Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 24, 1993 TAG: 9309240065
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Vignettes from a week in New York in the spring of 1973:
. . . On March 18, Virginia Tech's basketball team nibbles a bite out of the Big Apple, beating New Mexico at Madison Square Garden in the first round of the National Invitation Tournament 65-63. Guard Bobby Stevens has the winning points; forward Allan Bristow has 26 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists . . .
"I remember going up to New York and being in awe. We were just sort of country bumpkins coming from Virginia Tech," Bristow said 20 years later. "We ate a lot at Mamma Leone's. You didn't know you were going to be there a whole week."
The days passed, and the Hokies heard they were too short, too white and too Virginian to win the NIT.
"I don't think it'd be wrong to say the more we won, we were actually kind of surprised," said John Payne, a reserve player. "I think we expected to go up there and play a game and come back home."
Today, when those players, their coaches and support staff reunite in Blacksburg for the first time since that season, laughter likely will roar when that prediction is recalled. With four victories by a total of five points - the last win on Stevens' buzzer-beating shot in overtime against Notre Dame - the Hokies captured the only national championship the school ever has won.
It remains an electrifying moment for players such as Bristow, who as coach of the NBA's Charlotte Hornets watched Alonzo Mourning's last-second shot eliminate Boston from the playoffs last spring - the expansion Hornets' first-ever playoff series victory.
"Twenty years from now, I don't think I'm going to be talking to a reporter about the Alonzo Mourning shot," Bristow said.
The team will be dined, honored and otherwise glorified during festivities this weekend. Included is an autograph/photograph session open to the general public from 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Saturday in the Cassell Coliseum lobby.
They might be asked about the night of March 22, when . . .
. . . Craig Lieder and Stevens each make two free throws near the end - Stevens' coming with 45 seconds left - as Tech beats Fairfield 77-76 to advance to the semifinals. Lieder has 24 points and eight rebounds, Bristow 12 and 12, and Charlie Thomas 15 and seven. There was a little more to the '73 Hokies than was apparent . . .
"The feeling I have is how loose the ballclub was," said then-radio play-by-play man Jerry Joynes.
Perhaps that came from the players' friendships. More than a half-dozen vividly recall the team's camaraderie and off-the-court togetherness.
"We kept our cool a lot, and that was kind of weird," Thomas said. "As the year went by, you'd think, `God, we're a cool team.' "
Added Stevens: "I don't think anybody really got tight until maybe a week later when it was all over and we'd realized what we'd really done."
Thomas admitted sometimes baiting coach Don DeVoe - say, by nonchalantly walking in late for a team meeting - just for effect. DeVoe was praised by some former players as a good coach but a tough guy to play for.
"He worked us pretty hard," Jim Allen said. "But the results speak for themselves."
Reserve Jay Skulborstad said the team had an edge sharpened by an occasional shoving match in practice. Lieder and Bristow, he remembers, were among the most feisty.
"You don't want to say `friendly fights,' " Skulborstad said. "But people did not like being on the losing side."
. . . Tech avoids losing on March 24 when Stevens makes two free throws with 14 seconds left as Tech beats Alabama, 74-73, with Bristow getting 29 points and eight rebounds . . .
But, surely, the Hokies would lose in the NIT final March 25 against John Shumate and Notre Dame. They trailed 70-58 with seven minutes left. New York had let them fool around for a while, and was spitting them out.
But Tech rallied and . . .
. . . Lieder's long jumper puts the game into overtime, tied at 79. With 43 seconds left in overtime, Stevens converts a 3-point play to make the score 91-90, Notre Dame. With 18 seconds left, Notre Dame's Gary Brokaw misses a free throw. Tech rebounds. With 12 seconds left, the Hokies look for Lieder, but he's covered. Stevens shoots and misses . . .
"Me and Allan and Bobby were running after the wild rebound," sixth man Calvin Wade said. "We knew that Bobby had the longest range. We might've pulled back maybe about a split second . . . "
Before Stevens gets his own rebound and . . .
"I reacted," Stevens said. "I don't know how Willie Townsend missed blocking the shot. I don't think I could've taken another second to get that shot off."
"Bobby shot it again," said Thomas, who had fouled out. "I said, `That's good.' We just went berserk. I just knew it. I just felt it. I was yelling it was good before it went in."
"My first thought," said Bristow, "was was the shot good, was the referee going to count it good or not? All of a sudden, it was all over."
Not all the celebrants were in Madison Square Garden. Waiting for a connecting flight in the Atlanta airport, Skulborstad, who hadn't made the Tech traveling squad, got the good news from a ticket agent.
Back in Blacksburg, redshirted Steve McCloskey headed for Woodrum Airport in Roanoke, where a welcoming throng of more than 5,000 had gathered by the time Tech's plane cut through dangerously low clouds and touched down.
"It was beyond rain," McCloskey said. "It was sleet going into snow.
"The whole team was just amazed they would come out in that kind of weather."
Bristow remembers the fence lining the concourse sagging with the weight of fans leaning forward, reaching out to their heros.
"It was an unbelieveable sight and feeling that night we came back to Roanoke," Bristow said. "It was like a dream."
by CNB