Only '70 through '79 graduates

[broccolibill]

OK. This is what we all couldn't imagine back then during the UCLA dynasty. We're playing UCLA! Now everyone post your best basketball memory from this time period, the "Ice Age".

It was I believe February of 71. Highly ranked Marquette came to Schmidt. George Krajack had just announced his resignation, not to mention the game was on national television. However, it was a 1:00 tip and on the heels of the Bill Lawler and late Patrick J Sullivan incident at a Miami game (Lawler while protesting a call during the game accidentally knocked his Stroh's stay-cold 12-pack of empties onto the floor) a "No Half Barrel Policy" was invoked. Mr Neutral was incensed. As I remember we dominated the first half only to lose in the final few minutes. Can someone can recall our exact record that year? I think 5-20?

I still can't believe this!

Always eat your cruciferous vegetables

[Mr. Neutral]

bb, this will require some media guide work tonight.

IF it was Feb. '71 and Krajack had announced his resignation, that would have been my junior year. We ended up 9-17 that year. We were 5-21 the year before. (I know these records seem shocking and impossible to the more recent grads, but they were very real to us.)

My recollection is that we were up 8 at the half, but then got blitzed pretty good by Marquette in the 2nd half. (We fans were blitzed well before game time, hence the hazy memories.)

And that Pat Nally/Ray Guy "no half-barrel policy" was truly cruel and unusual punishment.

Ah, those good old days of being able to sneak a 12-pack into Schmidt!

The next year (my senior year) was Dick Campbell's first year, and we went 12-14, which, sadly, was our best record in my 4 years at X.

[passthepuck?]

I heard back in my years 74-78 that some of the players were baked during games. Can anyone confirm this?

[yclppr]

I remember we played a great first half against Marquette and it was pretty cool seeing Al McGuire.

I also remember going 3-23 my senior year. In other words, the current team won more games in the first month this season than in 72-73.

Go X!

[wkrq59]

First, Owl is the best source for this. Second, remember after Krajack came--it's very hard to type this, my hands and fingers keep flying toward obscene words--DDDDDDiiiiccccckkkk Campbell. A so-so first year and a 3-23 second and thank God last season..Got control of hands and fingers again.
During that time I remember Xavier playing at Kansas and the Marquette games and I think UC and a couple of teams in the all-College Holiday Tournament in Oklahoma City may have been ranked.

[Mr. Neutral]

<<Second, remember after Krajack came--it's very hard to type this, my hands and fingers keep flying toward obscene words--DDDDDDiiiiccccckkkk Campbell.>>

Q, I know it's easy to take shots at Campbell because of his 2nd (and last) season at X when we went 3-23. But I will say that his first season at X, when he went 12-14, was not only the best record during my four years at X, but the only season where we looked like a team that knew how to play the game, even if our talent was a little lacking. That '71-'72 team played "smart" basketball for a change.

Krajack was a horrible coach, and Campbell's first season was a marked improvement. Things fell apart for some reason the next year, and he was gone.

[George1294]

I remember that Marquette game well. Before the start of the game, Al McQuire was being interviewed. A huge "Muck em Fuskies" banner was unveiled. The interview had to be cut short.

X was up by 13 points at one time in the first half. Marquette was led by Dean "the Dream" Meminger and Jim Chones.

It might have been Jim Chones' last game for Marquette. He signed a contracxt with the ABA two-thirds through the college season. Marquette was ranked number one in the country at the time.

The other player the X fans loved to hate was Bo Ellis. Ellis liked to run up court by the students and give them the finger during the game.

[Mr. Neutral]

On Feb. 23, 1970, our 5-20 Xavier team lost to #10 Marquette 81-73 at Schmidt.

On March 6, 1971, our 9-17 lost to #2 Marquette 76-58 at Schmidt. Oddly enough, I think THAT'S the game you're talking about. We were leading at the half, and then got waxed in the 2nd half.

On Feb. 28, 1972, our 12-14 team lost to #2 Marquette 63-55 at Schmidt.

It's amazing we played them as well as we did at Schmidt, considering how good they were and how bad we were.

