The WAC…
At that time, the Western Athletic Conference was an excellent basketball conference. Think about it- Wyoming, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico, UTEP, and Colorado State. In those days, the only way to get an NCAA bid for the postseason was to win your conference outright. There was no conference tournament, so a lot of very good WAC teams never made the tournament. And the WAC teams were always placed in the western region of the NCAA tournament- makes sense, right? Well, UCLA was always in the west region, as well, and we all know what they were doing. There was only one team to beat them in the NCAA tournament from the time I entered East High School, until I was done with college, and that team was UTEP, which was coached by Don Haskins and memorialized in the movie “Glory Road”. Haskins was still the coach when I was at Wyoming. I didn’t think of him or his team’s accomplishment at that time, because we were still in the middle of it.
We came through the non-conference schedule at 9-3, but the WAC was a different ballgame. If the NCAA tournament was the same then that it is today, four or five of the teams in the conference would have gotten bids. BYU ended up winning it, then losing in the west regionals to Long Beach State, coached by Jerry Tarkanian. UCLA had a young sophomore center named Bill Walton and they won the west regional and the whole tournament once again, going 30-0. UTEP finished second in the WAC and got an NIT bid, which was one of sixteen available bids. All the games were played in Madison Square Garden then, and UTEP got bumped in the first round by Niagara, who had a player averaging more than 30 points a game named Calvin Murphy. Utah had a great season and finished tied for second with UTEP, but went nowhere. Arizona State also had a very good team with a guy named Paul Stoval, who was a monster. He ended up playing for the Phoenix Suns. It was just a great conference, but was destroyed a few years later when Arizona and Arizona State bolted to the Pac-10.
As mentioned, I had some decent moments in the non-conference schedule, but by the time it came around to WAC play, Coach Strannigan was not too happy with me. I played sparingly the rest of the way, but had some interesting moments along the way. We opened the conference against UTEP, who had an incredible front line- Dick Gibbs, a future NBA player with the Washington Bullets, a team that would get all the way to the finals before losing to the San Francisco Warriors, as they were called back then; Scott English, another future NBA player with the Phoenix Suns; and James “Buster” Forbes, who would play on the 1972 USA Olympic team in Munich, Germany. The game was notable for me, because Forbes would elbow me in the mouth, chipping my two front teeth, which has caused problems to this very day. The only revenge I would ever get would be thanks to the Olympics. The USA would lose the gold medal game for the first time in history to the Soviet Union, and in the very, very controversial ending, Sergei Belov would catch a full court pass, knock "Buster" Forbes down, and score the winning layup. I didn’t want us to lose, of course, but if it had to happen, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. Whenever the replay has been shown throughout the years, which it has been often, I absent mindedly rub my front teeth. We lost at home to UTEP to open the conference, and any home loss in that conference was death. We beat New Mexico a couple of days later. Then we took the Arizona trip and lost both. There are two things I remember about the ASU game, and scoring is not one of them. I was going in for a layup at the end of the first half and got knocked to the floor- no call. I was knocked clear out of bounds and immediately jumped up and realized that no foul had been called. I let out some choice basketball-friendly profanities right in the face of a Sun Devil cheerleader, who just happened to be the daughter of my jayvee coach at East High. Embarrassing to say the least. I also remember being at the free throw lane as we were shooting a free throw. Paul Stoval, the aforementioned beast that ASU had starting getting grief from one of his teammates for not passing the ball. Stoval reached across the Wyoming player on the other side of the lane and slapped his teammate in the face. The ASU coach, Ned Wulk, took the teammate out, not Stoval. Later in the season, when we played them up in Laramie, I was part of a double team on Stoval in front of the ASU bench, and he turned to the coach and said “Hey, Ned!” I had never heard a player call his coach by their first name before. He was not someone you wanted to mess with, for sure.
