‘Redeem Team’ 1.0
BY TRAVIS MORAN
Their friendship made little sense.
The late Marvin Barnes grew up in an abusive household in the projects of South Providence. As told in Mike Carey’s brilliant biography, “Bad News: The Turbulent Life of Marvin Barnes,” Marvin attended elementary school in a white part of town, where he was called the n-word so often by his Italian classmates that he forgot his real name. As he got older, Marvin developed gangster ambitions, wanting to “live fast and die young,” and even ran a stick-up crew as a teen. Soon, he had two reps: one as a petty criminal and another as a rising star in the Providence prep basketball scene. Success in the latter led Barnes to leave the former in the rearview: “If some guy who’s only a couple years older than me can be raking in a couple million bucks just for putting his name down on a piece of paper,” Barnes would tell his accomplices, “then I can do the same thing. It’s the only way I’ll ever earn enough to get out of this hellhole.”
And whereas Marvin was looking for a way out, Ernie DiGregorio had never looked anywhere else. He visited no other colleges even though he had letters from “‘about 200 different schools.’” While Marvin was robbing busses in his letterman’s jacket, DiGregorio was cementing his place in local lore as “Ernie D.” From an Italian enclave of North Providence, the affably arrogant DiGregorio had become a legend at a young age, inspiring tales that smacked of apocrypha.
Former Frances Pomeroy Naismith Award winner Frank Alagia, who guarded Ernie D during his 41-point explosion at St. John’s in the lead-up to the 1973 tournament, had been following DiGregorio’s career for years. “Ernie was the most confident guy I think I’ve ever played against,” Alagia tells TrueHoop. “There was nobody who could really shut him down. He did what he wanted out there, and he was a phenomenal passer. If you put a little guy on him, he had a very quick shot—it was up and gone. If you put a big guy on him, he’d go around them and create. I mean, guys held him to 19 points, know what I mean?
“The Knights of Columbus used to have foul-shooting contests at their tournaments,” Alagia continues. “So, my father and I walked into the gym at Catholic U. in D.C., where the tournament was being played, and Ernie’s just lying down. He’s still got his wingtips on. When it comes time for him to shoot, he makes like 24-of-25 free throws to win the contest—just got up and shot in his wingtips. I remember because I was sitting right there.”
Barnes and DiGregorio became friends instantly.
“I was a freshman at PC when I first heard of Marvin,” DiGregorio told The Providence Journal after Marvin’s passing. “Dave Gavitt came to me and said there was a kid at Central who loved basketball the way I did. So I went to Central one day to see him and the first thing I saw [was] how skinny he was. He was probably only about 6-6 then, but he could really run and he could really jump.”
DiGregorio started bringing the high-schooler to campus to play pick-up games. The bond really solidified when Marvin invited Ernie to play in his neighborhood. Even though Marvin said he grew up “hating white people,” he wanted to prove to his friends just how good “Ernie D” really was.
“When I was at PC I used to go down to the South Providence Rec Center and everyone would be calling Ernie a punk and a faggot,” Marvin said, “I always defended him. They kept saying to me to bring Ernie down to the ghetto and they’d kick his butt. So one day I did. … He kicked all their butts, showed them all up.”
Disregarding racial tensions in Providence, the young ballers became fixtures in each others’ households, with Barnes often joining Ernie’s family for spaghetti dinners.
The hometown tandem soon joined forces at Providence College, creating a scintillating cocktail of speed, flash, and power—and they captivated college basketball fans nationwide. Though the Friars would lose in the first round of the NCAA tourney in 1972, they entered the 1972-1973 season with lofty expectations after Barnes had registered nearly 22 points and 16 rebounds per game and DiGregorio, now a senior, had averaged 18 points and eight assists. Both were attracting attention from NBA scouts—especially Ernie D, whom many envisioned as Bob Cousy 2.0.
Together, Barnes and DiGregorio led Providence to a 27-2 record heading into the 1973 Tournament—the Friars’ only losses coming in a hiccup against Santa Clara and in a 24-point blowout at UCLA during which Ernie D and Marvin reportedly both had the flu. For the season, DiGregorio had put up 25 points and 10 assists per game, with Barnes adding a robust 18 points and 19 rebounds. Providence had sprinted to the Final Four, dismantling a Maryland Terrapins team in the Elite Eight that featured future NBAers Len Elmore, Tom McMillen, and John Lucas—the NBA’s top overall pick in 1976.
The Friars immediately set their sights on the Bill Walton-led Bruins, who, headed into the Final Four with an unbeaten streak of 73 games, were aiming for their seventh-consecutive NCAA title. First, though, the run-and-gun Friars would have to get past Memphis State. Only Ernie D had publicly acknowledged that all-important step—Marvin was already focused on UCLA.
From the tip, Ernie D was money, hitting 18 of the Friars’ first 22 shots. The game’s most memorable highlight came as Ernie D threaded a mind-blowing behind-the-back pass to teammate Kevin Stacom from midcourt.
