineup featured guards John Duren and Eric "Sleepy'' Floyd. Forward Craig Shelton was the primary frontcourt threat. Freshman center Ed Spriggs and forward Steve Martin joined Shelton on the frontline.” Syracuse led 30-28 at halftime, but it’s obvious from that score that our offense wasn’t nearly as productive as it usually was. I remember the game as a frustrating slog where we were never able to pull away and then fell behind. But Jim Boeheim had one ace in the hole. Georgetown had one white player, a gangly back-up center named Jeff Bullis. Jeff played hard but was lacking in talent, especially at the foul line. This was the pre-Ewing era and Thompson didn’t have a lot of big guys. There was foul trouble and he had to put Bullis, who had hit on only 29% of this free throws that season in. JB knew that stat and told his team to foul Bullis. They did, over and over again, to try to terminate Georgetown possessions. Jeff came through for his teammates, hitting, as I recall, 13 of 15 free throws to close out the 58-66 Hoya win.

Afterwards, Jim complained about the number of free throws the refs had let Georgetown take. Even with the Bullis misadventure, he may have had a point. Per Water’s article, “Syracuse out-rebounded Georgetown 46-31, held the Hoyas to just 41 percent shooting and forced the Hoyas into 17 turnovers. Georgetown, however, got to the free-throw line 40 times. The Hoyas made 30 foul shots. In the second half alone, the Hoyas went 22-for-30 at the line. Syracuse, meanwhile, attempted just 12 foul shots for the entire game and made six. The 28-shot discrepancy in free throw attempts was clearly on Boeheim's mind after the game.” JB: "Our players know why we lost. Our shooting was one reason, and the other reason we lost, I'd rather not talk about. But unless the ECAC can get a neutral site, the playoffs are not a fair situation for either team.”

Bouie fouled out of the along, as did Orr and Schayes. Syracuse was whistled for 30 fouls, while Georgetown had just 18. Shelton fouled out of the game, but he would be the only Georgetown player with more than three fouls at the final buzzer. “Very simply, the referees took the game over,'' Bouie said, recalling the contest. "It doesn't take rocket science. Louis had a good game. I had a good game. They got their shots at the foul line. We beat them everywhere except to the whistle.''

A Washington Post article, (by Dave Kindred, a kindred soul to the Hoyas) had a more favorable view of the encounter:

“Georgetown Class Shows at Finish…What Georgetown University's basketball team has, and some others don't have, is class. Hemingway called it grace under pressure. At a basketball game, you can see it in the eyes of players. Forget the gripers and stompers, the moaners and weepers. If it's class you want, look at Steve Martin, [no, not that one], and John Duren, Craig Shelton and John Thompson. Georgetown won a championship yesterday, 66-58 over Syracuse, the nation's fifth-ranked team. Thompson, the coach, and the Martin-Duren-Shelton triumvirate that is the foundation of Georgetown's success go on to the NCAA tournament now. If these hands weren't busy typing, they would be applauding…Syracuse was a lock. It had a 25-2 won-lost record, had won 19 straight games and came in with a giant center just at a time when Georgetown's big man was hurt and a freshman would have to take his place. Here was Syracuse, rated No. 5, against Georgetown, which in its hometown is so unappreciated it barely half-fills Cole.

Georgetown controlled the game from start to end. The losing coach, Jim Boeheim, screamed about the officiating, which is standard behavior for losers, but it was not the zebras who allowed Georgetown to create a rhythm of play that made victory possible. Martin and Duren did that by running the Georgetown offense with poise and patience, forcing nothing, never wasting a motion. So total was Georgetown's control that Syracuse, averaging 90 points a game, scored fewer than 61 points for the first time all season…It was gorgeous to watch. Basketball can be poetry, each line crafted precisely, or it can be cacophony, everyone tooting his own horn according to his whims. Thompson is creation's largest poet…

Georgetown leads, 35-32, early in the second half. Even now, Syracuse's frustration is palpable. You can see that look in the eyes of the Orangemen, that self-pitying look of defeat imminent. Syracuse never caught up, and it wasn't because it didn't have the raw talent. Roosevelt Bouie, the 6-foot-11 center, had a 6-11 buddy and a 6-7 friend -- all of them playing against a Georgetown line of 6-9, 6-7, 6-4. For the season, Syracuse was shooting above 53 percent. None of it mattered yesterday, for the three giants all fouled out and its shooters settled for 40 percent…

Again falling into a loser's standard refrain, the Syracuse coach, Boeheim, said the one-for-11 shooting of a guard did in his Orangemen. The more objective appraisal would be an examination of why the poor fellow was so off form. Such an examination might show the Georgetown defense -- now a man to man, now a zone, now a full-court press -- left the poor fellow wondering why he hadn't taken up, say, dominoes.”