Another big moment came in the return match with UTEP. Like most WAC schools at the time, the student section was in close proximity to the visitor’s bench. So if you tuned in to what they were saying, it could get pretty ugly. Earlier in the season, we had a full scale brawl in Laramie between their players and a bunch of Wyoming football players who were giving it to them the whole game. It was my experience that it could get downright personal and your absolute best course of action was to not turn around and get involved in any way. Tune them out. Anyway, at UTEP, I get in the game and almost immediately, there is a jump ball. Back in those days, they jumped them up at whatever free throw line was closest to the tie-up. No “Wooden” possession rule back then. So the ball was tipped to me and I started dribbling upcourt right in front of our bench. A quick UTEP guard made an attempt from the front at stealing the dribble, but I quickly dribbled between my legs and took one more dribble before passing the ball. Well, part of the reason I was always in Coach Strannigan’s doghouse was because he absolutely hated those kind of behind the back, between the legs, Maravich type hot dog dribbles, which I loved. I could see as I ran down court that he was grabbing a sub for me. The game was on regional TV and being shown back in Phoenix, so those watching saw how Coach Strannigan met me at half court when he subbed me out and started lecturing me once again on the evils of those hot dog moves. I went down to end of the bench and started pouting, as most players do when they get yelled at. A few moments later I heard Coach Strannigan’s voice saying “Ballard, get down here!.” So I jumped up out of my funk and ran down to Coach. He looked up at me and said “what the hell do you want?” I then knew I had been had by a student behind the bench who could imitate Strannigan’s voice. Then, to make matters worse, I looked up into the stands, and the students went wild. They were on me mercilessly the rest of the game. I chuckle now, but back on that day, it was brutal.
We ended the WAC season 3-11, which was awful. The only good thing that came out of it for me, was the epiphany that I had during the Colorado State game in Laramie. I played, got yanked, then was looking up from the bench toward the ceiling of War Memorial Fieldhouse- possibly looking to the heavens for guidance. I had been in pre-law since my freshman year, but saw a ray of light coming down from the ceiling and thought, there has to be a better way to do this (meaning coaching). Then and there, I decided that was going to be my life’s calling.
Next…Changes…
At that time, the Western Athletic Conference was an excellent basketball conference. Think about it- Wyoming, Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, BYU, New Mexico, UTEP, and Colorado State. In those days, the only way to get an NCAA bid for the postseason was to win your conference outright. There was no conference tournament, so a lot of very good WAC teams never made the tournament. And the WAC teams were always placed in the western region of the NCAA tournament- makes sense, right? Well, UCLA was always in the west region, as well, and we all know what they were doing. There was only one team to beat them in the NCAA tournament from the time I entered East High School, until I was done with college, and that team was UTEP, which was coached by Don Haskins and memorialized in the movie “Glory Road”. Haskins was still the coach when I was at Wyoming. I didn’t think of him or his team’s accomplishment at that time, because we were still in the middle of it.
We came through the non-conference schedule at 9-3, but the WAC was a different ballgame. If the NCAA tournament was the same then that it is today, four or five of the teams in the conference would have gotten bids. BYU ended up winning it, then losing in the west regionals to Long Beach State, coached by Jerry Tarkanian. UCLA had a young sophomore center named Bill Walton and they won the west regional and the whole tournament once again, going 30-0. UTEP finished second in the WAC and got an NIT bid, which was one of sixteen available bids. All the games were played in Madison Square Garden then, and UTEP got bumped in the first round by Niagara, who had a player averaging more than 30 points a game named Calvin Murphy. Utah had a great season and finished tied for second with UTEP, but went nowhere. Arizona State also had a very good team with a guy named Paul Stoval, who was a monster. He ended up playing for the Phoenix Suns. It was just a great conference, but was destroyed a few years later when Arizona and Arizona State bolted to the Pac-10.
