Gold and Black Radio Express (Podcast): Montieth and Karpick talk Purdue-UCLA Dec. 2, 1967

Purdue’s men’s basketball team filled Mackey Arena with 50 seasons, 748 games and an endless tape loop of memories before the facility was plumped up and pimped out this year. Strange then, isn’t it, that the game standing above all others for anticipation, drama and quality of play might very well have been the first one?

How could you top what transpired on Saturday, Dec. 2, 1967, when a perfect storm of positive circumstances showered the new facility on Northwestern Ave.?

The university was dedicating a new arena, a round one that broke loose from the habit of the arch-roofed, barracks-like fieldhouses splattered across the nation. The only more impressive structure for basketball in the Big Ten was Assembly Hall at Illinois, built four years earlier, but Purdue, for once, was ahead of the curve.

* Sophomore Rick Mount, the highest-profile recruit in Purdue’s history — certainly then, and perhaps even now — was making his varsity debut, two years after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and one year after averaging 35 points for a freshman team that sometimes outdrew the varsity at Lambert Fieldhouse.

* The opponent was UCLA, coming off an undefeated season and national championship, and destined to win the second of its seven consecutive titles at the end of the upcoming season. It carried a 34-game winning streak and had just become the first team to win the title without a senior in its playing rotation. It not only had 11 returning lettermen, it was bringing back two other players who had sat out the previous season ­— Mike Lynn (disciplinary suspension) and Edgar Lacey (knee injury).

* The opponent’s star attraction was 7-foot-2 junior center Lew Alcindor, perhaps the greatest college player ever, who would in later years change his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and became one of the greatest professionals as well. He had been so dominant the previous season that the NCAA had instituted a rule against dunking – which only served to help him round out his offensive arsenal by perfecting the sky-hook.

* And, the opponent’s coach was John Wooden, the former Purdue All-American who at 57 years old was eight years from retirement and widespread acknowledgment as the best and most respected coach in the history of college basketball.

Purdue lost the game, 73-71, when a late comeback faltered. Future games in the arena would aid the cause of Big Ten championships for the Boilermakers, and two in 1980 got the team started on a run toward the Final Four, but it wouldn’t be an insult to say it was all downhill from there. Surely none of the games that followed left the fans as exhilarated and drained as this inaugural ball. And surely no other game contained as many outstanding players. Seven of them went on to play at least one professional season in either the NBA or ABA, for a total of 54 seasons ­— with Jabbar accounting for 20 of them.

“It’s the highlight of my memories about Mackey Arena,” said Bob King, the former assistant coach and associate athletic director, who passed away in 2014 whose memories go back to the beginning.

It wasn’t called Mackey Arena at the time, as athletic director Guy “Red” Mackey was still plying his trade. It was formally called Purdue Arena, but more casually referred to simply as the Arena. It was the final phase of a four-step, 20-year plan for improving the athletic facilities, which president Fred Hovde had initiated in 1946. The former basketball facility, Lambert Fieldhouse, had opened on Dec. 7, 1937 with a victory over Indiana State and cost $750,000 to build. Mackey — officially named in 1972 — cost between $6 and $6.5 million. It was financed without tax dollars and funded by income from the basketball games. It reportedly was paid off in three years, made possible by a sellout crowd for every game to that date.

The players had no complaints about Lambert, which wasn’t given its name until 1972 as well. With a capacity of about 9,000, it was a major step up from their high school gyms, and as good as most places they played at other schools. Mount had the fond memory of scoring 47 of his team’s 65 points there in a high school semistate game against Logansport. Billy Keller was naturally partial to the older gyms. In later years, while playing for the Indiana Pacers, he would be saddened by the move from the ancient Fairgrounds Coliseum to the new Market Square Arena downtown. Roger Blalock, for one, was impressed with the double-sided lockers in Lambert, having had but a single locker in high school and junior college.

Lambert had its downsides, though. The training room was barely more than a closet — trainer Pinky Newell usually came to the locker room to tape the players’ ankles or wrap sprains and strains — and the dust from the surrounding running track sometimes made the floor slick and the air dirty.

Mackey, by comparison, was a palace.

“Like going from a Volkswagen to a Cadillac,” said Keller, who played his first varsity season in Lambert and the final two in the new arena.

A season preview tabloid insert in the Lafayette Journal and Courier showed a photo of the new arena, with a caption that read “Even more spacious than it looks.” The facility, it pointed out, had 104 rooms serving 41 uses and included 70,685 square feet of space and eight separate shower areas. The playing surface was a wood-grained parquet-like surface, with a slight hint of a gray tint. As was typical for that era, it was completely free of paint except for the necessary circles and boundary lines ­— not even a P in the center circle — but the players loved it for its spring.

