Sports74 Gold: Basketball Early in '74-75

With this look back at late 1974 in both the college and professional games, Sports74 Gold concludes as the original Sports74 series did.

PRO BASKETBALL

Bill Walton is the No. 1 pick in the '74 NBA Draft, and he goes to the Portland Trail Blazers. In his first season, he gets 441 rebounds in 35 games.

The NBA's New Orleans Jazz plays its first season, but first, LSU alumnus Pete Maravich is traded from the Atlanta Hawks May 3, 1974. The Jazz plays at Municipal Auditorium (capacity 7,853) until the Louisiana Superdome (47,284) opens in '75.

Three arenas that open are Richfield Coliseum in northern Ohio (home of the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers and the WHA's Cleveland Crusaders), Market Square Arena in Indianapolis (ABA Indiana Pacers and WHA Indianapolis Racers), and Kemper Arena in Kansas City (NBA Kansas City-Omaha Kings and NHL Kansas City Scouts).

The Capital Bullets change their name to the Washington Bullets.

Among the NBA-ABA exhibitions in the preseason is Sept. 28, when the New York Nets defeat the Bullets 101-98 in overtime at the Capital Centre. Something had gone wrong in handling luggage, so Julius Erving and four other Nets players have to wear Bullets road uniforms.

The two leagues discuss merging, but one difference between the leagues' team owners is that the NBA's want to keep the option clause in place and the ABA's want it gone. The ABA sues the NBA for a total of $600 million. Oscar Robertson himself had filed a suit in 1970. The option clause will be dropped in the '76 offseason.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar plays what will prove to be his final season with the Milwaukee Bucks.

This season, Rick Barry of the Golden State Warriors makes his 4000th free throw between ABA and NBA games.

Lenny Wilkens, having coached the Seattle SuperSonics for three years before, is back to coaching after two years of playing for Bill Fitch on the Cavs. He begins his stint as head coach of the Trail Blazers.

Moses Malone, who had briefly been enrolled at the University of Maryland, leaves and signs with the ABA's Utah Stars in August, having been drafted by that team in the third round.

The Buffalo Braves play six more games at the cold Maple Leaf Gardens in '74-75. A Toronto franchise is approved for '75-76, but it will not be formed, reportedly because investors don't have enough faith in the stability of sports at this time.

This is, after all, a season in which, according to ABA president John Y. Brown, the leagues lose $16 million. "There's no way professional basketball can survive if 25 of the 28 teams in both leagues lose substantial amounts of money every year," he will say.

In October, the New York Knickerbockers gain the NBA rights to Pacers power forward George McGinnis from the Philadelphia 76ers, who had drafted him in 1973. When McGinnis instead signs a new contract with the Pacers, the Knicks lose those rights, and what follows in '75 will be a dispute between the two NBA teams over McGinnis.

The season opener for both the Cavaliers and the home Trail Blazers goes to quadruple overtime. Each team scores exactly eight points in the additional periods of this Oct. 18 game, except for the Blazers in the fourth OT, who score ten to win it 131-129.

In a game against the Hawks at the Omni Coliseum, Elmore Smith of the Los Angeles Lakers has three chances to make two free throws Dec. 28. All of the shots are air balls.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

In his final year at N.C. State, David Thompson averages 29.9 points per game and gets 229 rebounds (8.2 per game). The Atlanta Hawks will use their No. 1 overall pick in the '75 NBA Draft on him, and so will the ABA's Virginia Squires in their own league's draft, but he will go to the Denver Nuggets (who had been the Denver Rockets until after the '73-74 season) after they trade with the Squires.

This season is the last for UCLA coach John Wooden. By March, it will be the Bruins' last NCAA tournament appearance under Wooden and the program's tenth championship season.

Pat Head (later Summitt) begins her long coaching career with the Tennessee Lady Vols soon after graduating from the University of Tennessee-Martin.

Bob McCurdy of 16-12 Southern Conference member Richmond leads Division I with 32.9 points per game.

This season will be followed by the first Division III tournament.

Larry Bird, fresh out of Springs Valley High School in French Lick, Ind., initially goes to Indiana University but quickly transfers to Indiana State.

Butch Morgan, coach at the College of St. Joseph the Provider (in Rutland, Vt.), reads a poem called "Don't Quit" to the players and has them discuss it prior to the Dec. 11 game against Castleton State College. The process takes so long that the team gets five technical fouls for being late to the court, and the other team makes three of the five shots. Final score: Castleton 79, St. Joseph 78. Later, Morgan will recall that he thought his team would lose by much more.

