The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Fifty years ago, Yale popped Pistol Pete and LSU
When the Yale men’s basketball team arrived in Honolulu for the Rainbow Classic just after Christmas in 1969, the Bulldogs quickly learned just how little respect they were getting.
“The local newspaper said if the local high school team had been in the tournament, we would have been ranked ninth out of eight teams,” recalled Jim Morgan, Yale’s leading scorer that season. “No one really expected us to win.”
Hawaii, the host school, put Yale in its own bracket to provide an easier path to the championship game. But the Bulldogs beat them 88-77. Three days later, Yale topped a strong San Francisco squad 75-67, setting up a championship game bout with LSU.
When No. 14-seed Yale faces third-seeded LSU on Thursday in an NCAA tournament first-round game (12:40 p.m., TruTV) at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla., it will be just the second time the two programs will ever have met on the hardwood. The first one came back on that night in Honolulu on Dec. 30, 1969.
LSU, of course, was led by the great Pete Maravich, one of college basketball’s all-time most prolific scorers. Since Yale was in the opposite bracket of the Tigers, its players got to watch Maravich weave his magic in his first two games, including a 50-point outburst against Lou Carnesecca and St. John’s.
But the Bulldogs, coached by Joe Vancisin, weren’t intimidated by Maravich or his father Press, the Tigers’ head coach. They went toe-to-toe with the Tigers, overcame a double-digit halftime lead and pulled off a 97-94 victory that still resonates with Yale basketball players and fans to this day.
“No specific play stands out,”
Morgan recalled, “just that we played probably the best basketball game we ever played, in my three years at Yale.”
Morgan, a 5-foot-10 junior guard, finished with 35 points, topping even Maravich, who was “held” to 34. Thatcher Shellaby drew the honor of guarding Maravich, but Morgan was right there to help out and be a presence whenever Maravich found some free space. The 34 points were more than 10 below Pistol Pete’s season average of 44.5 (and this was before both the 3-point shot and the shot clock).
LSU will likely be heavy favorites when it takes the floor against Yale on Thursday afternoon. But the best the Tigers can do is even up the all-time series between the two programs.
Morgan, who lives in White Plains, N.Y. but hopes to make the trip to Jacksonville, believes Yale can improve to 2-0 against the Tigers.
“Why not?,” he asked, rhetorically. “We beat Baylor three years ago (in the NCAA tourney), nearly upset Duke. So, there’s no reason why we can’t beat LSU and move to the second game, and maybe even pull one off in the second game.”
Morgan, a retired former education director at a professional development center, made the trip to Providence three years ago for the Baylor and Duke games and still gets to Lee Amphitheater a few times a year.
“I know virtually nothing about LSU, to be right upfront,” he confessed. “But I’ll tell you, I think this Yale team has some real potential. They’ve got good players who can put the ball in the basket. They’ve got a lot of talent, some experience that’s critical in tournament play. They’ve got Miye Oni, who is special.”
Morgan averaged 21.3 points per game in 1969-70, including five 30-point games, a school record he still shares with Butch Graves. The 35-point effort remains the best in program history on a neutral court. Still, Yale finished just 11-13 overall and fourth place in the Ivy at 7-7.
LSU finished second in the SEC that season. Maravich went on to have a Hall of Fame career in the NBA before passing away in 1987.
But Jim Morgan and Yale will always have that victory in Hawaii on Dec. 30, 1969.
“That’s the all-time best memory, absolutely,” said Morgan, who currently ranks as the program’s sixth all-time leading scorer with 1,510 points. “Nothing compares to that victory.”