“We were running them into the ground,” DiGregorio told Carey. “Everything was going our way. And then it happened: Marvin went down.”
With the Friars leading 24-16 and 7:48 remaining in the first half, Marvin landed awkwardly after attempting to block a shot. “I didn’t think I hurt my knee,” Barnes said. “I only thought I hurt my mouth. My nose started bleeding. Then I tried to get up.”
But he couldn’t.
DiGregorio carried the Friars into halftime with a 49-40 lead, but he knew the game might be out of hand. “We can’t run without Barnes, but who knows?” Ernie D told Sports Illustrated. “Even with him, maybe we get beat.”
Barnes, initially told the injury was minor, soon learned he had dislocated his knee. “It was because of the damned high-heeled pimp shoes I wore all season,” Barnes said in “Bad News” years later. “I thought I looked so cool wearing them that I was willing to put up with a little discomfort. You know, I was styling for my women.”
Memphis State took immediate advantage of Marvin’s absence in the second half and devoured the Friars inside. Marvin begged his way back into the game, but after a couple trips down the floor, everyone, including Barnes, realized he would be more hindrance than help. Soon, DiGregorio was exhausted. His 32-point effort included a second half in which he’d miss 12-of-19 shots and log zero assists.
“The assists come when we run,” DiGregorio explained. “When we run, he [Barnes] gets the ball off the boards, gives it to me and I hit the open man.”
After falling to Indiana in the third-place game sans Marvin, the Friars’ remarkable season was over. There would be no glorious rematch against UCLA. The dynamic duo that had dazzled fans for two years was done, too. Suddenly, they were just two soldiers in desperate need of a battle.
No one in Russia wonders whether they deserved to win international basketball’s most famous game. Sure, a few may concede the dice of chaos rolled their way in Munich. A few more might shrug when describing how Alexander Belov … got himself free to catch a full-court pass and then make the biggest basket in USSR basketball history. But detractors are scarce.
That’s because the Munich victory still resonates in Russia today. “Going Vertical,” a Disneyesque narrative lionizing that USSR gold-medal squad, depicts how a confluence of Soviet strategy and Russian resolve helped David finally slay Goliath. Also known as “Three Seconds,” the film became the highest-grossing movie in Russia’s history upon its release in 2017.
In the former Soviet Union, victory in Munich was the pinnacle achievement of a decades-long agenda to reign in international sports. As early as 1951, Soviet leaders had a transparent goal of Olympic dominance over a thinly-veiled target: “‘Each new victory is a victory for the Soviet form of society and the socialist sports system; it provides irrefutable proof of the superiority of socialist culture over the decaying culture of the capitalist states.’” By 1956, in just its second Summer Games, the USSR had eclipsed the US in both gold and total medals. In 1960, that gap expanded, with the USSR earning 14 more golds and 34 more medals altogether. The US, which long had used the Summer Games as an arena to flex its own soft-power muscles, now had to contend with a Cold War adversary advancing “… the effectiveness with which the resources of an entire society can be brought to bear on record-smashing.”
President-elect John F. Kennedy took notice and penned a missive to Sports Illustrated in 1960, “The Soft American,” which calls the USSR “a powerful and implacable adversary determined to show the world that only the Communist system possesses the vigor and determination necessary to satisfy awakening aspirations for progress,” and asserts that American physical fitness will guarantee “the continued flourishing of our civilization.” After JFK’s assassination, Robert Kennedy took up the same gauntlet, echoing his brother’s assertion that it was “… in our national interest to regain our Olympic superiority; that we once again give the world visible proof of our inner strength and vitality.”
That impulse, perhaps, buoyed the US in the following two Summer Games. In 1964, the same year Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary of the Soviet Union, the US would reclaim its gold-medal advantage in Tokyo, but the USSR still had the edge in total medals. American medal supremacy would reach its widest span in 1968 with 16 more golds than the USSR, but those Mexico City games also globally confirmed Soviet whataboutisms on racial imbalance and discord in the US. Brezhnev, ever aware of the political points acquired by Olympic wins, instituted far-reaching federal sports programs with the aim of manifesting a “… spectacle of the rest of the world admiring the Soviet way.”
Munich was that spectacle.
“This game changed our lives,” claimed Vladimir Titorenko, then-editor of Russia’s Sports Express Daily. “[It was] a miracle that changed the whole world. The Americans had lost this time, at our hands. What could be more miraculous?”
However, Soviet star Sergei Belov felt all was lost with six seconds left.
Behind pugnacious defense and disciplined ball control, the USSR had held the US to just 21 first-half points. Belov, overwhelming American defenders all game, pushed the Soviet lead to 10 in the second half. Only over the final six minutes, after US players essentially took control from head coach Hank Iba, were the Americans able to claw back using their one clear advantage: speed. Their pressing defense discombobulated the steely Soviets. With six seconds remaining, the US had pulled within one.