NOTE: Over the course of this three-week interval, I received a new smartphone with a larger screen (about 5 1/2 inches), so I tested this post Oct. 1 to see how it would look on the five-inch screen of the phone I had for four years.

Sports74 Gold: College Basketball '73-74

From stars being made to dynasties on the wane, here's the college scene and a little more of amateur hoops.

North Carolina State wins the NCAA tournament. En route to a 76-64 win against Marquette in the championship game, the Wolfpack defeats the powerhouse that is UCLA 80-77 in double overtime. N.C. State's record for the season is 30-1.

The Bruins' loss to the Wolfpack is one of four that season; the first, against Notre Dame Jan. 19, brings their 88-game winning streak to an end. The Fighting Irish, playing at home, overcome an 11-point deficit in the last 3:30 to win 71-70.

The next two are on consecutive nights: Feb. 15 against Oregon and Feb. 16 against Oregon State. The Bruins hadn't practiced on a Sunday before, but there's a first time for everything, and that time is Feb. 17.

Bill Walton wins three of the five outstanding player awards he had swept in '72 and '73 (namely: UPI, U.S. Basketball Writers' Association, and the Naismith Award). At the end of his time at UCLA, his total is 1,370 rebounds. He has 398 in '73-74 and averages 19.3 points per game, but those marks aren't as high as the ones for his sophomore and junior years.

Instead of giving Walton the outstanding player award for a third time, the AP and the Helms Foundation both choose David Thompson of N.C. State. Thompson averages 26.0 points per game this season with 245 rebounds (7.9 per game). He is also the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, with a .514 field goal percentage, a .786 free throw percentage, 17 rebounds, and 49 points in two games. Walton and Thompson tie for the Helms Foundation award according to the '91 Information Please Sports Almanac; Sports-Reference.com says Thompson alone won it.

In fact, Thompson is the runner-up for the AAU's prestigious James E. Sullivan Award, covering all sports.

The consensus All-America team is as follows: Walton, Thompson, Keith Wilkes (later Jamaal Wilkes) of UCLA, John Shumate of Notre Dame, Marvin Barnes of Providence.

Who is the Coach of the Year? UPI says Digger Phelps of Notre Dame, the USBWA and the AP say Norm Sloan of N.C. State, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches says Al McGuire of Marquette. In '75, all of those awards will go to Indiana's Bobby Knight.

Indiana, despite being good enough to be ranked No. 9 in the AP poll, does not make the NCAA tournament, but the Hoosiers do win the end-of-season Collegiate Commissioners' Association tournament, narrowly defeating Tennessee and Toledo before dominating USC in the finals.

Larry Fogle of independent, 14-12 Canisius leads the NCAA with 33.4 points per game, or, by another set of standards, it's William Averitt of 8-18 West Coast Athletic Conference member Pepperdine with 33.9.

Barnes has 597 rebounds in 32 games, the top NCAA mark for that category. He had 571 in 30 games the year before, but finished second on the leaderboard.

The per-game rebound leader, for the second time in a row, is Kermit Washington of American, a 16-10 Middle Atlantic Conference team. His average was 19.8 last season and an even 20.0 this season.

Al Fleming of Arizona finishes the season with a .667 field-goal percentage, tying Kent Martens of Abilene Christian in 1972 and Lew Alcindor of UCLA in 1967, the former two having attempted exactly 204 field goals each and the latter having gone 346-for-519.

Lute Olson, future Iowa and Arizona coach, coaches this year at Long Beach State after a year at Long Beach City College. He takes over for Jerry Tarkanian, who will begin the first of many years at UNLV next season.

Speaking of Long Beach State, the 49ers' home winning streak ends at 75 sometime in '74. Their 94-84 loss to San Francisco ends a run that began in 1968. Another home-court winning streak begins this calendar year: the UNLV Rebels' 72 times defending their home.

Duke leads by eight with 17 seconds left in the March 2 game against hated rival UNC, a much mightier team against which the Blue Devils have put up a fight. The Tar Heels rally back, culminating in a long shot by Mitch Kupchak. Duke goes on to lose in overtime, having fallen apart. Pete Kramer's free throw in the fourth period would have been the difference.