The lighting within the arena also cast a special glow. It was much brighter than at Lambert; Keller remembers the white players getting mild sunburns from it. The illumination made it possible for Channel 6 in Indianapolis (then called WFBM) to televise the game throughout central Indiana – in color. That was no small matter at the time. The station had just purchased a $250,000 mobile color unit, the first in the state, and was bringing a seven-man technical crew and three cameras weighing 280 pounds each. Tom Carnegie, who would become legendary as the public address announcer at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, handled the play-by-play. In later years he would recall that he had secured the rights with a simple phone call to Red Mackey, and for a nominal fee — if any.

The great irony was that the man for whom the arena would be named was perhaps the least secure about its future. As the grand opening arrived, Mackey fretted constantly about whether it could ever be filled to capacity.

“Red was as tight as the bark on a tree about money,” King said. “He was afraid if it didn’t go, he’d get blamed for it. He had such a great connection with Hovde, there wasn’t any problem with that. But he was just a little bit hysterical about filling the place. He was like an old lady for a couple of days there.”

Mackey should have known better. Mount would virtually guarantee a sellout for the next three seasons, all by himself.

The Lebanon native was one of the most popular players ever to play high school basketball in the state, thanks to his astounding shooting touch and the national exposure that had resulted from the Sports Illustrated cover story. Because he was a quiet kid from a small town who didn’t particularly like talking about himself, he carried an aura of mystery. Freshmen were ineligible for varsity competition at the time, but his rookie games often drew larger crowds than the “real” ones. When Mackey opened, some say, about 3,000 fans from Lebanon bought season tickets and practically formed a caravan to West Lafayette.

That ultimately created another kind of problem for Mackey. The opening game by all accounts drew a crowd well beyond the traditional announced capacity of 14,123. Fans sat in the aisles and stood in the entry ways to watch the game. Tickets were being scalped outside the building for $50 to $100. That’s comparable to $350 to $700 in today’s dollars.

“There were so many people inside he was scared to death the fire marshals would call him in about that,” King said. “And I think they did. I don’t know how he got out of it. Believe me, there were more than 14,000 people there. Probably closer to 16 or 17,000. They were all over the place.”

It clearly was the start of a new era for Purdue basketball. The Boilermakers, who hadn’t won a Big Ten title since 1942, would go 44-12 in Big Ten play over the next four seasons, and make its only appearance in the final game of the NCAA Tournament after winning the ’69 league crown.

“You look back on it, how great a game it was, nothing against the players before, but we brought Purdue back in basketball,” Mount said. “That was the start of some good things in basketball for Purdue.”

The game was supplemented with appropriate hoopla. Foremost among the events was a reunion of the 1930 Purdue team that finished 13-2 and won the Big Ten championship with a 10-0 record. Ten members were on hand the night before the game for a banquet, at which Wooden and Purdue coach George King spoke, and again at halftime. Wooden left the locker room to join that ceremony as well. Governor Roger Branigin, a Lafayette resident, also participated in a halftime ceremony.

The game revealed the volume level that would become unique to the arena. Blalock, for one, was taken aback by the atmosphere.

“As athletes, you want to try to be cool, but we were in shock,” he said. “The band started playing, the people were cheering, the intensity was electric.”

Starting lineups were introduced differently in those days, with the visitors brought out first and the home team second. Mount was the last player called out for Purdue, an apparent dramatic twist in deference to the anticipation of his debut. The players put their hands together quickly and rushed back to the bench, a couple of them pumping fists along the way. Nobody was playing it cool, least of all after the opening tip.

UCLA scored on its first possession when Lucius Allen hit a jumper from the left baseline after retrieving Herm Gilliam’s block of Lynn Shackelford’s shot attempt. Gilliam scored the first Purdue points on its first possession when he banked a jumper from just inside the top of the key. Alcindor followed with two foul shots after drawing a foul from Chuck Bavis on an inbounds pass. After an exchange of turnovers, Mount hit the first shot of a career in which he would become — still to this day — the school’s all-time leading scorer. Gilliam had taken the rebound of a blocked shot in the lane, dribbled four times upcourt and bounced a pass to Mount on the right wing. Mount caught the ball in stride, dribbled once and hit a runner off one foot that banked high off the glass to tie the game at 4.

