…and they would lament the wasted years of Gamecock fandom from the 1950s on. This was like 30+ years ago. You would hear stories from some old timer who would talk about their daddy dying and never seeing the Gamecock glory days. I would sort of laugh and think, “That won’t be me. We’ll win something in my lifetime!” Well now I’m the **** ing old timer and I’m only just 51 yo! WTF??? This cycle of gamecock misery is appalling. Truly sickening.
I remember when the old guys would talk…
- Thread starter Evilchicken
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I'm about the same age and thankful I got to experience the early 2000's in baseball and football. Glad to experience the 96-97 basketball days. I feel that is the best I will ever see and thankful I experienced them when I was younger.
I was in elementary school during our latter ACC days. The hoops excitement from that era has never been duplicated, and that includes the 96-97 years. Even if we had stayed in the ACC, the league has morphed into something barely recognizable and it's definitely not the 8-member conference we left.
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Yet the final four was better than anything and that was just in 17
Closest that’s been to the latter ACC days, but still nowhere close. Take that final four run and put it into entire seasons and you’re getting warmer.
I respecfully suggest that BriceisBest would do well to go to the library and pull out microfiche to look up articles from The State during the 2016-17 men's basketball season, and the 1967-1971 period, i.e., our last four years in the ACC, and compare.
Martin's limited success began and ended with Sindarius Thornwell.
I was at the Columbia Mall Christmas shopping probably 20-25 years back now and ran into one of the WIS sports guys at the time, can't remember his name, tall skinny guy. I told him that if they had the tapes of the games back then they could make a mint selling copies and he said that they do not; the tapes were reused and recorded over pretty much immediately as a cost cutting measure. Man; McGuire, Buck Freeman, Roche, Owens, Cremins, Ribock, Carver, Billy Walsh, Aydlett, Joyce, Riker, Winters, Ed Peterson, Bob Fulton and Joe Petty on the mics. Magical time.
For someone who was about the same age, I agree with this 100%. The Gamecocks were a NATIONAL power and to see a magazine where the Gamecocks were #1 in the country and UCLA (of the Wooden era) was #2 was phenomenal ... nothing has come close for our beloved Men's Basketball program ...
Had we stayed in the ACC, McGuire would have won more recruiting battles with ACC schools, we would have likely had sustained success, Donnie Walsh probably would have succeded McGuire as head coach, and we would have likely been a blue blood or very close to it.
And while I still believe it was a mistake to leave the ACC, things are much better for us in the SEC. By a lot.
I was around for Basketball in the 70s and for the run in 17. While the program was in much better shape in the 70s and there was more excitement around the program, 17 was the only time that we were truly close in Football or MBB. I truly feel if Sin hadn't been ill going into that Final 4 that we may have won it. Heck, we were in a one score game late in the second half with Gonzaga as it was. Yes, we were ranked #1 in the nation at times in the 70's and won an ACC Title, but those teams would always get bounced in the first game of the NCAA Tournament which was the Sweet 16 back then.
All energies were focused on winning the ACC such that there was nothing left in the tank for dancing.
One liners don’t negate things my friend.
You may have been ‘around’ but you weren’t ‘there’ and it shows. 17 was a Cinderella semi fluke; those McGuire teams were badass.
Seriously; it was almost anticlimatic by that time. Also slow-down, no dunking, no three point line, and the general nastiness of the league.
What many either forget or deny is the general nastiness around the league. It wasn't solely focused on USC.
What will be lost in your comment is "the general nastiness of the league" ... the brawl vs. Marquette, the battles with Lefty, the overall battles (literally) were legendary ... and then, you also had basketball fundamentals and purity ... the outside shots of Roche and Joyce ... the strong defense and will to win were a thing of beauty ... if Roche had not turned his ankle in that ACC semi-final, oh, what truly might have been ....
Neither was slow-down, to say the least; not following your point. Roche’s standard jumper was behind what’s the three point line today (‘Roche from the top of the key’) and with dunks allowed Owens and Ribock (even Joyce) would have gorilla-yoked those things to the floor.
Marquette brawl was post-ACC.
But yes, had Roche not turned his ankle in the 1970 semi-finals vs Wake Forest.....
Had McGuire kept the rather ineffective Roche out of the championship game vs NC State and we won, what would his recovery have looked like? And if Roche had been kept out and we still lost - oh the howling from the fanbase! Comparable, IMO to those who want Mainieri's head on a platter right now.
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Dude. How are you going to tell me where I was. I will be 59 in April. So, I was a kid back then. So, the wins and the losses stick with you more. We were #1 in the country "In the Regular Season", but those teams only won when it really counted one time. The '71 ACC Tournament. In fact, the best team. The one that went undefeated in the Regular Season in the ACC lost the ACC Final and we had to sit and look at other teams play in Columbia for the Regional because we got snubbed from even going to the tournament. You sound offended that I am putting the '17 Run up there with those 70's teams. Sorry about that, but the facts are the facts. People tend to discount the '17 Run because it was surprising and we had absolutely no success to follow it up. However, that was the only team where you could truly see the finish line. The 70's teams unfortunately couldn't ever get to the UCLA's, Kentucky's, Marquette's or Notre Dame's to really think we had a chance. Don't get me wrong. Those teams during that 70's era were our best Men's Basketball Teams. However, like all of our programs for the most part, they didn't get it done when it counted either.