Purdue wins the NIT with a 97-81 win over Utah in the final. The Utes' Mike Sojourner is the tournament MVP.

Morgan State wins the College Division (later known as Division II) title.

Alcorn State, a future NCAA Division I school, loses the NAIA final to West Georgia.

Lloyd Free, later to be known as World B. Free, is an NAIA All-American. The Guilford guard also makes second team AP Little All-America.

This is the first year that freshmen are eligible for varsity teams.

In the school's last year before the shuttering of its doors, Englewood Cliffs College (N.J.) sets a record Jan. 20, losing to Essex County Community College by 143 points. The victorious Wolverines also set a record with their 210 points, with the official scorecard and game ball going to the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass.

Immaculata University wins the AIAW title for the third year in a row in the third edition of the women's tournament.

OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE GAME

Moses Malone leads Petersburg High to a second consecutive state championship in Virginia high school basketball. His 896 points in 25 games (for an average of 35.8) is a single-season total-points record that will stand for 19 years. Malone's career scoring average of 27.2 remains one of the best in state history.

The Soviet Union wins the FIBA championship in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Yugoslavia finishes second in this tournament, which is the last of the quadrennial world championships with a round-robin to decide the champion instead of a single final game.

From the A's to the whys, division races to drunken rabble, fastballs in California to baring it all in Chicago, stars at play to disputes over pay, it's a deep dive into the American League, coming March 1.

[EDIT 5/2/2024 1:55-1:56 p.m. EDT: It's not "the" UPI. Is it?]

Gitcher Program

Ah, 1974. Somewhat like 2022, most of it was the Year of the Tiger if you're not referring to the Detroit kind. To very prematurely celebrate the 50th anniversary (for which I think I'll have some Sports74 Gold posts), here's my selection of 50 scorecard, program, media guide, and yearbook covers from that year.

I do this because for a few days my attention has been on SportsPaper.info, a site with a bunch of those covers. The wiki could use some work.

BASEBALL

ALCS program for the "Once More in '74" Oakland A's; reuses the yearbook art.

Scorecard for the A.L. East champion Baltimore Orioles; the cover mistakenly calls it a "Golden Glove."

Media guide for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who won the National League pennant with Walter Alston at the helm for the seventh time.

Program for the N.L. East champion Pittsburgh Pirates, Pirates, Pirates, Pirates, Pirates, Pirates, Pirates (it was this or the album cover-looking yearbook).

Yearbook for the Atlanta Braves, with the big moment of '74 anticipated.

Yearbook for the New York Yankees, second place in the A.L. East in their first of two Shea Stadium seasons.

Scorecard for the four-games-out-of-first Cincinnati Reds with the image of Don Gullett; the crossword is filled in on the Joe Morgan version. 

Media guide for the second-place Texas Rangers, who hired Billy Martin late in '73 and watched him go to the Yankees in '75.

The All-Star Game program, with Hank Aaron and Roberto Clemente as "All-Time All-Stars."

The World Series program, with a neat concept someone had to think up sometime.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL (with final '74 AP rankings; chosen for teams and not designs)

Program for Oct. 5 game, No. 6 Notre Dame vs. No. 12 Michigan State (ND won 19-14). 

Program for Oct. 12 game, No. 18 Texas vs. No. 1 Oklahoma (OU won 16-13).

Program for Nov. 23 game, No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 4 Ohio State (OHST won 12-10). Look at that Big Ten logo, so true to the name and compact in geographical area.

Program for Liberty Bowl, No. 20 Tennessee vs. No. 13 Maryland (TENN won 7-3).

Program for Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl, No. 11 N.C. State vs. No. 19 Houston (31-31 tie).

Program for Sugar Bowl, No. 9 Nebraska vs. No. 15 Florida (NEB won 13-10). Note the bicentennial logo at the top-right.

Media guide for No. 5 Alabama, with newcomer Bear Bryant.

THE NFL

Program for Super Bowl VIII, the second with the trophy on the front (VII was the last without it).

Program for the canceled Chicago College All-Star Game. Not the only charity exhibition game of the year, I could see while browsing.

Media guide for the Super Bowl IX champion Pittsburgh Steelers. Simple and symbolic.

Media guide for the NFC champion Minnesota Vikings.

Program for the Nov. 24 game between the San Diego Chargers and Green Bay Packers, Johnny Unitas having finished his career with the former the year before (GB won 34-0) 

Program for the Dec. 21 playoff game between the Miami Dolphins and Oakland Raiders (OAK won 28-26).

