That 74-75 team. So close !

[KerryRhodes]

What if.........

 

[HedleyLamarr]

Louisville and Indiana were the two best teams that year, but Wooden knew how to win the big ones.

 

[nccardfan]

7 players on that team from the Ville....

 

[ULdoug]

My first big heartache as a fan( followed the 72 final 4 team, but UCLA with Walton was unbeatable.... so no real heartache). Great game. Should have held on in regulation. Then the big OT ending with Howard missing his first FT of the year to ice it and Washington hitting the jumper to win it.

There were so many moments in reg. And OT that i felt we had it. But great game. Should have been our 1st title..... and with all the local kids that i had watched play in HS as a teenager who played bball. Louisville HS bball was crazy good then

 

[Cue Card]

Loved that team. I remember it somewhat. LOL. I do recall Terry Howard missing a crucial free throw after not missing any the entire season. Poor guy has had to live with that 1 missed free throw now for decades. That couldn't have been easy.

 

[Sawyer]

What if.........

My father invited me to San Diego with him and two of his friends. I had been married to my wife, and still my wife, for about six months. Thankfully, she gave me the green light.
The 1975 team was my favorite UL team then and still is. It was a trip of a lifetime. The FF then was nothing like it is today. I think it was one of the few college games that was even on national tv at the time. There wasn’t the rows and rows of media, there was no Fan Fest, the arena might have sat 12,000 and there were tickets on sale all over the place, no blimps circling above, no security lines. The bar tender at our hotel hotel did not even what The Final Four was.
What is really crazy...Boeheim was coaching SYRACUSE that year! I think it was his second season.
Our game against UCLA was a classic. Allan Murphy was in the zone. They all played great, we were the better team that day, just a couple of bad luck issues at the end cost us the game. Toward the end of the game it became more and more obvious that the UK fans in attendance fans were pulling for UCLA. The only logic I can apply to that is they would have preferred losing to UCLA in the championship game rather than UL because they knew they did not have a chance against either of us. There is no doubt UK was only there because Indiana’s Scott May broke his arm just before the NCAA tournament started.
The 1975 team was and still is very special to UL.
Go CARDS!

 

[BooneCo_Card]

My father invited me to San Diego with him and two of his friends. I had been married to my wife, and still my wife, for about six months. Thankfully, she gave me the green light.
The 1975 team was my favorite UL team then and still is. It was a trip of a lifetime. The FF then was nothing like it is today. I think it was one of the few college games that was even on national tv at the time. There wasn’t the rows and rows of media, there was no Fan Fest, the arena might have sat 12,000 and there were tickets on sale all over the place, no blimps circling above, no security lines. The bar tender at our hotel hotel did not even what The Final Four was.
What is really crazy...Boeheim was coaching SYRACUSE that year! I think it was his second season.
Our game against UCLA was a classic. Allan Murphy was in the zone. They all played great, we were the better team that day, just a couple of bad luck issues at the end cost us the game. Toward the end of the game it became more and more obvious that the UK fans in attendance fans were pulling for UCLA. The only logic I can apply to that is they would have preferred losing to UCLA in the championship game rather than UL because they knew they did not have a chance against either of us. There is no doubt UK was only there because Indiana’s Scott May broke his arm just before the NCAA tournament started.
The 1975 team was and still is very special to UL.
Go CARDS!

One slight correction...…. Boeheim was coaching the Orange, but only as an assistant to Roy Danforth. He took over as HC a year or so later when Danforth left for Tulane, a head scratcher of a move if there ever was one.

To further illustrate how far the game has come, I probably never saw the Cards over once or twice that year on TV before the NCAAT, though I knew most of them from their HS career. I had to rely on day old newspapers. Even then the only TV games shown in NKY were the UC game and FF loss to UCLA. The EE game vs. Maryland was not shown in the Cincy market. My how times have changed!

You are correct that Scott May's broken arm was the only reason for UK being there. IU's undefeated team from the next year gets all the glory, but the 1975 team with a healthy Scott May was better.

 

[Louisvillian]

Louisville, UK and UCLA were all really good at the end of that year but I would have loved our chances against UK in the Title game had it happened.

UK fans always love to use the excuse that Wooden announced his retirement right before the final as to why UCLA played so good that night. And to that I say, ask the UCLA players who was the better team from this state.

I heard Phil Bond say that he and Jimmy Dan Conner agree that maybe it’s a good thing Louisville-Kentucky didn’t meet in the final. It would have been brutal for the loser.

 

[ulcards1]

I Loved that team!
-Terry Howard hit big free throws all year long. With no shot clock, he had the ball at the end of games and he was money.
-All those 6'-5" guys like Murphy, Cox, Bridgeman. They could all rebound and all switch defensively without creating mismatches. Denny loved those big guards and would have loved David Johnson.
-Wesley Cox was a real man and gotten the better of Washington in the McDonald's game played in Louisville as high school seniors.
-7 Louisville natives, sad how the quality of Louisville high school basketball has declined.

 

[earsky]

I think these youngsters that play for us can take so much away from mimicking those older Cardinal teams.
They really did strive to play as a unit to achieve the highest goal- a championship!
There's so much money involved at the next level now,we may never see that type of unity again.

 

[KerryRhodes]

I think these youngsters that play for us can take so much away from mimicking those older Cardinal teams.
They really did strive to play as a unit to achieve the highest goal- a championship!
There's so much money involved at the next level now,we may never see that type of unity again.

So true.
I hope the players watch their games and talk to some of the players.

This team can win a Title if they emulate the 74 team.