How did UH manage to not win one title in the Phi Slama Jama era? I was too young to remember, but my dad keeps telling me Guy Lewis kept getting outcoached in the big games (especially the NC State one...he claims they slowed the ball down). Any older fans wanna chime in?
I'm not sure either. I know they blew hard horse balls against NC State. A game they NEVER NEVER NEVER should have lost.
UH was a run and gun type team and NCState couldn't keep up. So in the 2nd half, they slowed the game down to a crawl (there was no shotclock, if I remember right). On offense, they would just hold the ball for several minutes before shooting. Then on defense, they would just foul UH because UH couldn't shoot free throws. That was the only way they could keep the game close. UH never got into their offense and didn't know how to defend the slow down strategy of NC State on defense. Add a miracle (lucky) shot at the end and you have a recipe for disaster. And if Drexler wouldn't have left a year early, they would have easily beaten Patrick Ewing's Hoyas the next year.
They played Louisville in the semi-finals. Louisville was consider the second best team in the nation. After beating Louisville, they had a let down against NC State. If the last shot had not been an air ball, the game would most likely have gone into overtime. The air ball turned into a game winning tip in. Lucky play for NC State. NC State played a great game and UH did not. NC State deserved to win.
Why did PSJ lose? So that the Rockets would be the first team to win a national title in all of Houston sports.
Drexler was in foul trouble against NC State. Didn't he have 4 in the first half? Dream was in foul trouble against Georgetown also.
The fact that Guy Lewis isn't in the Hall is a travesty. Every player he had, to the best of my knowledge, has had nothing but the highest praise for him. In the game mentioned, it is too easy to overlook that UH was the number one seed in the country. That was an incredible coaching job by Coach Lewis. The stars were just aligned for NC State. The Cougars had already defeated the second best team in the tourney, a team that some considered the best team that year, in arguably the greatest college game ever played. I remember watching the game, and my father knew Guy Lewis, who was a terrific person, as well as one of the greatest college coaches never to win the championship. Here's a good read from someone who was there: Most Devastating Loss In Houston Sports History?? 4:37 PM Tue, Apr 01, 2008 by Matt Musil A case can be made for the Oilers loss to the Steelers in the '79 NFL playoffs .... or even the Astros collapse to the Phillies in the 1980 NLCS .... but clearly in my opinion ... never has the city of Houston sports scene suffered a more devestating loss than when the University of Houston fell to North Carolina State in the championship game of the NCAA basketball tournament in 1983. In the Oilers case and even the Astros case .... those teams were not favored to win. Neither were the 1986 Rockets when they lost their NBA Championship series to Boston ....or the 1986 Astros when they lost their ultra-dramatic series with the Mets in the NLCS. But in the NCAA basketball tournament played in 1983 .... Houston was the #1 seed. The Cougars were ranked #1 in the country. They played Louisville in the semi-finals that year in what many still believe was the best college basketball game ever played. You think this 2008 Memphis team is high-flying and athletic?? Both Louisville and Houston of '83 were better. On that Saturday evening .... 25 years ago this weekend .... UH showed the nation what high-flying PHI SLAMA JAMA basketball was all about. The only problem ..... was on the following Monday night versus underdog North Carolina State UH did not play a "high-flying" game. N.C. State knew the Cougars achilles heel was their free throw shooting .... and once the Cougars got a big lead in the 2nd half .... the Wolfpack turned the game into a "hack attack". Time after time the Cougars went to the line ....and time after time ...the free throw shots were ...."just off the mark". To add to the maddening mental state of things for UH .... head coach Guy Lewis decided to slow the game down in the second half. He had used this strategy earlier in the NCAA tournament affectively ....but on this night ....it didn't seem to serve the team well. It would have ....had the Cougars made their free throws .... but they didn't ...and when the game came down to the closing seconds ... N.C. State was only down by one. Lewis had substituted Bennie Anders for Reid Gettys for defensive purposes ...N.C. State got the ball into forecourt ..and after a pass into the corner ... the ball came back out on top. Immediately Anders went for the steal ...and got his fingertips on it. He was probably thinking of stealing it and ending the game with a thunderous dunk .... like so many that thrilled the fans .... the game before versus Louisville. But on this night ....guard Derrick Wittenberg re-gained control of the ball .... and fired up a long shot with the seconds ticking down. From my vantage point along the side of the court ... I could tell from the arc of the ball that it was going to be short. For a split second I was thinking ....wow ..they survived the scare ... but then like out of nowhere ...... Lorenzo Charles lept up and grabbed the ball from right beside the rim ...and slammed it through the hoop just as the buzzer went off. Akeem Olajuwon ....as he was known then ....looked dumbfounded. He had crept up the lane to make sure no easy shots would come there ....but he strayed away from Charles who had camped out underneath ... and immediately realized the shot was short .....and adjusted to it just in time to get to it and score the game winner. Michael Young of U.H. tried to call time out ....but suddenly realized time had run out. It was a crushing defeat. The late Jim Valvano was running around the court ... looking for someone to hug .... but all the Cougars were looking for ... was a place to throw up!! This was their game. It was their championship. They could taste it .... but they fell short. UH Players and fans were crying on one side of The Pit in Albuquerque ... while N.C. State fans and players were celebrating wildly. For the Wolfpack ...it was the most improbable win ever .... but for the Cougars it was the most embarrasing and humbling. My job that night was to get one of the Cougars live for the newscast that followed the game on CBS and Channel-11. Well ....let me tell you that wasn't easy. By the time they let us in the lockeroom the players all had their clothes off ... they were basically avoiding the media by hanging out in the showers for ever ....and I had a deadline to get someone on the air. Finally I was able to talk reserve guard, David Rose, into coming on with me live. He was just getting out of the shower ... I literally picked up his runner-up gifts and some of his other stuff ..and helped him get ready. We then had to run out through the hysteria out on th court ... then to the top of the Arena ...and go outside ...where there was snow on the ground. We did the live shot in the back up a pick-up camper. That's right ... this guy with a sattelite dish ...hooked up to his camper was our feed point ...and from there ...I crouched inside the camper ....sweating from running all over ...alongside David Rose and did my live report. I started out with some general questions ... but then I had to ask the tough questions about the style of play that night and the poor free throw shooting that may have cost the Cougars the game ... along with the defensive lapse at the end. It was not fun. Here .. I had talked Rose into being on the air ...and then I wound up grilling him. To his credit ... he never blinked ... he answered every question and we signed off from our satellite operator's camper. Many years later I ran into David Rose ... we talked about that night ... and I again thanked him for it. He chuckled about it ...but underneath maybe he was still steaming about it. Rose is now the very successful head coach at Brigham Young University and believe me ...Rose is driven everyday by his experiences that he went through both good and bad with PHI SLAMA JAMA. I know this .... the guys on that team Akeem Olajuwon ... now Hakeem Olajuwon ... along with Clyde Drexler, Michael Young, Reid Gettys and the others ... still cringe when the subject is brought up. And honestly ... I don't know if that pain will ever leave. The Cougars made it back to the championship game in 1984 ... where they lost to Georgetown .... but they weren't favored that time ... and it didn't sting nearly as badly. Since then ... ... the Cougars have never come close to an NCAA title. That loss 25 years ago this weekend .... in my opinion ...is still the most devastating loss in Houston sports history. http://www.beloblog.com/sports/2008/04/most-devastating-loss-in-houst.html And from Wikipedia: After serving in World War II, Lewis played basketball for the University of Houston until his graduation in 1947. He became an assistant coach there in 1953, and head coach in 1956. As a coach, he was known for championing the once-outlawed dunk, which he characterized as a "high percentage shot", and for clutching a brightly-colored red and white polka dot towel on the bench during games. Lewis was a major force in the racial integration of college athletics in the South during the 1960s, being one of the first major college coaches in the region to actively recruit African-American athletes. His recruitment of Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney in 1964 ushered in an era of tremendous success in Cougar basketball. The dominant play of Hayes led the Cougars to two Final Fours and sent shock waves through Southern colleges that realized that they would have to begin recruiting black players if they wanted to compete with integrated teams. Guy Lewis led the University of Houston Cougars division I basketball program to 27 straight winning seasons and 14 seasons with 20 or more wins, including 14 trips to the NCAA Tournament. His Houston teams advanced to the Final Four on five occasions (1967, 1968, 1982-84) and twice advanced to the NCAA Championship Game (1983, 1984). Among the outstanding players who Lewis coached are Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Otis Birdsong, Dwight Jones, Don Chaney and "Sweet" Lou Dunbar. Despite his exemplary record of achievement, Lewis has yet to be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Lewis If anyone deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, it is Guy V. Lewis.
