‘Redeem Team’ 1.0
This is the second and final part of the story. Read part one here.
BY TRAVIS MORAN
You’re reading Part Two. Read Part One here.
Almost immediately, the NCAA put the kibosh on the plans for the cross-country, six-game series, souring Marquette head coach Al McGuire, whom the AAU had invited to lead the college all-star squad. Hoping on one hand to reassemble as much of the Munich team as possible and on the other to add UCLA phenom Bill Walton, the AAU hit another wall when the NCAA then declared the series “unsanctioned,” putting the remaining eligibility of any players who participated in jeopardy.
The feud between the two organizations was long-running. Kennedy had taken a more hands-off approach to the rising tensions. During the Lyndon Johnson administration, then-senator Hubert Humphrey, also Washington’s loudest voice about the threats of Soviet sports dominance, beseeched LBJ “… to prevent an all-out war that threatens to break out between amateur sports groups.” President Richard Nixon, reacting to the USSR’s dominant 50-to-33 gold-medal advantage in Munich and perhaps recognizing the range of our sports as a soft-power weapon, intended to improve amateur sports across America to maintain our global profile. But shortly after being reelected to a second term, Nixon’s attention was captured by US withdrawal from Vietnam and the swirling Watergate scandal.
A first Congressional attempt at settlement nosedived, but the AAU persevered with its plans, unofficially tabbing NBA head coach Bob Cousy of the Kansas City-Omaha Kings to lead the amateur all-stars on the same day that Providence defeated Maryland in the Elite Eight. Days later, after UCLA won its seventh straight, reports surfaced that Walton had “drafted a letter” to Nixon asking the president to intercede so that he and others with remaining eligibility could play the Soviets.
Suddenly, the same Congressional subcommittee reconvened and presented a petition, signed by 58 senators, exhorting the NCAA to allow its athletes the freedom of facing the Soviet team “without reprisal or penalty.” Walter Byers, first head of the NCAA, appeared before the subcommittee and claimed the AAU simply had refused to complete the proper paperwork. The AAU responded by promising to file by the close of business, then sent its formal request via express air.
The very next day, Cousy announced his roster targets included All-Americans Collins and DiGregorio in the backcourt, and he was optimistic that Walton—the NCAA’s unicorn—would play as well.
“When Cousy became the coach, I got a call from my lawyer, who said, ‘They want you to play in this six-game series—are you interested?’” DiGregorio said on Games People Play. “I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Well, if you play well, it’ll really help your stock.’
“I said, ‘Sign me up.’”
Marvin Barnes had watched the Munich final alone, fuming as the chaos unfolded. He had been one of the 67 players to try out for Team USA but got cut. “If Iba had kept me on the team, if I had been on the court for that last inbounds pass, there was no way it would’ve worked,” Barnes says in Carey’s book. “I was stronger, faster, and could jump higher than all them Commies. Guaranteed, [Alexander] Belov never would have gotten a hand on the ball. I looked at replay after replay, and all I kept saying to myself was, ‘What a crying shame.’”
Iba’s omission of Marvin confused 1972 team members, too. Doug Collins told Carey, “For some unknown reason, I guess they didn’t believe Marvin fit their needs.” Forward Ed Ratleff went even further, saying: “We had the wrong damn coach. [Iba’s] first mistake was cutting Marvin. His second came in the finals when he wouldn’t let us use our fastbreak to run the Russians out of the gym. Not one guy on our team agreed with Iba’s game plan.”
Cousy’s eventual roster was low on Munich veterans but high on run-and-gunners. The top two picks of April’s NBA draft, Collins and Jim Brewer, were out. Collins had injured his ankle; Brewer was mired in contract disputes. However, guard Tom Henderson and big man Bobby Jones were in. They’d be joined by DiGregorio, the third pick of the draft. Hard-nosed players like Ron Behagen, Pat McFarland, and Swen Nater were brought in to combat Soviet tanks like Belov and Ivan Dvorni. To fortify Cousy’s blitz-and-break attack, the US enlisted gritty guards Greg Lee, Jim Oxley, and George Karl. Then, of course, there was Walton.
