(this story on the 1968-69 season was written back in 2004. Center, Chuck Bavis, forward Herman Gilliam, head coach George King and assistant coach Bob King who are quoted in this story are deceased)
As the Boilermakers laced up their shoes in October of 1968 to start practice, none of the players realized it had been 29 years since Purdue had won a Big Ten title. They were unaware that one of the premier programs in college basketball in the 1920s and ‘30s was suffering from severe championship withdrawal.
It was all about to change, however. During the next six months, what occurred made for an unforgettable season 35 years ago. Never before, and arguably never since, has a Boilermaker basketball team captured the imagination of its fans like the 1968-69 squad. It is a love affair that long-time watchers of college basketball still have.
“On my travels around the Midwest, wherever I go, I still get people that want to talk about that team,” said Chuck Bavis, the starting center, who now serves as a manufacturers’ representative in the trophy and awards business. “It has been a great door-opener for my business because our team captured the imagination of just about everybody that got to see us play.”
What’s not to like about a team that led the nation in scoring with a 93.5 average, ran the fast-break with a college version of the skill and athleticism of the Los Angeles Lakers, while making its way to the national championship game?
“What (Coach) George King did was give us the freedom to play our game,” said Rick Mount, a two-time consensus All-American who is still Purdue’s all-time leading scorer with 2,323 points. “We had three guys (Mount, Billy Keller and Herman Gilliam) that played professional basketball, so George knew we had talent.
“In our offense, if you had a shot, you took it. Our philosophy was different than it is in much of college basketball today. We believed if you passed the ball more than three times, you had a chance to make a mistake, so we shot the ball and shot it quickly.”
Mount flourished when offense was king in college basketball. He averaged a Big Ten-record 33.3 points per game in 1968-69, only to average 35.4 a year later while twice being named league MVP.
“I think it was a golden time for the game of college basketball,” said Mount, whose career scoring average of 32.3 remains the Big Ten standard. “You couldn’t get a ticket to our games because they were fun to watch. I mean no disrespect to the teams of today, but we scored 50 points in a half, not in a whole game.”
The 1968-69 basketball season was played amidst the backdrop of turbulent times in America. There was campus unrest due to the war in Vietnam and ever-burgeoning civil rights issues.
“Coming to Purdue took some time for me to get used to,” said Gilliam a 6-foot-3 forward that has no peer in Purdue basketball history in terms of athletic ability for his size. “The university was so big and was integrated (racially), unlike the segregated South where I came from.”
Gilliam, who averaged an incredible 9.1 rebounds for his career despite being the size of a modern-day point guard, said it wasn’t until his junior year that he finally grew comfortable in West Lafayette.
The Purdue campus did experience a relatively small amount of student unrest, but it wasn’t outwardly evident on the basketball team. On the court, the Boilermakers blended talents, both black and white.
“I never sensed any of those tensions with this group,” former head coach and Purdue athletics director George King said from his home in Naples, Fla. “They were just a beautiful team to be around.
“Athletics was very different then compared to now,” King continued. “Difficult issues were not as much the spotlight as they are today.”
Ralph Taylor, who still lives in his hometown of Indianapolis, where he’s a city leader, was one of the crowd favorites on the team. He said the squad kept on an even keel.
“Our team was one of the closest-knit groups that I have had the pleasure of being around,” said Taylor, an African American who teamed with Keller on the 1965 state title team at Washington H.S. “Realizing all of the racial tensions that were pervasive in the United States at that time, it was amazing we seemed to be above all that. Our group genuinely liked and respected one another and that had much to do with our success.”
Success didn’t come immediately. It finished 15-9 and in third place in the Big Ten race the year before with many of the same cast though many experts had predicted them to win the league. King felt if he could get Keller and Gilliam to lead the team in a slightly different direction, it could win big.
”It wasn’t a hard sell for either one of the guys,” said King, who posted a 109-64 record in seven seasons at Purdue. “I was able to convince Herman that he had the skills to play pro ball and he didn’t need to show (scouts) how much he could shoot it to get to the NBA. I just told Billy that he was a senior and he needed to run the team.”
Then-assistant coach Bob King, no relation, calls it one of the great sales jobs he’s seen in his seven decades around basketball.
“George flat-out guaranteed Herman he was going to make the NBA,” Bob King said. “He was a compelling guy and the players bought into the fact that Rick was the guy to score.”
