(01-22-2019 01:30 AM)Wiessman Wrote: The thing about Drexler and Olajuwon is that for as good as they were for UH in '83, they were nowhere near the players they would become in the NBA (especially Olajuwon, who hadn't even been playing basketball for that long at that point). Even with Drexler out with four fouls and Olajuwon struggling with the altitude, UH still had Young (who was really their main man), Anders, Micheaux, et al., and that should have been enough for them to hold off NC State. As noted in previous posts, UH went against their nature in a big way, and that let NC State back into the game one more time.
NC State was not chopped liver, but that is still the biggest upset in title game history. Those were truly massive coaching blunders by Lewis.
NC State was definitely not chopped liver. I don't have the data handy, but Ted Nance once showed me the recruiting rankings when those players were freshmen, and the NC State recruiting classes were more highly regarded than the UH group. That's largely because nobody knew who Olajuwon was, and IIRC Drexler and Young were also not as well known or highly regarded as perhaps they should have been. Guy's strengths were finding diamonds in the rough and developing them. He had pretty much done the same thing in the 60s with Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney. Guy was never a great game coach--he was constantly making moves that left all of us along stat row looking at each other and wondering what he was doing--but he was a great judge of raw talent and a great developer of that talent in practices. His practices were notoriously physical. His practice routine was once described as, "Lock the gym, don't call any fouls, and the last five guys standing will start on Saturday." Whatever else he did or did not, he built a program that was a heck of a lot of fun to be around.
He also was a pioneer in at least two significant areas--he recruited African-Americans when very few in the South did, and his idea to play (and beat) the Alcindor/Jabbar UCLA team in the Astrodome in the first nationally televised NCAA basketball game brought about the TV bonanza that is NCAA basketball today. I always felt that he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame as a pioneer on those two accomplishments alone, and was extremely happy that he was inducted before he passed away.
Two quick memories:
One, Rice played UH at Hofheinz on a Saturday night that coincided with my Navy Reserve weekend. One of my E-6's had made chief, so we had the CPO initiation ceremony after the Saturday drill. By 6 o'clock, I needed very much to go somewhere and sober up a bit before driving home, so I figured I was OK to make the short drive to Hofheinz and recover there. As I walked into the arena, Ted Nance grabbed me and said, "I'm so glad you're here. Our scoreboard operator can't make it. Can you fill in?" I told him I was really in no shape to do it, and he pretty quickly agreed. About 30 minutes later, he came back over and asked how I was feeling. I said a little better. He said, "Good. Look, I don't have anybody else. I've talked to Guy and Schuler, and they are both okay with you doing it, even in your current condition. Can you do it?" I had never run the scoreboard at Hofheinz before but with some help from the crew I made it. So for those of you who have ever wondered if the scoreboard operator was drunk, I can assure you that on at least one occasion he was. To make it worse, Mel Whitworth was the referee, and typical for Mel, there was a controversy with about 30 seconds left in the game. At least by then I was in good enough shape to handle it.
At the press conference after his final game, in the old SWC post-season basketball tournament, he was asked if he was going to retire to a farm or ranch. He replied, "When I left Arp, Texas, in 1940, I promised myself that I had milked my last cow. So no, I won't be retiring to a farm or ranch."
RE: MBB at UNT 