For Fred Saunders, then a junior swingman from University of Southwestern Louisiana, the series provided a chance to prove his mettle. “When they called, there wasn’t nothing to do but to play for the country,” Saunders tells TrueHoop. “It was an opportunity to play some serious basketball. My personal goal was to be prepared to go pro by the time I was a junior, and I reached that goal with that opportunity. But once we got there, we—the players—didn’t really know how big a deal it was. At that time, we really didn’t realize the [Soviet] players were pros in the European leagues. So, from what I gathered, to make sure we didn’t lose again, [team officials] wanted players who had pro potential or who were going to be pros. I guess the United States was trying to save face.”
Run-and-gun would be paramount to the Americans’ success against what Cousy termed the “mechanical and deliberate” Soviet game. When practices got underway, though, DiGregorio apparently needed some fine-tuning on running the break, prompting the Cousy 1.0 to give a demonstration.
“Cousy was my first inception of the pros, his approach,” says Saunders, “but he had to earn his stripes, believe it or not, from the guys. With that level of ballplayers, you gotta come with some clout—you gotta have some power to deal with those egos. Cousy wanted it up-tempo, which is why they got me to run the wing: My job was to blitz, block, and get down the floor. Cousy got Ernie D for the run, but it wasn’t working that well with Ernie. He was trying to run, but he didn’t know how; so Cousy had to show him. He took off his sweats, at 45, got out there on the floor … and went to work. He went baseline to baseline with the ball, then he put his sweats back on, and told Ernie: ’That’s how you run the point.’ That’s how Cousy got his respect from the point guards. To get the chemistry right, he had to get out there and show us how to run. But you had to know how to play with Ernie.”
Only one guy truly did. Though tabbed to be Walton’s backup, Marvin was facing legal troubles back in Providence for allegedly assaulting former teammate Larry Ketvirtis with a tire iron the previous October. Marvin had pleaded guilty to stay out of jail and on the floor at Providence, but the threat of a civil suit still lingered. The AAU had pulled Marvin just before practices began.
In one early press conference, Munich vet Tom Henderson struck a sharper tone. “To me, it’s like revenge, you know? I want to win this badly—all of them. I think we can beat them badly. I think we get the chance now to show it.”
Cousy, though, deflected the notion his team was out for vengeance. “I think all of us have our own personal motives. […] The fact that, you know, they were the first team in Olympic competition to beat the United States obviously adds significance to it. We’re not going, at least, I’m not planning on using [revenge] to motivate the team. I really don’t think any of these kids are going to need that kind of stimulus.”
The Soviets were coming with some new faces, too. They’d be without Sergei Belov, who was nursing an injured ankle. In his stead was 23-year-old sharpshooter Aleksandr Salnikov, who would feature for the USSR in the next two Summer Games. In total, the USSR had swapped out five older members of the 1972 team, but would still be led by 21-year-old phenom Alexander Belov, their hero of Munich.
A big concern for Cousy was the international rulebook, which the USSR had negotiated for every game in the series. “It’ll be another disadvantage that we’ll have to kind of overcome,” he told reporters at the time. “But really, I think all of us function better in the face of whatever adversities present themselves. And I think all the things that are present here, the fact that we’re playing against the Russians; that we’re representing the States; that we are playing against the team that beat us for the first time in international competition; that we have to get together as quickly as we can in a week’s time; that we have to overcome this business of not being familiar with the rules—I think all these things really may make us work a little harder, concentrate a little bit more.”
Saunders says Cousy’s approach helped the team adopt a professional mindset. To hammer home the gravity of their charge, Cousy had the team rewatch the Munich final.
“It was business,” Saunders explains. “It wasn’t playful. It was business because we didn’t like how we’d lost. When we looked at that tape, we were determined to be prepared.”
