From Al McGuire’s temper to a donnybrook involving ‘The Black Swan,’ Marquette has seen memorable top-5 clashes
The fourth-ranked Marquette men’s basketball team will play one of the most-anticipated games of the college season against No. 1 Connecticut on Saturday in Hartford, Connecticut.
MU (19-5, 10-3 Big East) has won eight straight games, while the Huskies (23-2, 13-1) are on a 13-game winning streak after beating DePaul on Wednesday.
The Golden Eagles aren’t strangers to games in which both teams are ranked in the top five of the Associated Press poll. MU already has played two such games this season, when the fourth-ranked Golden Eagles beat No. 1 Kansas in the semifinals of the loaded Maui Invitational in November and then fell to No. 2 Purdue in the championship game.
Before that, MU had played five other top-five clashes, with all of them coming in the Al McGuire-coached heyday of the 1970s.
Here is a look back at those games:
Marquette can’t stop undefeated Indiana in 1976
It was a battle fit for a championship game, not a regional final.
Second-ranked MU faced No. 1 Indiana on March 20, 1976, and they were clearly the best two teams in the country. The then-Warriors had just one defeat and were on a 23-game winning streak. The Hoosiers hadn’t lost all season.
But the teams ended up in the same regional. Conspiracy theorists could claim that the NCAA was punishing McGuire for his outspokenness, like when he eschewed the NCAAs for the NIT in 1970, but the tournament wasn't fully seeded until 1979.
McGuire was definitely feeling the stress in this one, especially since star guard Lloyd Walton had hurt his left leg in MU’s previous game. Walton played 40 minutes against Indiana, but shot just 1 for 9 and finished with two points.
McGuire’s temper flared up in a lot of these top-five clashes. He was assessed two technical fouls in this 65-56 loss to Indiana. The second came with 44 seconds left and MU trailing, 57-54.
The coach was despondent after the loss.
“If Marquette gets in another tournament when I’m still around, I think I’ll let my assistants handle it,” McGuire said. “I won’t come to another tournament. I prefer to stay away from the games because I think I’ve created a monster that’s eating me.”
McGuire, of course, won the NCAA title the next season after announcing that it would be his last hurrah as coach.
The Hoosiers beat Michigan to win the title in 1976 and were the last team to finish a season undefeated.
More: The Dream, bumblebees and Garden glory: An oral history of Marquette's 1970 NIT championship run
Another chapter in the Marquette-Notre Dame rivalry
MU was looking for revenge on Jan. 29, 1974.
The fifth-ranked Warriors headed to South Bend, Indiana, to play the No. 3 Fighting Irish for bragging rights about which was the best team in the Midwest.
The previous season, an unranked Notre Dame team ended MU’s 81-game home winning streak.
But the Warriors suffered a disjointed performance because of foul trouble and fell to the Irish, 69-63.
One of the bright spots for MU was freshman Bo Ellis, who put up 21 points before fouling out.
Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps was impressed with MU, and correctly predicted the Warriors would make a run in the 1974 NCAA Tournament, which ended in another top-five clash.
“Al really has his team under control,” Phelps said. “They’re going to be very tough in the NCAAs.”
More: Al McGuire said no to Notre Dame, recommended Digger Phelps
Al McGuire’s temper costs MU in national title game
McGuire had his first chance to win a national championship on March 25, 1974, when the third-ranked Warriors faced top-ranked North Carolina State in the national championship game in Greensboro, North Carolina.
MU hung with the Wolfpack for most of the first half, taking a 28-27 lead on a layup by Marcus Washington.
But McGuire protested a foul on Washington and was hit with a technical. A few minutes later, he got slapped with another technical, and North Carolina State headed into the locker room with a 39-30 advantage.
From there, the Wolfpack cruised to a 76-64 victory behind All-American David Thompson’s 21 points. Tom Burleson added 14 points and 11 rebounds, and the 7-foot-4 center dissuaded shots around the basket. MU shot just 36.2%.
“The technicals cost us the game,” McGuire told the media after the game. “I would say I gave them two five-point plays.
“I’d rather not try to explain the calls, because I was absolutely right on them. I wouldn’t say so if I wasn’t. But, look, if North Carolina State hadn’t gotten us that way, they would have gotten us some other way. They deserve to be No. 1. They’re a great basketball team. They are better than Marquette.”
‘Tark the Shark’ vs. Al McGuire
In the pre-Selection Sunday days of 1973, MU received an NCAA Tournament bid before the regular season ended. So before the No. 5 Warriors took on fourth-ranked Long Beach State on March 3 in California, McGuire took his team to Disneyland and on a tour of the Queen Mary.
Wait … Long Beach State was a top-five team? Well, it is not surprising when you find out that the coach of the 49ers at that time was Jerry Tarkanian.
Tarkanian wasn’t yet known as “Tark the Shark;” that would come after leaving for Nevada-Las Vegas the next season and building the Rebels into a national power. Tarkanian had Long Beach State rolling thanks to an army of junior-college transfers, and his recruiting tactics already were drawing the attention of NCAA investigators. The school would land on probation after Tarkanian left for the desert.
Tarkanian never lost a home game in his five seasons at Long Beach State, and the 76-66 victory over MU was the 65th straight win.
Foul trouble plagued the Warriors’ George Frazier, Larry McNeill and Maurice Lucas. McGuire was assessed two technical fouls for arguing with the officials.
“Those things happen,” McGuire told Milwaukee Sentinel reporter Dale Hofmann. “There was one official out there who was watching me more than he was the game.”
‘The Black Swan’ in a donnybrook with South Carolina
One of the more memorable days in local basketball history came on Jan. 9, 1972. At the MECCA in Milwaukee, the Bucks put an end to the Los Angeles Lakers’ still-standing record of 33 straight victories.
About 900 miles to the south in Columbia, South Carolina, No. 2 MU pulled out a hard-fought, 72-71 victory over No. 4 South Carolina when Gamecocks star Kevin Joyce missed a jumper in the waning seconds.
The pregame hype centered on the coaching matchup. South Carolina’s Frank McGuire wasn’t related to Al, but he coached the younger McGuire at St. John’s along with Al’s brother Dick. When South Carolina left the Atlantic Coast Conference, Frank needed to fill out his schedule so he called on Al.
The game, however, will be remembered for the donnybrook that broke out just after halftime. South Carolina’s rugged Tom Riker got tangled up with MU’s Bob “The Black Swan” Lackey. Each player blamed the other for delivering cheap shots. Regardless of who started it, the two squared off. That set off a melee, with MU’s Marcus Washington getting punched by fans and teammate Jim Chones tussling with South Carolina’s Danny Traylor.
Order was restored with the help of police. Al McGuire, who had seen a lot of brawls on the basketball court and in his family’s bar at Rockaway Beach in New York, never left the MU bench.
“That wouldn’t even have bothered a bouncer in a barroom,” he said after the game. “He wouldn’t even have taken his coat off for that one.”
After the game, Lackey had a bandage around his eye while Riker was nursing a sprained hand. Both McGuires said the fight didn’t have an effect on the game.
“We didn’t lose to the No. 2 team,” Frank McGuire said. “We lost to No. 1. They’re the best in my book.”
More: 50 years ago, the Milwaukee Bucks were NBA champions: An oral history of the 1970-71 season
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Marquette had memorable top-5 basketball games under coach Al McGuire
