Chron: Remember Phi Slamma Jamma vs Dr of Dunk

Chron: Remembering Phi Slamma Jamma vs Doctors of Dunk

You youngsters on the board have no idea how beautiful this game was. Sadly, my team lost.

'83 UH, Louisville classic stands the test of time


By MICHAEL MURPHY
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

At the time, it was billed as "The Game of the Century."

Sure, that hyperbolic title had already been applied to the 1968 showdown between the Elvin Hayes-led University of Houston Cougars and Lew Alcindor's UCLA juggernaut, a game played on the floor of the Astrodome before a huge television audience, long before such things became commonplace in college basketball.

But that game was for the Age of Aquarius.

When No. 1-ranked Houston squared off with No. 2 Louisville in the 1983 NCAA semifinals, it was more for the space age.

This was the Game of the Century -- only this one was for the next century.

That rim-rattling, catch-me-if-you-can dunkfest played at The Pit in Albuquerque, N.M., may have irked land-locked purists, but it was a crystal-basketball preview of how the sport would be played, which is why the game has been etched so indelibly in the minds of fans everywhere.

Two decades later, with the schools playing again Saturday night at Hofheinz Pavilion, those who took the floor that day are surprised to find themselves still talking about that landmark game.

Perhaps they assumed that memories of the contest would have dissipated, lost somewhere in the ether between the fingertips of North Carolina State's Dereck Whittenburg and the outstretched hands of Lorenzo Charles.

But it hasn't.

Because of the high-flying nature of that game (Houston threw down 13 dunks and

Louisville six), ESPN Classic keeps it in regular rotation, drawing another wide-eyed, slack-jawed group of fans with each showing.

Yet this isn't about nostalgia.

No, the reason it remains a TV staple is that after all this time, the game still looks as fresh today as it was on April 2, 1983, when Phi Slama Jama took it to the rack on The Doctors of Dunk, walking off with a 94-81 win that propelled Houston to that fateful championship game against N.C. State and redefined how college basketball would be played.

"To me, it (the Louisville game) was very much like that game in 1968 between Lew Alcindor and Elvin Hayes, the `Game of the Century,' " said Hakeem Olajuwon. "It was such an outstanding game. When you talk about basketball games, then I believe that Louisville-Houston game was on that level. It was a game you remember for a lifetime."

So the players in that game continue to time-travel back to when a kid from Nigeria named Akeem was just being discovered and the only thing bigger than Clyde Drexler's afro was the Cougars' reputation for above-the-rim play.

"I'm in federal court in McAllen in front of a judge, and he brought up that game," said former Cougar point guard Reid Gettys, now an attorney in Houston. "He said, `Man, that was one of the greatest games ever.' I didn't even know he was a basketball fan. I just went, `Uhh ... y-y-yes, your honor. That was quite a game.'

"Here I am in federal court in McAllen, and the judge and I were in open court talking about that game. The other attorney didn't like it too much, but it didn't do me any good because he (the judge) didn't rule in my favor. It sounds amazing, but very few days go by without somebody mentioning it."

It's the same story for the former Louisville players.

"The phone will ring in the middle of the night and I'll be, `Who is this calling me so late?' It's my brother (Scooter)," said Rodney McCray, then a senior forward for the Cardinals. "He'll be watching the game on TV and he'll say, `You sure did miss a lot of free throws in that game. If you had made some of those free throws we might have been able to win that game.'

"But that's the way it is. People see the game on TV, and they'll be saying, `Man, they were dunking on y'all.' But I always have to say, `Hey, we were dunking, too, now.' They'll be talking about that five- or six-minute stretch (in the second half) where it looked like they were doing all the dunking.

"My friends like to tease me about that game, but at the end they always say, `Man, that was one hell of a basketball game.' And it was."


College basketball of the '70s was defined by John Wooden's "Pyramid of Success," Al McGuire's "Seashells and Balloons" and a decade-closing showdown between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.

The '80s, however, dawned with the spectacular. The Louisville Cardinals, led by senior guard Darrell "Dr. Dunkenstein" Griffith, had dubbed themselves the Doctors of Dunk, and they rattled rims everywhere on their way to the 1980 NCAA championship.

