Greatest Individual Performance you have witnessed

[JackTwice]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

Note: I believe the records show that the largest crowd ever to see a game was in either 1989 or 1990 when we played Augustana. That can't be true. The largest crowd ever was the Cal-State Hayward game when 9,339 people attended

I was at that Augie game in, I believe, 89. I had a few friends that played on that team and they were all given framed pictures taken from the press loft with the score and the attendance, listed at just over 10000.

[Alumguy]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

Jack_Twice, I appreciate your comment. Back in 1989, the attendance figures were arrived at by a combination of using turnstyle clicks, a little guessing and a little fudging. Believe me, I was a part of those days.

In 1985, because it was an NCAA event, the count was for actual tickets sold. Since I wasn't there, people tell me you couldn't fit in one more body.

This is all I know.

[Jacks99]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

hate to say it but Ryan Miller stands out in my mind. He came out and beat the Jacks by himself that game.

By the way, who is Kobe Bryant?

[JackJD]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

The killer combo of Dave Thomas and the late Lee Colburn deserves mention somewhere, but the mid 1970s is too long ago for me to recall a specific game. So how about Mark Tetzlaff in the mid 1980s during the home stretch of the Rabbits national title chase. (They finished second, losing a close championship game.)

Most of the memories described on this thread have made me feel old!  At the same time, it seems I have been fortunate to have been in Frost for many of the games described including the Northern State / Miller shooting exhibition and those darned Metro Australians.

I'm deviating a bit from the rules but I'll bring up one game that was a rare treat:  The last game against USD in the Barn!  I was a freshman that year (we switched from the Barn to Frost in February, 1973) and had a part-time job working for Dave Martin, the Sports Information Director.  That meant I had a guaranteed seat without waiting in the long line that stretched past the ROTC building.  

You  can go to the recordbook and see that the Jacks, mentored by Jim Marking, were great in those years...participating in national playoffs in 68, 69, 72 and 73.  In 73, Dave Thomas was the MVP in the midwest regionals and Lee Colburn was also named to the all-midwest regionals team.  Names from that era are still listed in the 1000 pt club for SDSU--when there was no 3-pt shot (Ron Wiblemo from Mitchell was canning three's all the time...a few years later, Steve Brown was shooting what should have been 4-pointers -- you could lock Brown in a closet in a different town and he'd still make the shot).

Okay, enough background.  Pre-game, one of USD's practice balls went into the north bleachers where it quickly disappeared.  From the press box, we could see where the ball was by the smiles on the students' faces as the ball was passed, behind backs, around the bleachers.  Eventually coach Marking implored the crowd to return the ball but by then, it was at the other end of the Barn...a student rolled it out onto the floor.  

The atmosphere was unbelievable (and boy, was Hort's fun that night after the game!).  

Dunking was forbidden back then.  But, Marking and Colburn had a plan: on a given hand signal, Colburn was going to slam the ball and intentionally draw the technical foul.  (Coach Marking, always the consummate gentleman, was a master at knowing when and how to draw a technical...and it always benefitted his team.)  The Jacks went on a run and at just the right moment, when the Jacks rebounded an errant USD shot, Marking gave the signal and Colburn, ran down the court, launched from the side of the key and jammed the ball down the throat of the hoop on the west side.  The  crowd went nuts.  The refs' whistles blowing the T couldn't be heard for a couple of minutes.  (My recollection is that USD's free-thrower missed but I'm not positive on that detail.)  

Also, during the game, Dave Thomas did one of his patented free timeouts by "losing" his contact lens.  He seemed to have a knack for doing that when we needed a time out but didn't want to burn an official one.  A student manager, on hands and knees, would carefully look over the floor for the contact...Dave and coach Marking would be "consulting" while the coach looked to see if the contact was still in Dave's eye but had simply slipped to the side.  When the next play was ready, everyone caught their breath, the contact would be "found" in Dave's eye and play would resume.  

State went on to beat a very good USD team.

[SDSUFAN]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

Okay since JDJack gave a very interesting account of the Marking Era, I feel motivated to mention the coaching era that I am attached, namely the Iverson era.

When we beat Tennessee State last year, it was not our first win over Tennessee State.  In 1956-57 season they were known as Tennessee A &I.  They had one of the real pioneers in Historically Black College history coaching named Richard McClendon.

During the days OF segregation, southern white colleges dominated boards and committees among NAIA and NCAA memberships. They keep all the HBC from joining and competing. McClendon took a chance with having a holiday season tournament at Fisk College, which include one other white team from the North and U of North Dakota plus Fisk (HBC) and Tennessee A & I

From that tournament two years later, the Tennessee A & I came to the Dakotas on a road trip. Apparently from this earlier tournament, they found that they would receive equal treatment in terms of hotels and restaurants.

I believe they played road games at USD, UND and of course SDSU and there may have be other games.

This Tennessee A & I having gained NAIA membership won the KC tourney that spring after their trip to Dakotas.

I dont recall how the other games came out, but the one against SDSU was the most interesting to watch.

Tennessee state had some great players including Richard "the Skull", Barnett. Barnett went on to have a career with the LA Lakers and other NBA franchises.

The amazing thing is that SDSU and Coach Iverson probably had little knowledge of this team. No video, but possibly they could have scouted them at Grand Forks or Vermillion.

For some reason they left Skull alone and let him get his 40 pts. Everything he threw up was pure net.  Be thankful the 3 pt was not in force at that time.

I was in high school at the time and was not a big strategy person so I am not sure what Coach Iverson done, but apparently with size, Kent Hyde and others and with good guards, like Jim Sutton and Del Eisenbraum SDSU could keep up and shut the other four guys on the floor down. Seems like the score was something like 87 to 77 about 10 points, but this was a very good team that we beat.

This game has kind of been forgotten but I consider it up there with the Jacobsen-Zelmo Beatty matchup in 1960. One I did not see.

[JackTwice]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

Jack_Twice, I appreciate your comment.  Back in 1989, the attendance figures were arrived at by a combination of using turnstyle clicks, a little guessing and a little fudging.  Believe me, I was a part of those days.
.

Alumguy, you are tearing away some of my greatest memories :'(. In my years of school at SDSU I was sure I had attended both the record attendance at Frost and the record at Coughlin (As a freshman I stood up along the back wall of the student section and watched the game) It might take me years to recover from that revelation

[OK_Jackrabbit]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

Jack_Twice, I appreciate your comment.  Back in 1989, the attendance figures were arrived at by a combination of using turnstyle clicks, a little guessing and a little fudging.  Believe me, I was a part of those days.

In 1985, because it was an NCAA event, the count was for actual tickets sold.  Since I wasn't there, people tell me you couldn't fit in one more body.

This is all I know.

I was there in 1985. I do think you could have gotten one more person in. One. A wee person perhaps. One more wee, tiny person. That's about it, though. I was there early but ended up in the top bleachers in the end wedged way up in a corner.

Those Cal-Hayward players were scared silly.

[Jacked_Up]

Re: Greatest Individual Performance you have witne

JackJD -- Great stories about Colburn, Marking and Thomas. Thanks!