But when they got bombarded by the pregame spectacle before Game 1 at the Forum, it was hard not to be taken aback.
“That first game in LA, when they went through all the pageantry and the whole nine yards—because it was still the Cold War still—that’s when we found out how big it really was,” Saunders remembers. “Ernie D looked at me and said, ‘This is big.’”
Though Walton had committed to only the first two games—both in his native California—Cousy hoped he’d have him for more.
“He’s critical to the success of the team and making the coaches look good,” Cousy said. “So, we’d like to have him for the six games. […] I don’t want to be put in a position where—not only in Bill’s case, but any of these kids that we’ve asked—that we’re talking them into participating. We want them to be here for all the obvious reasons.”
The Soviets surely knew who Walton was, but feigned ignorance. Coach Vladimir Kondrashin asked reporters, “Is he black or white?”
The Soviets would find out in Game 1. Though Walton managed just 16 minutes of playing time before leaving due to injury, he blocked the first shot he faced and dominated the early going. The Americans led by 13 at the half. Ernie D wowed the crowd with trademark behind-the-back passes and finished with 14 points, Pat McFarland chipped in 14 more, and the Americans celebrated an 83-65 win.
“The first game we played in LA,” said DiGregorio, “I would throw passes to Walton, and he would catch them like a Nerf ball on a Nerf basket and just drop it in. And then the Russians started going underneath his knees, and he didn’t last one game. After that first game, he resigned because they were gonna kill him. It was a really rough and brutal series.”
Everything looked to be clicking, but what about Walton? Without him, the US would have to lean on fellow Bruin Swen Nater to protect the paint. Tempers flared in Game 2 in San Diego, a chippy back-and-forth affair. Ron Behagen got ejected early, Cousy got teed up in the first half, and the US clung to a 41-40 lead at halftime. Down seven with just under eight minutes to play, Cousy switched to a three-guard lineup featuring George Karl, Jim Oxley, and Tom Henderson. The US pulled within two at the minute mark. Yet, with 30 seconds left, Ernie D missed a 25-footer, then Oxley missed a game-tying jumper at the buzzer.
The USSR had evened the series.
Nater drew the ire of Kondrashin, who called him “a very dirty player.” Cousy defended Nater, though, saying his team doesn’t understand “how to be as physical as international rules will allow.”
Tom Henderson fired back, too, saying plainly: “I consider them a dirty basketball team, but that’s their style of play.”
Perhaps stung by the loss, Cousy told reporters: “If we lose the next four games, they can second-guess me like they did Hank Iba.”
Some players, though, decided steering Nater in the right direction was the only major adjustment needed. “You know these all-stars—I guess you can consider me one of them—weren’t jelling like we should,” says Saunders. “After Walton, Swen [Nater] took over, and he started in San Diego. So, we were complaining, dogging Swen and cracking him. We said, ‘We need you to control the middle.’”
Alexander Belov got injured in San Diego, giving American big men one less banger to battle in Game 3. But prior to that injury, an on-court rivalry had begun to bubble between Belov and Saunders.
“I had a little mix-up with Alexander,” Saunders recalls. “It was a rebound situation, and we were in the lane. The ball caromed off real high coming towards the free-throw line. Alexander was standing next to me ready to block me out, and he hit me in the neck with a karate chop—right in the throat. Before he could remove his hand, I hit him in the head with a hanger punch. You know what a hanger punch is? It’s a karate move.
“I knocked him head over heels, then just turned and ran down the court. The only thing I could think was, ‘international incident.’ I got down to their end and had my hands on my knees. One of Alexander’s teammates came to me, speaking Russian. He was mad. All I could do was throw my hands up. Someone—I ain’t gonna tell you who—said, ‘Talk about his momma, Fred!’ All I did was shrug my shoulders. I said to myself, ‘We got five more games to go!’”
