I was reading the Knoxville News Sentinel this morning and saw that the Bucs lost to the Vols last night. Brought back memories of some Buc teams of the past.
Before I go on, I'll ask Lover to skip this message, as he hates to hear about anything that happened before 2002.
Sometime around 79 or 80, the Bucs and the Vols were both top ten teams in NCAA Division I baseball. While ranked, they played a double header at Cardinal Park in JC. The place was packed. I mean standing room packed. The Bucs took the first game and the vols came back to win the second. It was a great night of baseball.
Around the same time, maybe a year before or after, the Lady Bucs basketball team was ranked somewhere around #10 in Division I. Pat Summitt broght her Lady Vols, who I believe were #1 at the time, to ETSU to play a game. It was when the men played in the dome and the ladies played in Brooks Gym. Brooks was packed and rockin. It was a great game, won by the Vols. The crowd loved it. The players loved it. Hard to forget.
Two best men's basketball games I've seen at ETSU: ETSU beating Western Kentucky to win the OVC in their last game before joining the Southern. It was nationally broadcast on NBC, I think it was NBC, and the bucs won on a last second shot from the corner. Great play. The bucs threw the ball to the corner, where the point guard was protected by two other bucs. He shot it up as the buzzer sounded and won the game.
The other was the ETSU-NCState game when both teams were ranked. I think that was the second largest crowd ever to attend a game at the dome. ETSU won.
Best football game? It was either 77 or 78. It was before I-AA, when the bucs were in Division I with everyone else. Last game of the season. UT-Chattanooga was a big favorite. The bucs held them at the end, when Chattanooga had a first down at ETSU's 1 yard line. I never heard a louder crowd at an ETSU football game. We won 35-0. Mark Hutsell, quarterback, was named Sports Illustrated's Player of the Week.
kevster Wrote:Best football game? It was either 77 or 78. It was before I-AA, when the bucs were in Division I with everyone else. Last game of the season. UT-Chattanooga was a big favorite. The vols held them at the end, when Chattanooga had a first down at ETSU's 1 yard line. I never heard a louder crowd at an ETSU football game. We won 35-0. Mark Hutsell, quarterback, was named Sports Illustrated's Player of the Week.
Ouch..
Quote:Around the same time, maybe a year before or after, the Lady Bucs basketball team was ranked somewhere around #10 in Division I. Pat Summitt broght her Lady Vols, who I believe were #1 at the time, to ETSU to play a game.
ok forgive if I sound clueless but the Lady Bucs were a top 10 team at one time???? If I am correct they have never even been to the NCAA tournament. They must have laid a huge goose egg in the conference tournament that year.
Yep. One of the Yow sisters was the coach back then. I don't remember their exact ranking. It was somewhere around 10 (maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower).
Frankly, I don't remember if they went to the NCAAs or not. There was a time when the best women's teams (including UT) didn't go to the NCAA. They had another tournament for them. And when they did start going to the NCAA's for women, there weren't many teams invited.
People think ETSU has always been rinkydink in all these sports. There have been brief periods of greatness. They were really good in baseball for a few years.
Yeah I knew they had some really good years in baseball back in the early 80's late 70's, and of course I knew that football had a couple of good years, but I had no idea about the Womens basketball team.
The basketball was back in the old AIAW days or whatever it was, they played in 77, 79, 80 and 81, I would think that you're referring to the 81-66 loss the lady bucs took in Brooks. Other than the actual WIN ETSU holds over UT in women's basketball (1971 62-56 W) the games weren't really close, unless you want to count the games back in the pre-Great Depression era.
BTW has baseball ever been to the NCAA tournament/CWS? I know there were some good teams at one time, but baseball stunk up until very recently.
I checked. Unfortunately the southern conference only published tournament champs beginning 1984 (I'm guessing they had a tournament before then. I don't know).
ETSU was the regular season baseball champ in 1981 and 1982 in the Southern. Somewhere in my memory, it seems like they went to the NCAAs those years, but I don't know for sure.
I can remember the teams of Charlie Lodes going to the NCAA tournament. We had some good teams back then but of course the NCAA always gave us a very highly ranked team to play in the first round and I do not remember winning any games. I do believe some of his teams were ranked. This looking back at winning in years past shows that it IS possible to build winners at ETSU if given the proper leadership and coaches.
BucLover, we're trying to rehab you- remember?
I don't mean to talk down to you, I didn't like it when thedoctor used to try to do that to me (unsuccessfully), but one of the things people on this board found to be offensive about your posts previously was a total disrespect to any accomplishment ETSU may have had in previous years.
Like this. ETSU does have a decent women's basketball history.