What’s not to like about that? The rivalry may not have begun, but the contempt that was its basis had already started.


No matter, we were safely in the NCAA tournament, formally seeded for the first time. We were given a #4 seed in the East, matched with another future rival – Connecticut, the #5 seed. This was the pre-Jim Calhoun UCONN. They were a respected New England program but nothing more than that. With the Big Conference in the negotiation stage, they needed to show some muscle and Coach Dom Perno, an alum, was trying to provide it with some big-time recruiting: 6-8 230 Cornellius “Corney” Thompson averaged 22.5p/18.8r at Middletown High, a first team high school All-American and honorable mentions 6-5 Mike McKay and 6-2 Jim Sullivan. Perno told Street & Smith’s ”Our task will be to blend this talent into a smooth-working team”. They did and steamed to a 21-7 record, although there were no big names in the victory column until they smashed Boston College 91-74 in New England’s equivalent of the ECAC playoffs to earn a rematch with the Orange, who had beaten them 74-60 on January 13th in Storrs.

The final score of this game was closer, 89-81, but that was deceiving. I could find no article on the game but Orangehoops reports that SU had a 25 point first half lead on their way to 52-35 at the half. What I recall of the game is that Syracuse was back to looking like the powerhouse I thought we were after the quicksand of the Georgetown game and any doubt I had about a strong NCAA run was banished. Orangehoops has a box score of this game: We had a balanced attack with five guys, Eddie Moss, Dale Shackleford, Marty Headd, Louis Orr and Roosevelt Bouie all scoring between 13 and 19 points. Rosey led with 19 points, 6 rebounds a couple of blocks and a steal. Louis had 18 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. But Shack had the best all-round game with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists, although he also had 6 turnovers, which was still not as bad as the 7 Marty had to go with his 18 points. Eddie Moss had 13 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 3 turnovers.

Those turnovers, (27 in total) and the Huskie’s 35-41 edge on the boards enabled them to get back within range but I don’t recall the game getting any closer than the final score. Thompson had 18p/12r and McKay led all scorers with 21 points but it wasn’t enough to overcome the fact that we out-shot them 60%-34%.

Not only was that win good news for the Orange: even better news was that #1 seed North Carolina had been knocked off by Pennsylvania, 72-71. Now we only had to get past the 9th seeded Quakers to get to a regional final against either St. John’s or Rutgers, both of whom we’d already beaten. Final Four, here we come! – this time with a team that could win it all!

Pennsylvania had had quite a time of it in the 70’s under Coaches Dick Harter and Chuck Daly and now Bob Weinhauer, who had had a combined 221-55 run since the 1969-70 season, including 5 top ten teams. It was the last Ivy program to be a true powerhouse on the national scene. But they’d faded a bit with 17-9, 18-8 and 20-8 seasons the previous three years before Weinhauer had them at 23-6 going into the Sweet 16 game with the Orange. He had an outstanding forward in 6-6 Tony Price, (19.8p/8.7r/3.3a), a decent big man in 6-10 Matt White (11.7p/7.5r/0.9a) and a good small forward in 6-5 Tim Smith (13.4p/6.4r/2.7a). But what I remember was their uber-quick backcourt, 5-11 James Salters, (9.3p/1.0r/2.4a) and 6-2 Bobby Willis (9.1p/2.1r/4.2a).

I remember that Eddie Moss’s ankle had not fully healed and was bothering him. And the Cohenheadds could shoot and they could play but quickness was never their strength. The NCAAs were all about match-ups. UNC Charlotte had beaten us in ’77 because their guards were so much taller than ours we couldn’t shoot or pass over them and their guys could do so at will. Against Western Kentucky in ’78, it was a classic example of a superior team just letting an inferior team hand around and then not making the plays to win at the end of the game. The Pennsylvania game was all about Salters and Willis running past Cohen and Headd and a hobbled Moss as Penn just ran the Orange off the floor in the first half to build an insurmountable lead.

The Orange seemingly had a break when Penn’s only legit big man, Matt White, got his second foul with 14:31 left in the first half and was pulled by Weinhauer, who went with a small, quick line-up and switched his defense “from a man-to-man to man to a much more effective floating 2-3 zone.” (From Rob Lawin’s article in the Post Standard) A 19-14 advantage morphed into a 29-46 deficit, a game-crushing 10-32 run. Lawin blamed it on “a lack of penetration on offense coupled with some blatant turnovers…made all the more imposing by SU’s lack of execution from the foul line”.