Keller agreed that Herman’s willingness to play a supporting role was vital.
“It was important for Rick and Herman to be on the same page,” said Keller, who, like Mount, still operates several basketball camps around the Midwest. “Herman had to sacrifice a lot for the good of the team when Rick came in (Gilliam was a year older than Mount). For our team to win, those two had to get along, and the good thing was they did. Winning took care of every personal conflict we had on the team.”
And King didn’t play favorites, even with his top scorer.
“Rick was kicked out of practice on a couple of occasions as much as a message to the other players on the team that George meant business with everybody,” said Bob King, who served as a Boilermaker assistant from 1960-74. “I do remember how surprised George was to learn that when Rick was booted from practice, he didn’t just go to the locker room to dress; he grabbed his stuff and headed home to Lebanon (about 40 miles southeast of Purdue). I knew that if Rick didn’t come back to Purdue, my job was in jeopardy.”
Luckily for Purdue and Bob King, Mount always returned to campus. George King said that once Herman Gilliam hung the nickname “Zeke” on Mount, and it stuck, things were headed in the right direction.
“I knew from watching Rick play in high school what an amazing shooter he was,” said Gilliam, who played on the Portland Trail Blazers’ NBA title team in 1977 and now works in Corvallis Ore., where he serves as a plant manager for United Parcel Service. “Growing up in Winston-Salem, N.C., I had never seen anything like him or the following he had from his hometown.
“The only time I was worried about my pro career (which lasted nine years) was when I was injured late in the season during the NCAA Tournament. I didn’t know how fast my (Achilles’ heel) injury would heal.”
George King said one of the team's superior skills was its ability to handle the ball, a prerequisite to running the fast break.
“This team could handle the ball like no other I ever had,” King said. “We would have games that we would score 100 points and have eight turnovers.
“Rick even had games that year when he had a half dozen or so assists. He was smart enough to realize if he was double-teamed, he should give the ball up. Rick, like everybody else on the team, just wanted to win.”
And, boy, did it ever. Purdue opened the season in Pauley Pavilion against two-time defending national champion UCLA. A year earlier, the Boilermakers had dedicated their new arena by coming up two points short of hanging a loss on Coach John Wooden’s nearly unbeatable Bruins.
The Boilermakers kept it respectable this time around but didn’t take it to the wire, losing 94-82. Mount scored 33 points, but Bavis did an excellent job on UCLA center Lew Alcindor (later named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar). For the second year in a row, Bavis, and his bulky 240-pound frame, was primarily responsible for holding the future NBA all-time leading scorer under 20 points.
Not bad, considering Bavis and his teammates missed curfew the night before.
“George Faerber had a friend in the Los Angeles area that had a car,” Taylor said. “I can remember all 11 of us piling in to head down to the Sunset Strip. We didn’t stay down there long, but we were a couple of minutes late for bed check. Coach Bob (King) discovered us as we got back into the hotel room. We were all together as a team kept Coach Bob from telling George. The memory of 11 basketball players piled into a station wagon is one I have to this day.”
The Boilermakers did have time to bond on a lengthy road trip a few weeks later. After posting four consecutive home wins, Purdue embarked on a two-week journey for tournaments in Phoenix and Honolulu.
The Boilermakers efficiently handled a talented California team in the opening round of the Sun Devil Classic, but lost to host Arizona State in the finals. Purdue fell short against Columbia at the Rainbow Classic, and its All-American and future Lakers standout forward Jim McMillian.
“Everyone got to know each other well during that time,” said Faerber, who owns and operates Bee Windows and Four Seasons Sunrooms in Indianapolis. “We switched roommates a lot on the road, and that made sure everyone knew everyone.”
Purdue’s long road trip didn’t end in Hawaii. With its 7-3 non-conference record, it opened the Big Ten season at Wisconsin, a team that had held Mount to a career-low 10 points in an embarrassing loss the year before. This time, the Boilermakers got out of Madison alive, thanks to 33 points by Mount and 16 points and 13 rebounds by Gilliam.
A few days later, the Boilers returned to their homecourt for the first time in 48 days to post an impressive 98-84 win over No. 8-ranked (coaches poll) Illinois.