As mentioned, I had some decent moments in the non-conference schedule, but by the time it came around to WAC play, Coach Strannigan was not too happy with me. I played sparingly the rest of the way, but had some interesting moments along the way. We opened the conference against UTEP, who had an incredible front line- Dick Gibbs, a future NBA player with the Washington Bullets, a team that would get all the way to the finals before losing to the San Francisco Warriors, as they were called back then; Scott English, another future NBA player with the Phoenix Suns; and James “Buster” Forbes, who would play on the 1972 USA Olympic team in Munich, Germany. The game was notable for me, because Forbes would elbow me in the mouth, chipping my two front teeth, which has caused problems to this very day. The only revenge I would ever get would be thanks to the Olympics. The USA would lose the gold medal game for the first time in history to the Soviet Union, and in the very, very controversial ending, Sergei Belov would catch a full court pass, knock "Buster" Forbes down, and score the winning layup. I didn’t want us to lose, of course, but if it had to happen, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. Whenever the replay has been shown throughout the years, which it has been often, I absent mindedly rub my front teeth. We lost at home to UTEP to open the conference, and any home loss in that conference was death. We beat New Mexico a couple of days later. Then we took the Arizona trip and lost both. There are two things I remember about the ASU game, and scoring is not one of them. I was going in for a layup at the end of the first half and got knocked to the floor- no call. I was knocked clear out of bounds and immediately jumped up and realized that no foul had been called. I let out some choice basketball-friendly profanities right in the face of a Sun Devil cheerleader, who just happened to be the daughter of my jayvee coach at East High. Embarrassing to say the least. I also remember being at the free throw lane as we were shooting a free throw. Paul Stoval, the aforementioned beast that ASU had starting getting grief from one of his teammates for not passing the ball. Stoval reached across the Wyoming player on the other side of the lane and slapped his teammate in the face. The ASU coach, Ned Wulk, took the teammate out, not Stoval. Later in the season, when we played them up in Laramie, I was part of a double team on Stoval in front of the ASU bench, and he turned to the coach and said “Hey, Ned!” I had never heard a player call his coach by their first name before. He was not someone you wanted to mess with, for sure.
Another big moment came in the return match with UTEP. Like most WAC schools at the time, the student section was in close proximity to the visitor’s bench. So if you tuned in to what they were saying, it could get pretty ugly. Earlier in the season, we had a full scale brawl in Laramie between their players and a bunch of Wyoming football players who were giving it to them the whole game. It was my experience that it could get downright personal and your absolute best course of action was to not turn around and get involved in any way. Tune them out. Anyway, at UTEP, I get in the game and almost immediately, there is a jump ball. Back in those days, they jumped them up at whatever free throw line was closest to the tie-up. No “Wooden” possession rule back then. So the ball was tipped to me and I started dribbling upcourt right in front of our bench. A quick UTEP guard made an attempt from the front at stealing the dribble, but I quickly dribbled between my legs and took one more dribble before passing the ball. Well, part of the reason I was always in Coach Strannigan’s doghouse was because he absolutely hated those kind of behind the back, between the legs, Maravich type hot dog dribbles, which I loved. I could see as I ran down court that he was grabbing a sub for me. The game was on regional TV and being shown back in Phoenix, so those watching saw how Coach Strannigan met me at half court when he subbed me out and started lecturing me once again on the evils of those hot dog moves. I went down to end of the bench and started pouting, as most players do when they get yelled at. A few moments later I heard Coach Strannigan’s voice saying “Ballard, get down here!.” So I jumped up out of my funk and ran down to Coach. He looked up at me and said “what the hell do you want?” I then knew I had been had by a student behind the bench who could imitate Strannigan’s voice. Then, to make matters worse, I looked up into the stands, and the students went wild. They were on me mercilessly the rest of the game. I chuckle now, but back on that day, it was brutal.
We ended the WAC season 3-11, which was awful. The only good thing that came out of it for me, was the epiphany that I had during the Colorado State game in Laramie. I played, got yanked, then was looking up from the bench toward the ceiling of War Memorial Fieldhouse- possibly looking to the heavens for guidance. I had been in pre-law since my freshman year, but saw a ray of light coming down from the ceiling and thought, there has to be a better way to do this (meaning coaching). Then and there, I decided that was going to be my life’s calling.
Next…Changes…