Ahem... Houston Oilers, AFL champs 1960-61 and 1961-62. Also, didn't the Houston Texans win a couple of titles in the old USFL? As as Houstonian who used to watch Elvin Hayes and Ken Spain at the old Delmar Fieldhouse and later Dwight Davis, Mars Evans, Donnell Hayes and Poo Welch at Hofheinz Pavilion, I can definitely say that Lewis saw it as a player's game!
Not old enough to remember, but every once in a while I look at older clips of Olajuwon driving down the court and I see him looking at the basketball while dribbiling. It leads me to believe he might have been a bit raw technically, despite his unique athleticism for a big man. I can also see the Lewis was outcoached argument, firstly he was old by '83; secondly his success and prominence might have been due having better talent, built by recruiting relationships he built when SWC schools were still ignoring basketball and, I dunno, black athletes?
He was WAY more than a little raw. Remember, he had much more of a soccer background growing up. That meant impressive footwork and potential, but very little true basketball experience. And yeah, foul trouble and free throws doomed UH vs. NC State. Ask Memphis about not being able to hit clutch free throws in a title game.
Houston Gamblers, no rings. The Houston Outlaws played (and lost) in the only RFL championship back in '98 or something.
NC State's strategy was helped by the fact that there was no double bonus. All non-shooting fouls were one and one. They changed the rule a few years after this game.
Well, if you want to get all deep and stuff, PSJ probably lost so the world would come to know Jimmy V. It hurt at the time of the loss... I couldn't believe it and was still on a high after the incredible Louisville game. I kept thinking they would pull it out... and that almost steal by Anders was a bit of glee followed by huge disappointment. I remember being upset with Clyde for leaving. I thought if he had played better and they had won, it would have been cool... but he disappeared for huge stretches of that game. I thought he owed it to everyone to come back and make amends. That said, in retrospect there was probably (and continues to be) more good for more people that resulted from NC State winning so it's hard for me to be too bitter even though I cringe when that dunk is replayed. It's one of those things that, cliche or not, transcends sports and with time comes to be much more important than the immediate event. Factor in the way the Rockets won their two and it becomes more poignant.
I remember as a kid I cried after this loss. PSJ was my team. I wanted Hakeem to be a Rocket. I loved Drexler and Anders. And Guy V was like grandpa off the Munsters. I don't know why I chose "Dr of Dunk" as my name... it's almost like a slap in the face of Phi Slamma Jamma. And like others have said... it all fell apart when PSJ stopped being run and gun and slowed the game down to "control the game".
Maybe Olajuwon learned by watching Clyde do it Guy V going into the Hall would have been a classy bit of recognition. A nice bit of commemoration going UH's way after all the shortcomings, get SOME kind of victory out of it. To bad HOF inductions in all the sports decide to get strict on some selections just because, and sympathetic on others (Drazen Petrovic arguably to help the global appeal of the game).
