Why Sip Loves Bama Basketball So Much

[Alasippi]

When I was a student at UA in the mid-late seventies there was little or no interest in Bama Basketball, even though we honestly probably had the most talented basketball team in America.

The youngsters here will be rolling there eyes and saying, "yeah right", but man we had some talent.

I don't know if we will ever again have a team with the natural talent of Leon Douglas, Rickey Brown, T.R. Dunn, Reggie "Mule" King, and Amp Murray.

If we got beat...it was truly an upset.

We were awesome. Our average attendance was probably 5,000 a game even though we were consistently ranked in the top five and most always top ten.

But during that time I knew T.R. through the business school at Bidgood and he asked me and my room mate Ronnie to come out and watch practice.

We thought..."No way we can do that"...Tee assured us that we could.

Turns out, Coach Newton let us come in, all two of us, and we'd watch practice.

He actually smoked a pipe while coaching...lol...and he was very calm because he knew he had a juggernaut. And he would come up occasionally and sit with us and talk.

Even though we were students Coach Newton gave us two "reserved seats" directly behind the bench for home games.

T.R. would sometimes give a thumbs up during time outs and Reggie and me would sometimes go to "Grants, on tenth street Baby!!!"...and get some fried chicken.

He'd eat fifteen pieces and i'd be full at four.....lol

But I fell in love with Bama Basketball during that era.

Felt like a part of the team.

We came very close to a national championship during that time but lost to Indiana in the Mideast semi-final in 76 by five points after leading by three with three minutes left.

We just couldn't hit free throws and were the victim of a horrible offensive foul call on Leon Douglas when Kent Benson basically knocked him down as Leon made what might have been the game clinching lay up.

They ended up National Champs and undefeated but Bobby Knight still says it was the best team he ever faced.

At any rate....I have loved Bama Basketball since then and always will and I can't wait for Coach Grant to get us back to that level, if it's possible.

I don't mean that in a negative way.

Anyone who was at Bama when I was knows how incredibly unbelievably talented we were.

It was ridiculous.

RTR!

sip

 

[Clubfitter]

Good story. I graduated in May 76 and that team is one of my all time favorites also. I believe that if we can keep CAG that he will lead us back to the promised land.

 

[edwd58]

I was in high school during that period (class of '76), I distinctly remember the Indiana game. Probably not too many people know, or will recall, that we won three straight SEC championships during that stretch: 1974, 1975, and 1976. Very few games were on tv back then, listened to lots of radio following the Tide. There were some classic games with Kentucky and Tennessee.

 

[Tide Rev]

There was a Saturday TV game with UT that was monumental. If memory serves me correctly, Leon fouled out, King and Grunfeld fouled out for UT and we went into OT. Greg McElveen and Rickey Brown won the game for us in OT. And as for those teams, Charles Cleveland could absolutely shoot long distance. Going back a little farther. Ray Odums was super quick and Murray was no slouch in the speed department. Those teams could play with any of the ones in the tourney today. We did get robbed against Indiana on the call against Leon. Great memories Sip

 

[Clubfitter]

There was a Saturday TV game with UT that was monumental.

Ray Mears always had good teams back then. Before the shot clock he ran a very deliberate style of offense. They would pass the ball around 2 or 3 minutes before they took a shot. It used to drive me crazy watching it.

 

[PattheCatinSaudi]

There was a Saturday TV game with UT that was monumental. If memory serves me correctly, Leon fouled out, King and Grunfeld fouled out for UT and we went into OT. Greg McElveen and Rickey Brown won the game for us in OT. And as for those teams, Charles Cleveland could absolutely shoot long distance. Going back a little farther. Ray Odums was super quick and Murray was no slouch in the speed department. Those teams could play with any of the ones in the tourney today. We did get robbed against Indiana on the call against Leon. Great memories Sip

Rickey Brown hit a shot at the end of regulation to tie the game and put us in OT and then hit a shot with time running out to tie the game again and put us in the 2nd OT. Amp Murray, before he ruined his knee, was the best guard we had ever had at Bama.

 

[CrimsonEyeshade]

There was one other tremendous win against UT, and it really put the C.M. Era in gear.

It came in the fall of '72, on a Saturday afternoon. Back then Tennessee and Kentucky had this great advantage because all the other SEC teams had to play them back to back.