In Game 3, Swen Nater was the difference, according to Saunders. “Swen was a 6-foot-11, 250-pound, chiseled Atlas. In Albuquerque, he had maybe three points and five rebounds, but he started picking, and he started banging, and he opened that middle up! You say they called him ‘dirty’ after San Diego, but he did what we told him to do. He went to work.”
Though the US would win in New Mexico by a sound 16 points, Aleksandr Salnikov emerged as a new Soviet weapon, dropping 31 points. Still, the Americans ran the break with great success, at one point scoring 14 unanswered to build a 27-point lead. Inside, Behagen and Jones scored at will, and Ernie D added 16.
But the real story after Albuquerque was the arrival of reinforcements.
When Marvin Barnes met the team in Indianapolis, he had an announcement.
“We were on the bus getting ready to go to the arena,” recounts Saunders, chuckling. “Marvin didn’t even practice. He just stepped onto the bus, stopped at the top step, and said: ’Ernie, I already helped you make half a million—I’m here to help you make the other half!’”
Without Walton, the Americans were short on bangers, and Barnes, in particular, was exactly the player they needed. “When Marvin came in, Ernie’s stock went up because he knew how to play with him,” says Saunders. “Marvin made a difference. Ernie D would get in trouble in the air, and Marvin knew exactly where to move and dunk—and that’s the way it went.”
“They told me at the Olympic tryouts that I played too rough,” said Barnes, upon hearing he’d be joining the US tour. “But now they want me because I do play rough.”
Indeed, the effect was instantaneous. Ernie D put up 16 points in the first half of Game 4, and the US went up 22 points halfway through the second. Though Belov logged 17 points in the eight-point USSR loss, he was held to just five in the second half. Luckily, down the stretch, Saunders also found a way to settle his beef with Belov.
“Somehow, we ended up in a one-on-one situation, me coming at him with the ball from the left side. I went at Belov and leaped up in the air as high as I could, and so did he. I had the ball in my right hand—like the Statue of Liberty—and, as we were both up in the air, the ball was in front of him, and he was going at the ball. I had the ball in my hand, still gripped, and I pulled it down like, ‘Now you see it, now you don’t,’” Saunders recalls. “Now, when I did that, all that was left in the air was my head—and Alexander, he swung. I moved the ball and had to duck, but he clipped me in the head and shoulder, fouling me. I went to the line, and I winked at him to let him know, ‘Hey, that was your opportunity right there,’ and he understood that we were even.”
Later in the game, though, Marvin would poke the bear again, unleashing Belov’s full gamut of skills.
“Marvin backed [Belov] down and dunked on him. Now, before Indianapolis, we weren’t dunking on each other. Marvin opened up a can of worms,” explains Saunders. “Alexander went to dunking on us. Man, he could jump out of the gym! I understand why they couldn’t stop him [in Munich] because this dude belonged in the NBA. He was 6-foot-7 and weighed 240, cut. He’d dunk from the perforated circle, off two feet. This dude could fly. To me, he was Dave DeBusschere—just a higher jumper.”
The series was marred by an incredible number of fouls and foul-outs. In Indy alone, there were 88 total fouls, 44 for each side—six Soviets and four Americans would be disqualified. Ever since San Diego, fouling had reached such an extent that even Cousy said: “Fouling is very important. Kondrashin sits over there and pushes buttons with all his players. He uses all 12 and his ideal situation is to have all 12 with four fouls at the end of the game. Fouling is the best thing they do.”
The US had a 3-1 lead with two games left. At basketball’s Mecca, though, the Soviets would push the Americans to the brink.
When Marvin walked into the locker room at Madison Square Garden on May 7, 1973, all his teammates not from Providence got the “Bad News” they’d heard so much about.