Guard Doug Collins intercepted an errant Alexander (no relation) Belov pass, careened off teammate Tom Henderson, nearly tumbled, somehow corralled the ball, and got downhill before Zurab Sakandelidze bushwhacked him at the rim. With Collins crumpled against the stanchion and the USSR clinging to a one-point lead, Sergei Belov thought: “It was catastrophic, like a nuclear bomb explosion. […] All the training, the dreams we had, the victory we had achieved—all of the sudden, it falls to the ground.”
Somehow, Collins got up and sank what many consider the two toughest free throws in American basketball history; the US had a one-point edge and, magically, an eighth-consecutive gold medal within grasp. The US had never lost an Olympic basketball game; their running streak of 63 wins originated in nearby Berlin—at the same Summer Games where Jesse Owens had humiliated Hitler. The USSR would be heading back to Moscow with its fifth finals loss in the past six Olympics—all to its nemesis.
With three seconds left, the referee gestured for play to continue; the Soviets inbounded the ball and hustled up-court, but a whistle halted play with one second remaining to address a rigamarole at the scorer’s table. Apoplectic Soviet head coach Vladimir Kondrashin was demanding a timeout that he’d tried to call between Collins’ free throws—but the timeout buzzer had malfunctioned.
FIBA Secretary General R. William Jones, seated behind the Soviet bench, intervened. Overruling the on-court officials, Jones—rumored to harbor anti-American sentiments—awarded the USSR the timeout plus two additional seconds. On the ensuing inbounds play, the Soviets missed a full-court heave. The American contingent reveled in jubilation—but again: chaos. The clock siren had buzzed mid-play to signal a mistake with the game clock, which hadn’t been reset before play resumed. Jones gave the Soviets another do-over and once again ordered the clock set to three seconds.
Iba went ballistic, but Jones delivered an ultimatum: Put your players on the floor or forfeit the gold.
This time, the shell-shocked Americans were caught off guard as Ivan Edeshko launched a full-court hail Mary to Alexander Belov, who … escaped two American defenders, caught the pass, and sank an uncontested layup as time expired.
The US team voted to reject the silver medal, leaving a podium empty for the first time in Olympic history. After the US lost their immediate appeal, FIBA head Jones, who’d interloped, had this reaction: “The Americans have to learn how to lose, even when they think they are right.”
At home, suspicions of a conspiracy grew legs big enough for the CIA to examine the possibility, but the Russian position has never changed: The US team got exactly what it deserved. According to Sergei Belov, the US “lacked the courage” to accept defeat. “They didn’t just lose,” added Edeshko. “They felt insulted losing to the Russians—and they were sore losers.” Or, as Kondrashin would explain decades later: “American basketball was stronger than ours, but we exploited their mistake: the underestimation of our ability.”
Maybe, but that US team was also its youngest ever; its eldest statesman, team captain Kenny Davis, was just 23. The core of the Soviet squad had been teammates since 1967. Sergei Belov was already 28 in 1972; in fact, the average age of that Soviet team was over 26, and one player—Gennadi Volnov—was playing in his fourth Olympics. Throughout the Munich final, the Soviets had bullied the young collegians, dictating the pace by routinely limiting the US to single-shot possessions. They expertly exploited international rules by distributing fouls across their entire roster to hammer ball-handlers. But even our own military gazette, Stars and Stripes, asserted the Soviets had “outrebounded, outshot, and out-defensed the Americans.”
Even with its unbeaten streak, the US arguably could have been considered underdogs at the onset. For years, the USSR had exploited a loophole in amateur-only competitions by listing their players as professional soldiers or laborers. With the savvy Kondrashin as their general, they were a cohesive, decorated regiment of professionals who’d been hardened by high-stakes battles. Under “Father of Soviet and Russian basketball” Alexander Gomelsky, the USSR won seven consecutive European championships (aka, EuroBasket). New leader Kondrashin had just led them to their eighth in a row in 1971. The core of the Munich squad had won gold at the FIBA Worlds in 1967; bronze at the 1968 Summer Games; then bronze again at the Worlds in 1970. Star Sergei Belov, who “scored at will” against the US in Munich, was MVP of both EuroBasket in 1969 and the World Championships in 1970.
The US had every right to feel cheated—and team members still feel that way today. (Although, everything that had to go right for the USSR on that final play did.) Nevertheless, for the game to have been decided off the floor—and then lost on it—the aftermath for US basketball was, to borrow Sergei Belov’s wording, “like a nuclear bomb explosion.”
The 1972 Munich final was a heated conflict in a Cold War, a devastating defeat in the midst of détente. More than anything else, the USSR had tipped a domino. Basketball unipolarity was a thing of the past. The Soviets were steamrolling European basketball. By the time the Montreal Summer Games rolled around in 1976, America—where the game was invented—could lose its vanguard status. What American basketball needed was a proxy war, a new general, and some fresh recruits.
In February 1973, the American Athletic Union (AAU) announced the Soviet basketball team would be coming to the US. A series of battles would be fought across the United States by America’s elite.
But as soon as the idea became public, it almost all fell apart …
Part 2 is right here. Thank you for reading TrueHoop!