This was C.M. first good team -- Wendell Hudson, Alan House, Glen Garrett, Paul Ellis, Ray Odoms (Cleveland was a freshman; next year he and Leon would arrive on the court at the same time).

The Vols were a Ray Mears' pre-Ernie/Bernie edition: meticulous, deliberate -- with great outside shooters like John Snow and Mike Edwards; bangers underneath like Larry Robinson and Len Kosmalski.

Memorial Coliseum wasn't sold out, not quite, but it was rocking. Tennessee cuts us up through most of the first half, but we keep coming, and the crowd -- maybe the first great crowd of the new era -- was roaring. But this being a new experience, not everybody knew how to behave.

Before the game, some numbskull(s) threw a couple of oranges at the Vol bench. The PA announcer gives the required warning and the game resumes.

Near the very end and with us up by 1, there's a mad scramble under the Vol basket and Ellis, by far our best foul shooter, goes to the line. Everybody is on their feet, and the oranges come out again. I remember Mears, Stu Aberdeen and the entire Vol bench pointing as they go skittering by. The ref calls a T. Ellis misses the 1 and 1, Tennessee hits. We're tied. They toss the ball at mid court with about 5 seconds left. Tennessee gets it. Garrett steals it. Goes flying down the court and gets hammered at the buzzer. He has two shots to win . . . and misses both.

Somehow we gathered ourselves in overtime to win -- the same idiots resume their Vitamin C salute to the Vol bench -- and that Monday night, before a sellout crowd, we came from way way back against Kentucky and Rupp to win again.

Alabama basketball had really arrived.

 

[imauafan]

Good story. I started following Bama basketball in the early 80s. I think it was around the time that CM left and Wimp took over. We had some pretty good teams then with Eddie Phillips, Buck Johnson, Mike Davis. I think Bobbie Lee Hurt, Terry Coner, etc. came in during that time, and then we picked up Derrick McKey. All of those guys were great and everything built up to the 1985-86 season. I really felt like we had a shot at the NC that year but ran into a hot Providence team and got knocked out in the sweet 16. We lost Derrick McKey a year early due to an issue with an agent so in 1986-87 we struggled. I was a freshman at Bama in 1988 so I was there when we got back on track. We had Ansley, Askins, Horry, Cheatum, etc. and were really good that year. If I remember correctly Coleman sold out for every SEC game and perhaps one or two of the non-conference games. We hit our stride late in the year and would have made some noise in the NCAA had we not been the victims of horrible (biased?) officiating in the first round against South Alabama. The next year we had another very good team but we were put out of the tournament by Loyola Marymount in a very strange game. It seemed like to me that was Wimp's last really good team. I felt like he lost his edge after that season. We still won a lot of games and were competitive but several other SEC teams passed us in the early 90s. Rick Pitino became the UK head coach and turned them around almost overnight. Arkansas came into the SEC and well. Perhaps some others that I have forgotten about but we seem to slip a bit.

 

[Alasippi]

There was a Saturday TV game with UT that was monumental. If memory serves me correctly, Leon fouled out, King and Grunfeld fouled out for UT and we went into OT. Greg McElveen and Rickey Brown won the game for us in OT. And as for those teams, Charles Cleveland could absolutely shoot long distance. Going back a little farther. Ray Odums was super quick and Murray was no slouch in the speed department. Those teams could play with any of the ones in the tourney today. We did get robbed against Indiana on the call against Leon. Great memories Sip

One of the greatest games ever played on television. There was a special guest color analyst for that game if you'll recall. A gentleman named John Wooden!
That was as good a game as i've ever seen, and yes Rickey Brown somehow pulled us through.

 

[Alasippi]

Good story. I started following Bama basketball in the early 80s. I think it was around the time that CM left and Wimp took over. We had some pretty good teams then with Eddie Phillips, Buck Johnson, Mike Davis. I think Bobbie Lee Hurt, Terry Coner, etc. came in during that time, and then we picked up Derrick McKey. All of those guys were great and everything built up to the 1985-86 season. I really felt like we had a shot at the NC that year but ran into a hot Providence team and got knocked out in the sweet 16. We lost Derrick McKey a year early due to an issue with an agent so in 1986-87 we struggled. I was a freshman at Bama in 1988 so I was there when we got back on track. We had Ansley, Askins, Horry, Cheatum, etc. and were really good that year. If I remember correctly Coleman sold out for every SEC game and perhaps one or two of the non-conference games. We hit our stride late in the year and would have made some noise in the NCAA had we not been the victims of horrible (biased?) officiating in the first round against South Alabama. The next year we had another very good team but we were put out of the tournament by Loyola Marymount in a very strange game. It seemed like to me that was Wimp's last really good team. I felt like he lost his edge after that season. We still won a lot of games and were competitive but several other SEC teams passed us in the early 90s. Rick Pitino became the UK head coach and turned them around almost overnight. Arkansas came into the SEC and well. Perhaps some others that I have forgotten about but we seem to slip a bit.