[wkrq59]

Gary,
Sorry, but my dealings with Campbell were not on the best of terms so I guess my personal feelings about the situation may color things just a bit. The man pure and simple was a pr!ck. A very mean and nasty person. He did things to players and said things to players he''d have been jailed for if he it it today.
I know that second year he personally cost Xavier three games, the one at Kansas I have detailed long ago. I don't care what he did the first year he was at Xavier, and 12-14 is not my idea of significant improvement.
And I might add, the first year he got every break possible from the Cincinnati media-all of us. The second year, he was a braggart and a liar from the outset.
Just to give you an example, he called my editor and accused me of something I will not detail, but I would never have done and in the 44 years I have been married never even thought of doing. If I had not had an air tight alibi (I was in a hotel room watching TV with among others the Xavier chaplain who made every trip with the team) I would have have been in serious trouble with an accusation such as he made.
He also attacked the reporter from the Enquirer for his physical characteristics.
The worst stuff he pulled in both seasons was to attack several players publicly on the road, and then he would approach both reporters separately and feed us different stories about different players, stories which could have caused us both to have to answer questions in a court room if they were published. He had no notion until late in the 3-23 season that both reporters communicated with each other almost daily, not tipping our stories but letting our suspicions be known at which time they were confirmed.
The man lied about his coaching record in print and caused the Enquirer some serious embarrassment when he claimed to have surpassed one of the great college coaches in history, only to have us find out he was lying.
Gary, the mental state of that 3-23 team was such that no one trusted anyone. Things that he said about some of the players got back to the chaplain and during a team meeting with them--unknown to the coach--
the players complained to the chaplain and later were asked to interview with a clinical psychologist. In other words, in a time when dealing with a psychologist or a psychiatrist carried a certain stigma, the Xavier basketball team had its heads shrunk.
Gary, the worst thing you can do when you are challenged by a liar or a bully is back down, especially when he tries to cost you your livelihood and effect the well being of your wife and children.
Frankly, I don't give a damn what his record was that first year or what it indicated when compared to Krajack. He was not only a nasty person, he was a very bad coach.
By way of another comparison, his successor really didn't care about coaching Xavier. He was more interested in breaking par at Clovernook Country Club and recruited locally and nowhere else for the most part. But he wasn't mean. He wanted a job and didn't care much about anything else --like winning or putting a competitive team on the floor--that the job entailed. He was easy to understand because he knew basketball--more than his predecessor anyway--and wasn't hard to deal with. And he wasn't a liar. He was just indifferent to the whole affair.
Gary, in 40 years beneath the masthead, I have never taken a scalp for my tee pee. I have only asked one thing of any coach I dealt with and that was "Please don't lie to me. If you can't answer my question without lying, don't answer the question." I think that was a fair thing to ask.
I don't know and to this day never bothered to ask what happened to DC after he left Xavier. I had reason to deal with Tay as the exec dir of the Greater Cincinnati Golf Assn. which ran the Men's Amateur championship every year. In that arena, he was a delight and under none of the pressure coaching involved. But in all the years I dealt with him, he was never mean and never a liar.
But after dealing with many of the post Staak coaches, and seeing their results, I can truly say Xavier rose from the ashes its darkest days on the basketball court. And there's no lack of fairness involved in that statement.

[Mr. Neutral]

<<I don't care what he did the first year he was at Xavier, and 12-14 is not my idea of significant improvement.>>

Q, Campbell may have beenn the biggest a-hole of all time to grace this universe, and you're entitled to have your opinion of him based on how he treated you (and others), and it appears he did so very badly.

I'm only saying that from a basketball perspective, as a diehard fan who followed the team even more closely than I do know, because I was on campus and at every home game (and like other Schmidt gym rats, I was even asked to practice with the team a few times because they were short of bodies). I can say unequivocally that my 3 Krajack teams were undertalented but hardworking kids who clearly hadn't been taught diddly about how to play the game.

Campbell's first team still was shy on talent, but finally looked like college basketball players. We actually had plays, AND ran them! And did things for a reason, not just helter-skelter. It was a BIG difference from previous years.

I'm in no way saying that DC wasn't the world's biggest *****, and that "good riddance" shouldn't be the way he's remembered at X. I'm only saying that, from a basketball perspective, and for his first year, it was very clear that he could coach and Krajack could not.