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I can tell you where you were from reading your words podner; you didn’t live it. I’m 72; I saw it. I lived it. I went to the camps. I was in high school when Roche and Owens started at Carolina; you were 2 years old. You’re hanging your hat on advancement in the post season; it was a different animal back then. The CLEMSON people were Carolina fans.
Btw, we didn’t get ‘snubbed’ in that eastern regional; you had to win the ACC tournament to go to post season in those days, regardless of what your season record was.
I actually saw it. It may have been on TV, but I saw it. Now the how they lost in 70 and 71 was not clear when I was 3 or 4, but I know they lost. By 72, I was totally locked in and we were losing to teams like Penn in the tournament. We were badass in the ACC. That's it. How can you even believe that we were a real national contender and we never got close to playing UCLA. If you know anything about basketball and its history, you were not close if you never played UCLA in the early 70's. I remember us playing Notre Dame and Marquette who were other contenders of that time and we usually lost. WIS-10 was appointment watching for Gamecock basketball in our family. So, you can't fool me no matter how authoritative you try to sound. You know the truth, however, your mind won't let you accept it. If you are 72, you were a teenager then. If you went to camps, you got to see guys like Joyce and Roche up close. So, you feel about them how I feel about Dr. J. However I am not delusional. No matter how I feel about Dr. J, I know he is no Jordan. In that 5 Year Run, where is our playoff win? We got clapped every time and by 74-75, I remember my Dad constantly making jokes about it.
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I think it was big mistake to leave the ACC when we did. Also, it's been pretty tough sledding for us in the SEC as far as football and basketball. For the first decade in the SEC was brutal, as neither the school or Sparky was ready for the big time.
I'm roughly halfway in age between you and adcoop. We undoubtedly would have gone to the NIT in 1970 (back when it was still prestegious) if we were not hosting the NCAA East regional finals.
The Irony is that NC State was the ACC rep playing in Columbia that season. The next year, we were the ACC rep playing in the East Regional finals in Raleigh.
2017 was joyful, albeit a fluke. But the late '60s - early '70s was the only era of sustained success in men's basketball USC has enjoyed. And that, of course, is what you are focusing on.
Until the mid-1970s only a league champion or an independent could dance. I also think that unlike the highly competitive ACC, UCLA ran roughshod over the PAC-8 (the Arizona schools did not join that conference until the late 1970s).
I got caught up in the ACC secession hysteria myself. The first whiff of "maybe secession wasn't such a good idea after all" for me came when the 1971-1972 schedule was released and Clemron was the only ACC school on it. I was a naive 11-year old who never conceived that all of our ACC rivals not named Clemron would completely drop us from the schedules.
For many years, we really could not recruit well being in ACC country and no longer in the league. We also lost that "edge" on the court when we became independent. Now with the watered-down coast-to-coast ACC which no longer has the same impact it once did and us firmly in the SEC, that's no longer an issue. Working NIL well has taken its place.
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Yeah, not going to debate something that’s imaginary; if you were there that’s all it takes.
I was at that Columbia regional; nc state, Villanova, st bonaventure, and Niagara. Bob Lanier and Calvin Murphy. They also had some kind of high school all-star type game; bill walton was in it. He sat in the stands next to us between games bare footed; his feet remain the biggest I have ever seen. No way to describe.
I was at that Columbia regional; nc state, Villanova, st bonaventure, and Niagara. Bob Lanier and Calvin Murphy. They also had some kind of high school all-star type game; bill walton was in it. He sat in the stands next to us between games bare footed; his feet remain the biggest I have ever seen. No way to describe.
You and I are roughly the same age; probably were at Carolina the same time. Looking back, the McGuire years with Roche and Owens, were the most exciting time, as a fan. Even the Spurrier era can't compete for excitement. I say that as a football fan, first. Maybe I feel that way because I was so young at the time. Not sure. But a Gamecock fan I worked for early in my career, 25+ years my senior, told me that Carolina fans were shocked that we were able to hire a coach of Frank McGuire's stature back in the day. Do you feel that the Roche/Owens era were the most exciting time of Carolina athletics?
For men's basketball for certain it was the most exciting time. The Coliseum promised to McGuire, and Dietzel overseeing the creation of what became Sarge Frye Field, and the expansion of the footbal stadium, and winning the ACC in football in 1969 - definitely an exciting time.
I think athletics overall, it rivals our national championships in baseball, and the rise of football under Spurrier.
Sounds like a fun topic to discuss and see others' opinions.
72-76 for me. The things that, for me, made the Roche era so special was the charisma and skill of Roche, the notoriety of the team in general and Roche especially (cussing Dean Smith on the road while dribbling past the UNC bench; that was just badass), the telecast of the vast majority of the home games which was highly unusual then, the atmosphere and rivalry/vitriol of the league (nothing even close now), and of course the success. When I was still working I’d run into business associates from all over that still remembered that team 20 plus years later. Of course if you were in it while it was happening you don’t need to be told any of this, but to argue against it is like saying that Led Zeppelin or Michael Jackson ran circles around the Beatles; that’s not the point. The point is impact in their respective eras, and to me, the only thing that’s come close to that feeling was the 2017 run which only lasted a week or so and while fun was a one and done and everyone knew it, and the baseball titles which were, well, baseball. The Spurrier football teams don’t even get a sniff at that level of notoriety.
I'm sure we walked nearby each other at some point at the Russell House, Horseshoe, library, etc. back in the day. I finished in 76.