WORLD FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Program for the Aug. 28 game between the Portland Storm and Southern California Sun (SC won 45-15), teams with distinctive uniforms (not pictured). 

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

Media guide for the '74 Final Four, with action from the previous year's UCLA-Memphis State game in St. Louis (it says KPLR).

Media guide for the '74-75 UCLA Bruins, with John Wooden prominently featured.

THE NBA

Playoff program for the Finals-bound '73-74 Boston Celtics.

Playoff program for the Capital Bullets in their only season under that name.

Playoff program for the champion '73-74 Milwaukee Bucks.

Media guide for the '74-75 Portland Trail Blazers, with Bill Walton's distinctive face and figure.

Program for a New Orleans Jazz vs. Kansas City-Omaha Kings game Nov. 5 at Omaha (KCO won 115-97).

THE ABA

Media guide for the '73-74 Kentucky Colonels, with a very '70s font.

Program for the '74 All-Star Game at the Norfolk Scope.

Playoff program for the Western champion Utah Stars. Groovy stripes and Rick Mount.

Program for the '74 Western runner-up Indiana Pacers' interleague game against the Milwaukee Bucks. How'd they make that picture?

Media guide for the '74-75 Pacers, whose new arena had just opened.

Yearbook for the reigning champion New York Nets of '74-75.

Media guide for the "new" Denver Nuggets, who with the name change had more of a claim to "new" than the Squires.

Media guide for the "new" Virginia Squires. Only that of the San Antonio Spurs was plainer that season.

THE NHL

Media guide for the Stanley Cup champion Philadelphia Flyers. Bobby Clarke had 37 goals in '72-73, not 36.

Playoff program for the Eastern champion Boston Bruins. Speaking of arithmetic, sometimes you'd get a program that explicitly stated the actual price plus tax. 

Media guide for the '74-75 California Golden Seals, whose Schulz-created mascot would be around for only two years.

Media guide for the expansion Washington Capitals.

THE WHA

Program for the '74-75 Quebec Nordiques (from 5th place in East to first in Canadian), with Rejean Houle in his Summit Series uniform.

Media guide for the reigning Avco Cup champion Houston Aeros.

Program for the '73-74 Eastern champion New England Whalers' Oct. 19 game against the blink-and-you'll-miss-them Michigan Stags (NE won 2-1 in OT).

AUTO RACING

Program for the 450-mile Daytona 500, whose winner is on the cover, Richard Petty also having won in '73.

Program for the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, won by David Pearson.

Program for the Indianapolis 500, held on the same day as the World 600 for the first of many times and won by Johnny Rutherford.

SOCCER

Program for the West Germany-Holland World Cup final, featuring a few flags no longer in use.

EDIT 6:55 p.m. EDT: Did some more underlining and corrected category of the Orioles item.

EDIT July 16, 7:55-8:01 a.m. EDT: Added Houston's final AP ranking and deleted an unnecessary "an."

EDIT Jan. 17, 2023, 1:32-1:43 p.m. EST: Added a period after Rutherford's name, re-worded part about Braves yearbook, and kind of fixed broken link to Rangers media guide.

EDIT June 15, 2023, 12:06-12:17 p.m. EDT: Fixed some more broken links, I hope.

EDIT Nov. 30, 2023: 2:25 p.m. EDT: Introduced the "football" label.

Pat Summitt, 1952-2016

Pat Summitt died Tuesday. Her accomplishments in the sphere of women's basketball are unparalleled.

One of the most appreciated individuals in University of Tennessee history, Pat Head received her physical education bachelor's in 1974 after four years on the Martin campus, and that fall she started coaching in Knoxville. She was teaching in Martin when she received the letter requesting that she dedicate her winters to the "excellent potential team" that was the Lady Vols. They finished 16-8 in her first year, and the 16-11 team of the next year would remain the only Tennessee squad on her watch not to win at least two-thirds of its games.

Head was so young in the mid-'70s that after her first season on the sidelines in Knoxville (and the one grad school year it took for her to get her master's), she was on the court for the US team at the 1975 women's world championship and the subsequent Pan American Games. She won a silver medal at the '76 Olympics, and she coached the national team in 1980, the year she married the man with whom she'd stay for over a quarter-century.