After a break for January final exams, as was the academic schedule in those days, the Boilermakers rolled off four more wins. Included in that stretch was an emotional overtime win at home over 1968 Final Four participant Ohio State and a physical battle at Northwestern.
In the win at Evanston, George King had grown weary of teams pounding on his star player, Mount. When coach Larry Glass came to congratulate victorious Purdue in its locker room, he quickly found himself pinned up against the wall by King.
“George was really mad, but I knew right then he would go to the wall for me and us,” Mount said. “George was a tough guy and it showed in his team.”
The Boilermakers dropped their lone contest in league play in a return match at Ohio State, but then reeled off seven straight wins to easily capture the Big Ten crown with a 13-1 record. Purdue clinched the outright crown with at 12-point win at Iowa, as Mount tied his career-high of (at the time) 43 points. With two minutes left, the PA announcer informed the crowd that second-place Ohio State had lost and that Purdue had clinched its first outright league title in nearly three decades. In an act you probably wouldn’t see today, the Hawkeye pep band played “Hail Purdue” and the Iowa Fieldhouse crowd clapped along.
The regular season finale against Indiana was a Boilermaker fan’s dream. Purdue set a still-standing team scoring mark by beating Indiana 120-76. The 44-point pasting included a 40-point effort by Mount and a career-high 31 points by Keller in his swan song in front of his adoring home fans. Keller, who broke free of a mild shooting slump, also had eight rebounds in the game; not bad for a guy soon to be named the top player in the nation under 6-feet tall.
With Gilliam still hobbled and on the bench, the Boilermakers headed off to the NCAA Mideast Regionals against Miami (Ohio) at the familiar Wisconsin Fieldhouse in Madison. The Boilermakers had difficulty disposing of the Redskins (as they were named at the time) in the regular season, posting an eight-point win. This time, Mount and Keller continued their hot hand, combining for 51 points in a 91-71 romp.
All was joyous in the locker room until it was discovered that Bavis had hurt his shoulder. Unfortunately for Purdue, however, it was much more than a little soreness.
“It still is a mystery to me how I was injured,” Bavis said. “I was elbowed on the clavicle during the game but I don’t know when. I remember my collarbone literally falling out in the locker room after Doc Combs tried to push it back into place. I had surgery shortly thereafter.”
With Bavis out, and Gilliam hobbled, Purdue faced Marquette in the regional championship game. The Warriors, who had upset Kentucky the game before, were playing just an hour from their Milwaukee home and Coach Al McGuire was an expert at getting his fans riled up.
George King went as far as to meet with NCAA officials before the game in an attempt to mitigate anything McGuire had up his sleeve. The game turned out to be a low-scoring dogfight. Purdue was not shooting well, and Marquette, with no player taller than 6-5, played ball-control basketball for much of the game.
Despite the injuries, the Boilermakers’ depth was filling in nicely. Multi-talented sophomore reserve Larry Weatherford, who would finish his career with 1,103 points, filled in admirably for Gilliam. Jerry Johnson, a 6-10 center and starter the year before, replaced Bavis in the lineup and responded with a game-high 16 rebounds against Marquette.
More importantly, he set the pick for one of the most famous shots in Purdue basketball history.
Thanks to a critical steal by Faerber and a missed free throw by Marquette, Purdue was able to get the game into overtime. Mount, who had suffered through a poor shooting game, scored two baskets in the final minute of overtime to seal the deal.
The final hoop came with just two seconds left, thanks in part to Johnson helping Mount get free.
“I remember getting bumped hard by (Marquette guard Dean) Meminger when trying to set the screen,” said Johnson, who still works in the family-owned building supplies business in his boyhood home of Knox, Ind. “I thought the refs might call a foul, but luckily for me and us (Johnson was a career 57-percent free throw shooter) they didn’t.”
Faerber recalls Mount being confident when Purdue left the huddle following a timeout with 26 second left to set up the last-second shot.
“One thing that stays with me is what Rick (Mount) said to us after we broke the huddle,” Faerber said. “He said ‘I’m going to hit it’ and the rest of us just knew he would. And, a few seconds later he did.”
After a celebration at the Purdue Airport that included 3,000 faithful, the Boilermakers prepared for a date with Coach Dean Smith’s powerful North Carolina Tar Heels, which included current Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. In the days leading up to the game, George King felt that Smith and Co. were looking past his team in hopes of a rematch of the 1968 title game with UCLA.