Those were indeed some great players but consider this.....our starting five in 76 was comprised of four first team Parade all-Americans! Dougles, T.R., Brown, and the Mule!
I don't know if even one of Wooden's UCLA teams ever had that many.

Someone mentioned Charles Cleveland who I played football against in high school. He was as good an athlete as I've ever seen.
He was also a first team Parade All-American in BOTH Football and Basketball!!! But he could flat out shoot the basketball.
I lived in Jasper at the time he played on the last "Freshman Team" before Freshmen were made varsity eligible.
The Bama freshmen came and played Walker Junior College, a perennial J.C. power at the time. Walker won 102-100 but Cleveland playing point guard
at 6'5" had 41 points and 39 rebounds, the most incredible basketball performance I've ever seen or will see in my lifetime.

 

[rolltide2213]

great story.

 

[CrimsonEyeshade]

Charles was great, but I swear, Sip, no player in the history of college basketball got more charging fouls. Arghhhhhhh.

 

[edwd58]

Amp Murray was indeed a terrific guard, one of our best ever. But, one of my all time favorites would have to be Ennis Whatley.

 

[imauafan]

Amp Murray was indeed a terrific guard, one of our best ever. But, one of my all time favorites would have to be Ennis Whatley.

Ennis Whatley, Terry Coner, and then Gary Waites (I think he came next) where all very good point guards in the 80's and early 90's.

 

[CrimsonEyeshade]

You forgot Eric Richardson, who played in Whatley's shadow, but was a terrific player who took over when 'Mo left after his sophomore season for the NBA. Then came TC. Terry was Mr. Basketball, but when I saw him practicing as a true freshman, he couldn't get the ball across half court. Boy did he improve by his sophomore year.

Waites tore up his knee in a dunking contest at the Georgia all-star game. That desperate side of Wimp Sanderson chose to play him in '88 when he had a brace on his leg the size of Town Creek. Gary never got back his first step, but he became a very fine shooter.

 

[aerospace_ray]

That was a great story. Now I am looking for old videos (youtube, etc).
RTR

 

[Alasippi]

Amp was a very good defensive guard. Offensively he didn't shoot very well.

Ray Odoms was outstanding.

Although he didn't play the point T.R. was the best all around guard we've ever had in my opinion.

I know he was the best defensive player we've ever had, and that ability kept him in the NBA for about ten years.

Mo Williams was an incredible shooter though. My son attended Gottfrieds summer camp when Mo was there..and he(Mo) hit 28 consecutive three's in the shoot around drills.

 

[CrimsonEyeshade]

Ray was great. When C.M. put in the 4 Corners, he had Ray handling the ball, and teams could barely catch him to foul him. When they did . . . well that was a problem. He shot less than 60 percent from the foul line. We didn't run the 'corners with Ray for long.

What a foul shooting nightmare: Ray, Leon, Wendell and on and on and on. What those teams would have done had they just hit 70 percent of their freebies.

 

[Alasippi]

Ray was great. When C.M. put in the 4 Corners, he had Ray handling the ball, and teams could barely catch him to foul him. When they did . . . well that was a problem. He shot less than 60 percent from the foul line. We didn't run the 'corners with Ray for long.

What a foul shooting nightmare: Ray, Leon, Wendell and on and on and on. What those teams would have done had they just hit 70 percent of their freebies.

Man you got that right. That was our one glaring weakness.

 

[RammaJamma10]

Great read. It would have been fun to get to watch those teams. My earliest memories of Bama basketball are of James Robinson, and I loved that guy. He'd drive you crazy sometimes, but I loved cheering for him and the rest of the team. I started attending games more frequently during the Erwin Dudley days and so on. We've definitely had some talent come through Tuscaloosa for a long time. As far as shooting the basketball, the best I've seen at the Capstone was Ernest Shelton.