Two legitimate Hall of Fame players, DeShawne Blocker and Katie Beck, have played for the Bucs.
In the past your defense of the current ETSU teams is the Southern Conference wasn't that much better than the A-Sun before.
It's funny, but people around here would be all offended if someone said "The Big East isn't that much worse than the SEC in football- look at the Sugar Bowl where WVU beat Georgia- and in Atlanta no less."
Yet they'll make excuses such as "Nobody knows the difference between the So Con and A-Sun anyway."
Maybe so, but isn't that championing the mindset that says mid-major teams don't count in the first place?
Same thing here. I'm amazed that ETSU played on NBC in the 70s.
It is time to champion something like this- and then ask ourselves why ETSU couldn't do more with such exposure to become a more relevant program.
Quote:ETSU was the regular season baseball champ in 1981 and 1982 in the Southern. Somewhere in my memory, it seems like they went to the NCAAs those years, but I don't know for sure.
According to NCAA.org ETSU made it to the Atlantic Regional in 1981 and lost to Miss. State
http://web1.ncaa.org/ncaa/event.do?champ...event=1226
Great investigative work!
Upon closer examination of that site, I found that ETSU played 4 games in the Atlantic Regional. They lost the first game to Miss State. Then they won games 2 & 3 over Clemson and Wichita State, respectively. They lost in the regional championship by one (same as the first game) to Miss State.
So if ETSU would have beaten Miss State in 1981 they would have made the CWS? is that right?
I remember going to a game just five years after that. I was one of three people in the stands.
And that is really telling. I know the Bucs had taken a hit on the diamond, but that can always be described as a cyclical thing.
For instance, as bad as the Bucs were in basketball from 1995-97, didn't you think eventually they'd get it turned around?
But following an 0-10-1 football season, there becomes a natural "blah" regarding the status of ETSU athletics- not just football but the whole athletic dept.
Now, without football entirely, one wonders if that feeling won't be permanent.
I've forgotten the circumstances, but the bucs did their usual, "let's make this great coach want to leave" routine.
They fell apart after that in baseball.
When you go back and look at the history books, you see flashes of success in ETSU programs, but never a sustained winning tradition, in anything. Now I'm not belittling the ETSU women's program, hell I was usually one of the 20 people in the stands when i went to school here, but ultimately it's a numbers game, and traditionally in WBB and baseball, there have been WAAAY too many losses and not enough wins, and really that goes for everything.
I mean I like looking at history, I remember sitting on the opposite side three rows from the top for a UT-C game, among other pretty cool ass moments, but when you look at the body of work, our athletic department has NOT gotten the job done.
BucLover, I know you were once close to the athletic program and so to say this is rather disheartening.
Because every athletic program has had a losing season here and there.
ETSU's record of success is, yes, spotty. However, I recently did some numbers and found out that ETSU has made the NCAA Tournament more than 62% of the colleges playing men's Division I basketball.
Some of the teams they are ahead of are surprising. Take 1963 National Champion Loyola. Take one-time national powers St. Bonaventure and Duquesne.
Point is, if the attitude coming from the administration is "We've never gotten the job done so get off our case and rejoice in the easy pickins that are the opponents of the Atlantic Sun Conference," then that's all you need to know.
That's a pretty interesting stat. Thanks, Pitt.
I would have guessed it would be more like 70%, but that's just because I would have thought there were more teams that have never made it.
It's hard to imagine. But there was a time when ETSU had a decent name in athletics nationally. No, they weren't a North Carolina (bball) or Tennessee (football), but we were respected as an upper level regional university, in terms of athletics.
The current administration likes to point to ASun success in tennis, etc. Past administrations could have taken pride in a top 10 cross country team, year in and year out. We had the #1 rifle team for a long time. We've usually had good golf teams. Nothing new there. And we used to have a pretty good basketball team from time to time. And, at least, we had football.
See, ETSU likes to brag on nothing accomplishments.
Take rifle. Yes. ETSU had a very good rifle team. In the mid-80s they finished second in the nation nationally.
But that's it. They were second. Anyone else note that Wilsie Bishop kept referring to the old rifle team as a former national champ?
The fact ETSU would get rid of a Top Two program speaks volumes (evidently, doctors don't participate in the shooting sports- they play golf and tennis).
But that's what ETSU is all about athletically. The radio spot where they say they have a "World Renown Athletic Program."
HUH? WHA?
THEY TAKE US FOR FOOLS!
It's a shame that the NCAA has rules left and right for Title IX and not paying the players and heaven forbid a coach take a recruit out for a hamburger or Mike Cavan give his players a lift to court, but lying is okay.