“They took us for granted and I wasn’t too happy about that,” George King said. “We took advantage of their overplaying defense with a lot of back-door cuts. They were no match for our quickness.
“Rick (who was not known as much of a defender) also did a great job of defending (UNC All-American) Charlie Scott during a critical period of the game. He shut him down and so did Herman the rest of the game.”
The end result was arguably the greatest single-game effort in the last half century of Boilermaker basketball. Purdue destroyed North Carolina, 92-65.
But the injury bug bit the Boilers again. Late in the contest with the outcome decided, Keller pulled up lame with a deep thigh bruise.
So, the injury-plagued Boilermakers headed into a return match with UCLA and Wooden two days later with the national title on the line. Keller and Gilliam were at half speed and with no Bavis bulk to battle Alcindor, Purdue was doomed.
“Coach (George) King was prophetic in his comments before the game,” Johnson, who drew the assignment on Alcindor along with 6-8 Frank Kaufman. “He said, ‘We’ll let Lew get his 37 points and we’ll still beat them.’”
Unfortunately, the Boilermakers managed just 29 percent from the field and lost 92-72. And Alcindor scored — you guessed it — 37 and grabbed 22 rebounds. With Gilliam and Keller slowed, the pressure on Mount was too much. He made his first two shots of the game, but then missed his next 13. By the time he restored his shooting touch, it was too late.
“Poor Rick couldn’t drop kick the ball in the basket that day,” said Bedford, who has run his own limousine company for 20 years in the Bay Area. “Rick was the greatest shooter there ever was, but on that day there was too much pressure on him to do it all.”
Even Wooden, the three-time Purdue All-American, realized he had won his unprecedented third-straight NCAA title against a hampered Purdue team. Following the game, he paid a visit to Bavis who was seated on the Purdue bench. In Wooden’s formal style, he referred to Bavis as Charles and his star center as Lewis.
“I was honored to have Coach Wooden compliment me about the good job I had done against ‘Lewis,’” Bavis said. Wooden wished Bavis luck recovering from his injury, but Bavis had no such good fortune. A car accident a few months later resulted in the amputation of his foot.
Like many Purdue followers, George King sometimes wonders what might have been had the Boilermakers played UCLA at full strength, but admits it doesn’t occupy his brain for extended periods of time.
“I think we could have given UCLA all it wanted with Billy, Chuck and Herman at full strength,” he said. “But to be honest, 35 years have passed and my memories are clearer on the great things this team accomplished and the rapport it had with all that saw it play, then one game. This team was amazing.” j
1968-69 (23-5)
Date Opponent Result
Nov. 30 @ No. 1 UCLA L, 82-94
Dec. 5 North Dakota W, 116-84
Dec. 7 Miami (Ohio) W, 78-70
Dec. 10 Butler W, 93-55
Dec. 14 Ohio W, 100-89
Dec. 20 No. 15 California$ W, 98-91
Dec. 21 Arizona State$ L, 80-85
Dec. 27 Arizona* W, 98-72
Dec. 28 Columbia* L, 74-78
Dec. 30 Hawaii* W, 97-68
Jan. 4 @Wisconsin W, 86-80
Jan. 7 No. 14 Illinois W, 98-84
Jan. 25 @Minnesota W, 102, 79
Feb. 1 No. 12 Ohio State W, 95-85
Feb. 4 Iowa W, 99-87
Feb. 8 @Northwestern W, 97-84
Feb. 11 @ No. 16 Ohio State L, 85-88
Feb. 15 Wisconsin W, 87-69
Feb. 18 @Indiana W, 96-95
Feb. 22 Northwestern W, 107-68
Feb. 25 @Michigan State W, 74-72
Mar. 1 @Iowa W, 97-85
Mar. 4 Michigan W, 116-87
Mar. 8 Indiana W, 120-76
Mar. 13 Miami (Ohio)# W, 91-71
Mar. 15 Marquette# W, 75-73
Mar. 20 No. 4 North Carolina% W, 92-65
Mar. 22 No. 1 UCLA% L, 72-92
$=Sun Devil Classic, Tempe Ariz.
*= Rainbow Classic, Honolulu, Hawaii
#= NCAA Mideast Regional, Madison, Wis.
%= Final Four, Louisville, Ky.
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