After a UCLA miss, Mount was left wide open on the left baseline and hit a 16-footer for a 6-4 lead. Mount soon hit his third shot as well, an 18-footer on the right wing.

UCLA built a couple of 12-point leads in the second half, the last with nine minutes remaining. Purdue’s fullcourt zone pressure defense then began forcing turnovers, “which was both a surprise and a disappointment to me,” Wooden said after the game. Mount’s banked jumper from the left wing brought Purdue within 71-68. On the ensuing possession, Mount lost his footing and fell while guarding Mike Warren in the backcourt and was awarded a charging foul that eliminated Warren from the game. It was a dubious call by any objective measure, but not necessarily a break for Purdue. Warren was having an uncharacteristically poor game and was replaced by a backup guard named Bill Sweek ­— a junior who was about to have a date with destiny that ended with a goodnight kiss.

Gilliam hit a sweeping hook shot over Alcindor from 10 feet following Warren’s foul, making it a one-point game. Purdue got the ball back again after a UCLA turnover in the halfcourt, but Keller was called for a five-second violation that set up a jump ball at midcourt between him and his defender, Allen.

Allen controlled the tip but caught the ball, a violation that returned the ball to Purdue with 41 seconds remaining. Mount then drew a foul at 29 seconds from Lacey, who reached for the ball while giving help defense near the top of the key. Lacey, thinking he had only touched the ball (the replay is inconclusive) threw his arms downward and shouted, drawing a technical foul.

Suddenly, Mount was going to the line with a chance to give Purdue a three-point lead, with a possession to follow. A career 84 percent foul shooter, but tired and favoring his sore foot, Mount missed the front end of the one-and-one. He hit the technical shot to tie the game, however, and Purdue had the ball out of bounds.

George King called timeout to set up a play. Everyone knew where the ball would go, including Sweek.

“In my mind, I was thinking, I’m really screwed here,” he recalled. “I had to guard Rick Mount. I thought I was either going to foul him or he was going to score on me. I really thought I was going to be the goat.”

Blalock inbounded from midcourt to Keller, who dribbled into the halfcourt and bounce-passed to Gilliam on the right wing. Gilliam, unable to get the ball to Mount at first, drove baseline, but was cut off by Alcindor and lobbed the ball back to Mount at the top of the key. Mount dribbled to his left toward a pick, but was caught in traffic and curled back to his right. Dribbling six times toward the baseline, hesitating once along the way, he fired his trademark floating jumper just over Sweek’s outstretched hands with six seconds left.

Mount would hit dozens of such shots in his Purdue career, but this one spun off the rim into the hands of Alcindor, who immediately lobbed a one-armed pass to his left, just past the midcourt line, to Shackelford, who took two dribbles and slipped a pass to Sweek, running down the middle of the floor. Sweek hesitated briefly to gather himself, then fired a jumper from two feet beyond the top of the key – a three-pointer today – that swished as the clock expired.

There was no formality of a handshake line in those days. UCLA’s players, relieved and jubilant, rushed off the court, while Purdue’s stood around for a moment in shock. But if ever a team had achieved a moral victory, this was it. Purdue, unranked and picked to lose by 15 points, jumped to seventh in the polls after the loss. Given the quality of the opponent, and the fact his team had hit just 13-of-22 foul shots, a correctable issue, George King was upbeat when talking with reporters afterward.

“I told our boys if they play this hard and this well, they can win their next 23 games,” he said.

As it turned out, they lost their next game, at Washington, six days later, and finished 15-9 overall, 9-5 in the Big Ten. UCLA went on to score 100 points in nine of its next 10 games, settling for 95 in the lone exception. It lost just one game that season, to Houston in front of 52,693 fans in the Astrodome when Alcindor played with a scratched cornea, but avenged that loss in the NCAA Tournament and won the national championship.

Purdue returned the favor and opened the 1968-69 season at UCLA. It lost by 12 points, but came together to dominate the Big Ten. Its only loss in conference play was by three points at Ohio State. It reached the final game of the NCAA Tournament that season, where it lost to UCLA again, 92-72. It had legitimate excuses: Bavis missed the with a separated shoulder, Gilliam and Keller were playing with nagging injuries, and Mount had a cold.

Still, UCLA’s dominance was as undeniable as a landslide.

“How do you think we would have done if we had been at full strength?” Bob King asked Mount many years later.

“We probably only would have lost by 10,” Mount said, laughing.

Certain memories from the inaugural game remain vivid, 44 years later.