Her first staff included Judy Rose, UNC-Charlotte's future athletics director. Though Rose began her time at Charlotte in 1976, she remained a close friend over the years. Rose recalls, among many other things, Summitt's willingness to "mentor younger people coming up," something she saw on frequent encounters in high school gyms with the woman who'd hired her in '74.

There was much more to Summitt than her signature stare. She was all business when she needed to be and less serious other times. Like any good coach, she'd have players work hard (and preferably smart), but even while she was on the job, they could call her Pat.

[EDIT 11/30/2023, 2:15 p.m.: Added "basketball" label]

College Basketball: The '73-74 Season

[EDIT 6/22/2015: Making apostrophes show up right in all kinds of encoding]

[EDIT 2/4/2023 9:35 a.m.: One player's name was different in college]

[EDIT 11/30/2023 2:18 p.m.: Adding "basketball" label]

Posting this one just a little before March.

North Carolina State wins the NCAA tournament. En route to a 76-64 win against Marquette in the championship game, they defeat the UCLA powerhouse 80-77 in double overtime. NC State's record for the season is 30-1.

The Bruins' loss to the Wolfpack is one of four that season; the first, against Notre Dame Jan. 28, brings their 88-game winning streak to an end. The Fighting Irish, playing at home, overcome an 11-point deficit in the last 3:30 to win 71-70.

Bill Walton wins three of the four outstanding player awards he had swept in '72 and '73 (namely: UPI, U.S. Basketball Writers' Association, and the Naismith Award). At the end of his time at UCLA, his total is 1370 rebounds. He has 398 in '73-74 and averages 19.3 points per game, but those marks aren't as high as the ones for his sophomore and junior years.

Instead of giving Walton the outstanding player award for a third time, the AP chooses David Thompson of NC State. Thompson averages 26.0 points per game this year with 245 rebounds (7.9 per game). He is also the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, with 51.4 FG%, 78.6 FT%, 17 rebounds, and 49 points in two games.

The consensus All-America team is as follows: Walton, Thompson, Keith (later Jamaal) Wilkes of UCLA, John Shumate of Notre Dame, Marvin Barnes of Providence.

Who is the Coach of the Year? The UPI says Digger Phelps of Notre Dame, the USBWA and the AP say Norm Sloan of NC State, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches says Al McGuire of Marquette. In '75, all of those awards will go to Bobby Knight.

Larry Fogle of Canisius leads the NCAA with 33.4 PPG. Or, by another set of standards, it's William Averitt of Pepperdine with 33.9.

Barnes has 597 rebounds in 32 games, the top NCAA mark for that category. He had 571 in 30 games the year before, but finished second on the leaderboard.

The per-game rebound leader, for the second time in a row, is Kermit Washington of American. His average was 19.8 last season and an even 20.0 this season.

Lute Olson, future Iowa and Arizona coach, coaches this year at Long Beach State after a year at Long Beach City College. He takes over for Jerry Tarkanian, who will begin the first of many years at UNLV next season.

Speaking of Long Beach State, their home winning streak ends at 75 sometime in '74. Their 94-84 loss to San Francisco ends a run that began in 1968. Another home-court winning streak begins this calendar year: UNLV's 72 times defending their home.

Purdue wins the NIT with a 97-81 win over Utah in the final. The Utes' Mike Sojourner is the tournament MVP.

Morgan State wins the Division II title.

Alcorn State, a future NCAA Division I school, loses the NAIA final to West Georgia.

This is the first year freshmen are eligible for varsity teams.

Immaculata University wins the AIAW title for the third year in a row in the third edition of this women's tournament.

OUTSIDE THE COLLEGE GAME

Moses Malone leads Petersburg High to a second consecutive state championship in Virginia high school basketball. His 896 points in 25 games (for an average of 35.8) is a single-season total-points record that will stand for 19 years and still a record for a 12th-grader forty years later. His career scoring average is 27.2, which remains one of the best in state history.

The Soviet Union wins the FIBA championship in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Yugoslavia finishes second in this tournament, which is the last time a round-robin decides the champion instead of a single final game.

NC State's '74 team on ESPN.com
[8/13/2015: Site about UCLA's streak coming to an end expired.]
NCAA Tournament Review from CBSSports.com
Consensus All-Americans of the '70s from Sports-Reference.com
Who is Lute Olson? Find out on About.com
VHSL Records including Moses Malone's (PDF)
Official home of the '74 FIBA tournament

COMING IN MARCH: THE '74 BASEBALL SEASON