But connoisseurs of skywalking were about to discover another magical kingdom of Jamalot -- Houston, where a collection of talent was being assembled off the city's schoolyards that would burst onto the national scene with three consecutive trips to the Final Four.

In 1983, everything came together for the Coogs and the Cardinals.

While Griffith had long ago graduated, Louisville still had the brothers McCray, a springy 6-8 center named Charles Jones and two equally high-rising guards in Milt Wagner and Lancaster Gordon. And freshman Billy Thompson may have been the most exciting dunk artist of the crew.

But Houston was equally armed. Or legged, as it were.

In Drexler and Olajuwon, coach Guy V. Lewis had found diamonds who would later blossom into two of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players. Michael Young, from Yates, could attack the rim or drop in feathery 20-foot jumpers. Benny Anders, from Bernice, La., was as spectacular as he was erratic. Larry Micheaux, from Worthing, wasn't as flashy as his compadres, but power was his game. Even freshman guard Alvin Franklin (La Marque) got in the act.

Phi Slama Jama was born.

"It almost had that Oakland Raiders mystique about it, an intimidation factor," said Gettys of the team's nickname. "There's nothing in basketball more demoralizing, or inspiring on the other hand, than a dunk. And to have the guys doing the things that we had guys doing was just awesome."

The Louisville players agreed.

"That might be the best and deepest team I've ever seen," said former Cardinals guard Jeff Hall, now a high school coach in Ashland, Ky. "Really, the only team I ever saw that could compare to them was our team that year.

"We had some tremendous athletes as well, but it was one of those things where we didn't have their depth. They (the Cougars) just kept bringing athlete after athlete into the game. It was unbelievable.

"Just look at Olajuwon," Hall added. "Just in sheer athletic ability, you have a guy who's 7-feet tall who can run the floor, and if you got a shot off in the lane, it really had to be way up in the air because he was able to get his hand on anything that was anywhere near the rim."

The teams caught a glimpse of each other the year before, both losing in the 1982 NCAA semifinals -- Houston to North Carolina and Louisville to Georgetown.

The two teams would be on a cosmic collision course from that point on, and it seemed as though everyone in the country could smell it, even the players.

"Yeah, there was that sense of anticipation among the players. At least I could feel it," Rodney McCray said. "Throughout the year, you always kept up with how the other teams were doing. And on CBS, watching games every week, you'd hear guys like Billy Packer saying, `You know what game I'd like to see? University of Houston vs. Louisville.'

"They were talking about it all year long. And as players, you always wanted to play the best. We just hoped that somewhere along the line -- actually, we knew it -- that if we both kept winning, that we were going to meet."

And, of course, both teams kept winning.

Louisville cruised through the regular season and entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 seed in the Mideast Region. Houston, which lost only two games and blew through the Southwest Conference with a 16-0 record, was the top seed in the Midwest.

While Houston blasted through Maryland (60-50), Memphis State (70-63) and Villanova (89-71), the Cardinals beat Tennessee (70-57) and then had to struggle to beat Arkansas (65-63 on a tip-in by Scooter McCray at the buzzer) before taking on Kentucky in the regional final.

It was the first time the in-state rivals had played in over 24 years, so the game became a huge event in the commonwealth of Kentucky. Louisville needed overtime, but escaped with an 80-68 victory that sent the Cardinals to the NCAA semifinals, where they would meet Houston.

"To me, I don't think our mindset was as strong as it needed to be going into that (Houston) game," said Gordon, now a recruiter and counselor for Court Appointed Special Advocates in Louisville. "The biggest reason for that was because we had just come off an overtime win over Kentucky, the most emotional game for our university in a very long time.

"It was a very, very emotional game, and all of our fans were pretty much satisfied. Looking back, I guess that we were kind of satisfied with that win, too. All our fans told us, `We don't care if you win another game this year or next year, just beat Kentucky.' You can't be thinking that way when you're preparing to play a team like Houston."

And make no mistake, the Cougars were ready for the Cardinals, not only for a chance to advance to the championship game, but to establish dunking preeminence as well.

"Of course it was a rivalry -- who can dunk the most," Olajuwon said. "We knew, because of all the games that we had played throughout the season, that we had the best dunkers. You should have seen our practices. That was our specialty.