“[New York] was where we found out how unique Marvin Barnes was,” Saunders said, laughing. “You know his reputation for being late—well, he was late coming into the locker room at Madison Square Garden. He came in with a fish sandwich, french fries, and a milkshake, and ate his pregame meal in the locker room. I’d be throwing up in the next 15 minutes if I did that stuff! Marvin just went out and did some jumping jacks and stretches and played a hell of a game—and that’s where Ernie made his other half-a-million dollars: at Madison Square Garden.”
Nonetheless, the USSR side—perhaps irritated by the anti-Soviet protest groups hounding them across the city—came out swinging. Eight players fouled out, but according to Saunders the US had also come ready for close combat: “I heard people were saying that I knew how to play [the Soviets] because I was a banger. That was their style of play. Your concentration level had to be at its utmost. The adjustments we had to make against those guys … I mean, I was bumping the whole time, playing a pro game the whole time. It was rugged, very competitive.”
The Ernie-D-and-“Bad News” show was rolling, but the game oscillated through the second half, the Americans found themselves down four with less than a minute to play. That’s when Ernie D showed the world exactly what he could do.
After nailing a long jumper from the right side to trim the Soviet advantage to two, DiGregorio converted a Jim Oxley steal into another bucket to tie the game. In total, just 13 seconds had passed. According to The New York Times: “One youngster in the crowd of 15,734 was so excited by the United States’ comeback, he ran out on the court waving an American flag.”
Once play resumed in overtime, the Providence pair blitzed the Soviets. DiGregorio hit two quick shots for the lead, and Marvin delivered the “Bad News,” racking up eight of his 21 total points. With time running out, Ernie D paid tribute to Coach Cousy as he dribbled down the clock. He ended his dance in the lane, dumping a pass to Marvin, who stuffed it wearing Walton’s vacated No. 15. The two ran down court to thunderous applause and unified shouts of “We’re No. 1!”
Cousy was quick to acknowledge his point guard—who finished with 25 points and 11 assists—perhaps quipping as he told the press: “DiGregorio was the ideal man to have in that situation. He has the nerve and is not afraid to shoot.”
Even Kondrashin, the USSR bench general, couldn’t help but praise the petite Providence point guard: “If we had him, we wouldn’t lose any games.”
The Madison Square Garden game guaranteed a series win for the US—important since the Americans would drop the series finale in Baltimore. Perhaps wanting everyone to earn their stripes, Cousy started the second unit. By the time the starters got in, the USSR was up eight. The game got out of hand, too, with another 81 fouls. Nater got booted in the first half. Bobby Jones and Jim Oxley fouled out; though Ernie D would finish with 21 points, he joined them with two minutes left.
The Americans never got closer than seven.
“The Russians, they were methodical,” says Saunders. “That’s the reason Cousy was there, so we could run—we wanted to get an edge early. You couldn’t get behind the Russians. They didn’t make no mistakes.”
Though the series was over, the Soviets had one more stop in Lexington, Kentucky. Behind Salnikov, they routed the ringer-laden AAU champion—Marathon Oil—by 22 points.
After the series, Cousy reflected on the state of international basketball. “In the past our players were so much better,” he told The New York Times, “the difference in the rules didn’t matter. But with other countries getting better, the rules become more of a factor.” Presciently, Cousy added that only our best would be able to compete with the Soviets and the rest of the globe down the road.
Saunders has seen that vision unfold.
“At that time, the political sizing of everything—we were aware of the situation of the Cold War. It isn’t major power versus major power anymore,” says Saunders. “The game is spread everywhere.”
Nevertheless, Saunders, “Bad News” Barnes, Ernie D, and the rest of this cohort salved the scars of Munich and redeemed US basketball—if not abroad, at least in the hearts of Americans. They also delivered a much-needed hanger punch to the USSR’s proliferating swagger. Saunders knows, now 50 years later, that he and his fellow avengers drew a line in the sand.
“I think it was pretty important from the standpoint of us saving things,” Saunders says. “If we hadn’t beaten them that second year, they would’ve made a big whoop-de-do … because it was our game.”
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