SU managed to get the score back to 37-50 by halftime but never erased the deficit in the second half. Missing the front end of three one-and-ones didn’t help. SU got within 5 points at 64-69 and with 6:49 left. “Then the game turned for the final time. After a steal, Moss drove the lane, made his shot but was called for a charge on Willis. The foul was ruled before the shot and when (Mark) Cubit was called for a blocking foul on Price on the ensuing inbounds play, SU went over the limit”. Price made both ends of a one-and-one as did Ken Hall a minute later and it was 64-73. The Orange again cut the lead to five at 70-75 with 2:51 left. But the Quakers made their fouls shots, (22 of 26) while SU didn’t (12/23) and Penn won, 76-84, to end the third season of the Louie and Bouie show.

Price had a great game with 20p/7r/6a. Smith had a very good one with 18/8/3. White had 11/8/3 and Hall, another quick guard, had 11 points, all from the foul line in an 11 for 12 performance that sealed SU’s fate. But the guys I remember were Salters who scored 14 and Willis who had 8 points and 6 assists. We just couldn’t keep up with them in that first half. Cohen was shut out. Headd scored 13 points but on 5 for 14 shooting. Eddie Moss managed 11 points with 3 rebs and 2 assists. Rosey Bouie had a double-double and 14/14 and 6 blocks. Louis had 12/6 with 3 assists. But they were a combined 6 for 12 from the foul line. Dale Shackleford, in his last game in an SU uniform, had a good same with 16/4/6. Rebounds were even at 35. As in many games of this era, there were amazing turnover numbers: 25 for us, (15 in the first half) and 23 for them. Cohen had 2 in 13 minutes. Headd, Bouie and Shack had 5 each.

Jim Boeheim: “There were two things I’ve said all year. Two things have hurt us many times this year – turnovers and foul shooting. We’ve played 30 games this year and gotten away with a couple of bad halves, but you just can’t do what we did in a tournament situation and expect to survive. Still, I’m proud of this team. We’re in a situation where we are out of the ballgame against a smart team that doesn’t make many mistakes. We then force them into an awful lot of turnovers and many clubs have done that to them. But, when we do this, when we start to get back on defense, we don’t make the free throws. I felt we made as good an effort as we could have, though.”

But the good news was that there was still one more year of the Louie and Bouie Show to come – one more chance to get back to the Final Four with a team that could win it before the two stars left.

There is so much opportunity for class in great journalism. eg., in a Washington Post article, by Dave Kindred, a kindred soul to the Hoyas wrote about an SU - G'Town game...It was gorgeous to watch. Basketball can be poetry, each line crafted precisely, or it can be cacophony, everyone tooting his own horn according to his whims.
Unfortunately he was writing about a Syracuse loss to Gergetown.

So many great memories, SWC. One of them: On one of Jim's recruiting trips, I remember the team arriving to play UConn at Bradley airport in CT, leaving for the Marriott in Farmington then with another friend of mine at the wheel picking Jim up and racing to Middletown HS to recruit Corny Thompson, a great recruit and as you mentioned a first team All - American.

Kudos to you again on this one. There is a vast amount of information here about Jim, his reactions to many things besides wins and losses but how other teams played us and were thoroughly dipatched and others who weren't supposed to win, did. The Louie and Bouie relationship and their closeness, friendship, and a sense of each other knowing where the other was on the court at any moment.

Thank you for this.

 

[kcsu]

Championship game tomorrow night final line.

SWC is -10.5 over GBT

 

[kcsu]

Championship game tomorrow night final line.

SWC is -10.5 over GBT

Seriously i appreciate your post so much.Its obvious that you put a significant amount of thought, time and effort you put into these is post and it shows. Thank you.

 

[WoadBlue]

The most important quote from this series is this one about Georgetown under John Thompson: " And they started something that changed basketball – and not for the better, in my opinion. They wouldn’t try to play normal basketball defense- keep your man in front of you and challenge their shots and passes. Instead, they maintained almost constant physical contact, trying to establish the maximum they could get away with the refs. They didn’t avoid fouls. Instead they fouled constantly such that the refs couldn’t call everything or the game wouldn’t be able to finish. Instead, the refs would only call the most egregious sins – maybe. Physical teams always get away with more than finesse teams."

Before the creation of the Big East, Thompson had decided that his way to win was to have his teams play goon basketball and to dare officials to call even a faction of the fouls his teams would commit. When Big John been proclaiming for a few seasons that calling fouls on his team was racist, because it was penalizing the black players who came from back neighborhoods, he was assured of both easy recruiting of many black players - those more inclined to things associated with inner city gang life - and of refs backing down when he tongue lashed them. By the time Nolan Richardson began emulating Thompson with great success, the game was alltered for the worse irreparably.