"So to see another team saying that they were the Doctors of Dunk was even more motivation in terms of proving that there was nobody better than we were at that. It was impossible."

Perhaps the Cardinals got a hint of that while watching the Cougars in the Tournament. In the game against Memphis State, which played in the Metro Conference with Louisville, Drexler gave a sign of wings to come when he jumped over Tigers' guard Andre Turner and dunked.

"We'd look at guys on highlights because being a player, you're still a fan," Rodney McCray said. "I remember watching the NCAA Tournament and seeing Clyde jump over Andre Turner. My brother and I, who were roommates, just turned to each other and said, `Uhh ... OK. Hmmm ... ' It's like that, huh?"

It was going to be just like that.

"When we found out we were playing Louisville, we were very excited about it," said Young, now a strength and conditioning coach at UH. "But in practice and everything, nothing really changed except you maybe saw guys going at it a little harder. One thing was for sure -- we felt like we should have met them in the final game instead of the semis."

Looking back, the game could be described with one word -- "elevation."

Elevation in the way players attacked the basket and in what the game was about to do to the sport of college basketball, raising it to another level. But at the time, the only elevation that mattered referred to the thin air of Albuquerque, which was 5,314 feet above sea level, making things difficult for two running teams.

"Let me put it this way," said Gordon, laughing, "during the (timeout) huddles, it was more oxygen than information. You'd get out there and run down the court two times and you'd be right back, needing more oxygen."

So did the fans, who witnessed a breathtaking second-half exhibition by the Coogs.

Houston appeared to be in trouble, trailing 57-49 with 13:15 to play and Micheaux out with fouls. After a timeout, the Cougars went ballistic, using slams by Drexler, Young and Anders to fuel a 21-1 run over the next 5:48 that left Louisville reeling, trailing 70-58.

"They just ran and ran and ran, and we couldn't get back on defense," said Rodney McCray. "We've never given up that many dunks in succession. If you look at the film, up to a certain point it was Louisville dunk, Houston dunk, Louisville dunk, Houston dunk.

"But then it was Houston dunk, Houston dunk, Houston dunk, Houston dunk. They just took over and there was nothing you could do."

With Olajuwon scoring 21 points and grabbing 22 rebounds, the Cougars walked off the floor with their 26th straight victory, confident that they had not only asserted their dunking supremacy, but had wrapped up the national title as well with their stunning display.

"After everyone saw what we did against Louisville, they had to think that whoever won that game was truly the champion," Olajuwon said. "That was really the championship game."

North Carolina State? Merely a bump in the road to glory.

"Yes, absolutely," Gettys said. "I think not only we felt that way before the game and during the game, but we felt that way after the game, too, which explains what happened Monday night."

Which is another story altogether. The same history books that recorded Houston's 94-81 victory over the Cardinals also documented their 54-52 loss to the underdog Wolfpack.

"I thought Houston would beat them by 40," said Packer, who called the games for CBS. "That's what makes the college game so great. You feel you know something about the game and it bites you in the rear."



While the Houston players were crushed by the loss to North Carolina State, the Cardinals may have been equally devastated. They had already beaten the Wolfpack that season (67-62 at Louisville) and felt that had they managed to beat Houston, they would have won another national title.

"I think our best team was that team that lost to Houston," said Wagner, now the coordinator of basketball operations at the University of Memphis. "Out of all my Final Four teams, I thought that was our best team."

"We had so many all-around players, guys who knew how to play. In '86 we won the championship, but I still think our best team was in '83, with Rodney McCray and those guys. We had guys who knew how to play."

That's why the memories of April 2, 1983 can be difficult for some. There are times when they would rather not be reminded.

"I have never watched a replay of that game," Jones said, laughing. "I guess I just never wanted to go through that. We had an opportunity to win it all, and that was probably the best chance that I had in my career to win an NCAA championship.

"Every so often I'll see someone and they'll say, `Oh, I watched that Houston-Louisville game on ESPN Classic.' I don't know. I just never wanted to watch. I've been offered the tape a few times, but declined it every time.

"Besides, it seems as though everyone I meet remembers that game, so it's not like I'll never be able to forget it."

 

How many of you remember watching Darrell Griffith in college? The guy was incredible. Too bad he ended up going to the Jazz.