Fifty years ago today marks the anniversary of the wildest game in the history of Mackey Arena, which at the time was called Purdue Arena. For Purdue fans and players alike, it was much more than a bitter 108-107 loss to the ninth-ranked Iowa Hawkeyes.
On a warm late afternoon on the last day of February 1970, three things occurred that haven't happened in the 53-year old building before or since.
First, a technical foul was called on Purdue's crowd for a paper airplane that was thrown from the stands ... which many still believe emanated from the small visitors cheering section.
Second, the still-standing Big Ten single-game individual scoring record of 61 points was established by senior guard Rick Mount. Yet "The Rocket," as the Lebanon, Ind., native was called, inexplicably scored but just one basket in the final six minutes of each half.
Finally, with the one-point defeat, the Boilermakers saw their 30-game home winning streak evaporate, the longest home victory skein in arena history.
To boot, the loss to Iowa also eliminated the Boilermakers, who had been to the national championship game and lost to UCLA the year before, from the Big Ten race. The defeat gave the Hawkeyes the league crown in an era when only one Big Ten team qualified for the NCAA Tournament.
"It was a crazy game, but we just wanted to win," said Mount earlier this week from his home in Lebanon. "I still think about the fact that I didn't score enough down the stretch in that game, and I also wish I would have had more opportunities. It just wasn't to be."
Mount, who was 27-of-47 from the field, took only four shots in the closing moments of both halves, key periods of the game that saw the visitors go on big runs necessary to pull the upset.
In fact, Purdue led 101-92 with four minutes left in the game, only to be out scored 17-5 down the stretch. The story was reminiscent of the closing minutes of the first half, when the Hawkeyes went on a 14-0 closing run to give them a 49-47 lead at intermission.
"People forget that in those days with only one team going to the NCAA, we had no margin for error," said Mount, who remains Purdue's all-time leading scorer with 2,323 points despite playing only three seasons totaling 72 games. "We would have made the NCAA Tournament all three years I played at Purdue had the rules been what they are today.
"That still bothers me."
Mount was amazing, scoring 32 of Purdue's first 39 points in the game. He was simply unstoppable. The Rocket enjoyed some of his greatest games against Iowa, having scored 53 points in a loss in Iowa City to open the '70 Big Ten season. He also had 45 and 43 in defeats of Iowa on the Boilermakers' title team a year before.
"He was amazing against them," said reserve guard Steve Longfellow, who now lives in Carlsbad, Calif. "Defensively, Iowa may have chosen to let Rick get his, but Rick did much more than that. They didn't make it easy for him because of where he was shooting from. No one could stop him.
"They were physical with him, yet he made shots falling into the television camera that was stationed in those days at the right corner of the court. I have never seen anything like it."
Story continues below photo
Listen to legendary Boilermaker broadcaster John DeCamp's entire call of the historic game. The deafening noise of the Purdue crowd is evident in the recording.
Mount scored 13 points in the first seven minutes of the second half, giving Purdue a 70-67 lead. That, however, is when things got a wild.
Longfellow fouled Iowa's Chad Calabria on successive plays, the second of which could have easily been called a charging foul against Hawkeye guard Chad Calabria. After the second whistle, a paper airplane sailed out of the south stands.
To be fair, the Purdue crowd had not been on its best behavior. Legendary radio play-by-play announcer John DeCamp chastised the "few bad apples" dressed in gold and black. The capacity crowd had tossed debris on the court earlier in the half, prompting referee Bob Brodbeck to have tPA announcer Jim Miles warn the crowd that another incident would result in penalty of sort. But it didn't cease. It got so bad that assistant coach Joe Sexson even grabbed the mic to ask the crowd to cut it out, moments before the technical was whistled.
Fifth-year coach George King, clad in a traditional "Century 21-ish" gold jacket, a couple decades before Gene Keady would make it a wardrobe standard in Mackey Arena, was having no part of the officiating. There was a huge foul total disparity between the Hawks and Boilermakers as four Boilers eventually fouled out of the game.
At one point in the first half, King began waving off one of the officials, Bob Broadbeck, who had approached the Purdue coach to explain a call. King even climbed over the railing and into the stands and walked up the Arena steps to get away from the referee who was trying to explain the situation.
To this day, some long-time Purdue fans still contend the paper airplane came from the Iowa section. But the Hawkeyes received only 24 tickets to the game and most were behind the team bench. That made the odds against it coming from an Iowa booster about 750 to 1. No matter, when the smoke cleared after the technical, Iowa had converted a six-point play for a three-point lead.
"I know that paper airplane came from the Iowa section," said Bob Ford, a Purdue athletics Hall of Fame member who was a sophomore on that team. "Iowa fans aren't stupid, they heard all the announcements. Why not just toss something on the court to help your team?"
Whatever the truth is, no one will ever know for sure.
Story continues below photo
Yet, Purdue bounced back from the paper airplane incident, at least temporarily. Mount single-handedly kept his team in the game. He broke Dave Schellhase's single-game conference record of 57 points set four years earlier with a fade-away 23-footer from the right corner with 6:23 left in the game. His 59th point gave Purdue a 94-86 lead, and Purdue had a measure of control with a 101-92 lead with under four minutes left in the game.
"We had the game in hand," Mount said. "Despite all the crazy stuff that went on and all the horrible officiating, we had a chance to put the game away, we just didn't.
"People think I was a ball hog because I scored all those points and took all those shots, but I knew what I had to do to help this team win. It was always about winning for me."
Longfellow and Ford concur.
"Rick was confident in his abilities, that is true," Ford, who is now retired from Purdue and living in West Lafayette. "But he looked at scoring as his role to help us win, and we accepted that."
Longfellow took it a step further.
"To this day, I believe Rick took no glory in scoring 61 points," the Elkhart, Ind. native said. "None."
The Hawkeyes had a bomber of their own. Fred "Downtown" Brown, who went on to make a name for himself in the NBA playing all 13 years with the Seattle SuperSonics and having his number retired, got the visitors back in the game with his long-distance shooting. Brown and John Johnson, who was a teammate of Brown's on the Sonics' 1979 NBA title team and also the seventh pick of the '70 NBA Draft, made several clutch shots down the stretch, as well.
Clutch free throws by a host of Hawkeyes, including Glenn "The Stick" Vidnovic, who nailed two free throws with 10 seconds left that gave the Hawks an insurmountable three-point lead, as it would be 17 years before the three-point shot would be part of NCAA hoops lexicon.
Speaking of the three-pointer, had there been one in those days, it is estimated Mount would have scored 74 points that day against Iowa. Yet, his driving layup for his 61st marker at the buzzer left Purdue a point shy.
"Iowa just played a hell of a game, but it's a shame we had to have these kinds of people work a game this important."" said King, who couldn't resist taking a poke at the officiating.
It is unclear whether King's parting shot cost him any money from the Big Ten office, but King went to his grave calling it the worst officiated game he had ever been a part.
Disappointing from a Purdue perspective, yes. But is it possible to put this game in the rear-view mirror 50 years later?
"People still talk to me about this game all these years later," Ford said. "I haven't forgotten it. I don't know how you could."
Membership Info: Sign up for GoldandBlack.com now | Why join? | Questions?
Follow GoldandBlack.com: Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
More: Gold and Black Illustrated/Gold and Black Express | Subscribe to our podcast
Copyright, Boilers, Inc. 2020. All Rights Reserved. Reproducing or using editorial or graphical content, in whole or in part, without permission, is strictly prohibited.