Keller was awed by the mere size of the 7-2 Alcindor, who finished with 17 points and 19 rebounds. He couldn’t help but sneak glances during pregame warmups, with absolute amazement.

“He wasn’t so much wide and brawny, he was just so long,” Keller said. “Long legs, long arms, long hands and long fingers. When they warmed up, he didn’t dunk the ball, but he was laying the ball up with his elbow over the rim.

“I always liked to stand behind the free throw shooter when the other team was at the line, so that I could run to either side to get the ball if he missed. But when he was shooting, I couldn’t even see the basket. I had to move to one side or the other to see if he missed it. That’s how big he was.”

Mount finished with 28 points. There had been so much build-up, Bob King recalled, in anticipation of the debut of the sophomore “who was going to lead us to the promised land,” and the fans leaving the arena that night were no doubt excited by what they had seen. Mount hit just 11-of-27 shots, and his final baseline attempt was taken a few seconds earlier than planned, thus leaving UCLA time for Sweek’s game-winner.

Mount, however, was playing his first college game with a steel plate in his left shoe to protect the stress fracture he had suffered in practice on Oct. 27. Mount had gone up for a layup that day and heard a pop; it turned out to be a fracture of the fifth metatarsal. Such an injury today probably would keep a player out six to eight weeks, but medical personnel were more daring and less concerned with lawsuits in those days. Mount was fitted for a cast for awhile, but team doctor Bill “Doc” Combs decided to cut it off and take the heavy metal approach. The toe was later cut off the steel insole to allow more range of motion, but Mount’s lateral mobility remained limited. The pain hadn’t helped matters, either.

“If I had been 100-percent, we would have beat those guys,” Mount says today.

Sweek doesn’t necessarily disagree.

“He was playing on one leg,” he said. “It was amazing. He had the most beautiful shot I’ve ever seen.”

Mount continued to play with the plate for a few more weeks, but after scoring just 19 points on 8-of-23 shooting in a 28-point loss at Ohio State in Purdue’s Big Ten opener on Jan. 6, he decided he had had enough. He removed the plate for the next game, against Wisconsin, at Mackey. Finally freed from his handicap, he scored 40 on 16-of-32 shooting in a 20-point win.

Warren, whom Wooden considered the smartest player he ever coached, and Wooden’s only two-time captain, went on to greater fame for his role as Bobby Hill in the television series “Hill Street Blues.” He remembers the game fondly for the win, but not for his performance. It was a rare opportunity for the South Bend native to play in front of his parents, and he finished with just one point, one rebound and one assist while missing all five field goal attempts before fouling out.

“I was very excited to be going back to Indiana,” Warren said. “But it turned into a nightmare; it was probably one of the worst games I ever played. It was the only college game I ever fouled out of. I got two or three quick fouls, because I was trying to be impressive for my folks. It taught me a great lesson. You play the game you know how to play. You try to stay on an even keel. I was too excited.”

Warren was impressed with Keller, not only for being quicker and stronger than he had expected when they met on the court, but also for his style of play.

“I could tell he sacrificed for his team,” Warren said. “Had he gone to any other place, he would have averaged more than 20 points. We were in kind of the same situation, because I was playing with Kareem. I had broken freshman scoring records and averaged 17 as a sophomore and was looking to score more, but that wouldn’t have made any sense when Kareem arrived.”

And what of the game’s unlikely hero, Sweek? He averaged just 3.6 points that season and remained a reserve his senior season. He’s now a high school Geography and History teacher in Sonoma, Calif., but formerly worked as an agent for ProServ, which represented professional athletes. He made several trips to Indiana in that capacity, and one day in the 1990s attended a night game at Mackey. Earlier that afternoon, he stopped by the office of Bob King, then an associate athletic director, and the only remaining human link to the inaugural game.

“A guy sticks his head in the office and says, ‘Coach, can I bother you?’ ” King recalled. “He came in and said, ‘My name is Bill Sweek.’ I said, ‘You son of a ____! What are you doing here?’ ”

The two shared some laughs, then King took Sweek down to the court “to see where history was made.”

According to King, Sweek put up a few shots in an attempt to re-create his game-winner from all those years ago.

Purdue’s director of basketball operations, Elliot Bloom, tried to schedule UCLA for this year’s re-dedication game at Mackey. The Bruins are re-dedicating their famed facility, Pauley Pavilion, next year, and Purdue could have returned the favor. UCLA officials declined, however, citing a commitment to play in the Maui Invitational.

Maybe it’s for the best. History teaches that you can’t go home again — even if your home has been remodeled.