MU first made the Final Four in ’74. Those Warriors want another run
Lloyd Walton knows a few stories that will certainly come up when surviving members of the 1973-74 Marquette men’s basketball team gather this weekend in Milwaukee.
They will laugh about the time Al McGuire tried to break up a fight in practice between backup guard Dave Delsman and pugnacious starter Marcus Washington, only for the legendary coach to end up tussling himself with Delsman.
Walton will bring up his own heated confrontation with the fiery McGuire at halftime of MU’s semifinal matchup with Kansas.
“He came in and he lit into us about not doing this and not doing that,” Walton recalled this week. “I felt like I just told him we work hard, we play hard, we do this because we want to do it and we love each other and this and that.
“Before you know it, it was, like, let’s put an end to it and let’s go out and win. And we did.”
The then-Warriors were the first MU team to reach college basketball’s biggest stage, reaching the national championship game.
“For all the success and the great teams they had before us, our particular group was the first one to get Coach to the Final Four and have a chance at the mountaintop,” said Bo Ellis, who was a star freshman on that team.
The program has reached the Final Four two more times. Ellis was on the team that won the school’s only national championship in the NCAA Tournament in 1977. Dwyane Wade led MU on a magical run to the national semifinal in 2003.
This season’s Golden Eagles have the lofty goal of adding another Final Four banner to the rafters of Fiserv Forum. That will be another topic of conversation among the members of the 1973-74 team when they are honored for their accomplishments during the game between the seventh-ranked Golden Eagles (20-6, 11-4 Big East) and Xavier (13-13, 7-8) on Sunday.
MU head coach Shaka Smart has made a point of welcoming former players to practices and games. MU legends like Walton, Ellis and Earl Tatum have seen
enough to think that the Golden Eagles can also make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament.
“Incredible respect for those guys,” Smart said. “There’s a humility that they have that comes from what they did. Which might seem counterintuitive.
“But I think sometimes when you go do something special it actually allows you to gain humility because you realize how hard it is to do and it doesn’t just happen. It’s so much fun to hear their stories and learn about them.”
Lucas was a towering presence
There will be some sad moments during the 1973-74 reunion. McGuire and his assistant coaches Hank Raymonds and Rick Majerus have all died.
Several players on the roster have also passed away, with Maurice Lucas leaving an especially large void. Lucas died in 2010, but two of his sons plan on attending the reunion.
“The most difficult thing about this, and I’ve had some tough days thinking about it, is the guys that are no longer here,” Walton said.
The Warriors were one of the best defensive teams in the country, allowing only 59.9 points per game.
“We played really good defense,” Tatum said. “We didn’t run. Al never had running teams. He didn’t play that. We just played one game at a time and we beat a lot of ranked teams that year.”
The 6-foot-9 Lucas set the tone with his physically imposing presence. He averaged 15.8 points and 10.6 rebounds per game.
“Just his toughness,” Ellis said. “He could shoot it. His will to win. His mentality.
“He had played on a couple pretty good teams at Marquette before I got there. He knew what it took. But he could shoot it. He could bang. Made my job a lot easier. Being from Chicago, even though I weighed 190-195 pounds, I was physical, but I was super athletic. He would beat people up and I would just slip in and grab the rebound.”
Lucas’ bruising play didn’t stop, even in practice against his own teammates.
“On Monday, Coach would say ‘Hey, I need some guys to go down there work with Luke on boxing him out,’ “Tatum said. “I’m like, hell, I’m not going down there and get knocked out. No way.”
Ellis, Walton and Tatum like current Marquette team
Tatum attended a MU practice this season and was immediately impressed.
“It’s like, whoa, this is awesome,” he said. “The enthusiasm. The hustling. That goes over to the games.
“And it does, they get these spurts and they just go and start slapping the floor.”
Ellis is a keen observer of the Golden Eagles. He’s at most games at Fiserv Forum, sitting near MU’s bench.
Ellis also loves the activity of MU, which ranks in the top 15 in the nation in defensive efficiency and turnover percentage, according to statistical website KenPom.com. But he also notes the Golden Eagles are missing a presence like Lucas.
“The difference with us is we had that killer mentality all the time,” Ellis said. “Every time we stepped on the floor, we came at you to destroy you.
“This year’s Marquette team, at times you can see that and at times you can see them not being aggressive. But once they learn to get that killer mentality all the time, and if they can maintain it for 40 minutes, I think they have a chance to do what nobody has been able to do for a while, which is get back to a national championship game.”
Smart’s team is “smart and they play together”
Walton had a chance to talk to the Golden Eagles at the beginning of the season.
“How important my time was at Marquette,” Walton said about the theme of his speech. “Besides my kids being born and my immediate family, Marquette was the greatest opportunity and provider for my life that I’ve ever had. I learned so much. I met so many people that I would not have met.
“And then I talked about the legacy, the basketball legacy, and how important that is. And how they must continue to build on that legacy.”
Walton said his 90-year-old mother still tries to watch every MU game. They have the same scouting report.
“They’re smart and they play together,” Walton said. “Those two things are a winning combination. I think they’re a really smart team and they really play together. That reminds me of old teams that I played on.
“You play together, man. It’s about the name on the front, not the name on the back.”
Tatum noticed the same thing. “The players, you can tell they like each other,” he said. “That’s the key.”
1973-74 team came up short of national title
Tatum said something similar about the 1973-74 Warriors.
“We had some good unity, though, man,” Tatum said. “I tell you. Those guys, Lloyd and Bo coming in here with that fiery attitude. Those Chicago dudes, they just want to play. They don’t care who they are playing against. That rubbed off on you.”
After beating Ohio in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, MU dispatched No. 6 Vanderbilt, 12th-ranked Michigan and another No. 6 in Kansas to reach the title game in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Warriors fell to top-ranked North Carolina State, which got some distance from MU in the first half thanks to two technical fouls on McGuire.
“That championship game, we were ready,” Tatum said. “I didn’t have the game I wanted to have because of fouls. But still Coach did not deserve that (second) tech. It threw us off balance. They got the lead on us and we didn’t recover.”
It took Tatum several years until he could watch that game again. But given some time and distance from it, he appreciates the experience.
“It’s bigger now,” Tatum said. “Spotlight and everything. The commercials. But we were there, man. To be in the finals, that was something special.”
Tatum wants to see MU reach that stratosphere again. Maybe this season’s Golden Eagles will be the ones holding a reunion a half-century from now.