A quick look back: the '76 OU recruiting class

[NMSooner'80]

Only three of the seven finished up at OU, and only five of them had any sort of impact. But at the time, the '76 recruiting class added some size and skill to a rebuilt OU roster.

The seven were: Al Beal, 6-9, Deerfield Beach, Fla.; Terry Stotts, 6-8, Bloomington, Ind.; Aaron Curry, 6-4, Buffalo, N.Y.; Clifford Johnson, 6-8, also from Florida, Drew Head, 6-10, Wheat Ridge, Colo.; Scott Finet, 6-9 out of Illinois and Wayne Nelson, 6-3, from the memorably named town of Dry Prong, La.

Curry was thought to be the big prize in the class. He was good - and served as the sixth man on the '77 team that shocked many by contending for the Big 8 title until the final game of the regular season. Beal set many rebounding and shot blocking records and scored the game-winning bucket in the epic OU-Missouri game that rocked the LNC and the campus. Stotts is more famous for being the coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, but he was a first-team all-league player as a senior.

Johnson, a ferocious dunker (in the first year that the dunk was being allowed again), started off the season great in '77 but was eventually replaced in the starting lineup by Stotts, a better overall shooter. Head started at center but lost confidence and wound up being replaced by Beal. Both guys transferred out after their sophomore years, and Head wound up being a college teammate of Tony Gwynn at San Diego State.

The previous year's team went only 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 and 5-10. So that added size from the freshmen, along with the maturity of sophs John McCullough and Cary Carrabine, helped spark an eventual run at the league title in '79. Who knows what we'd think of basketball at OU without some of that late 70's success?

 

[usedtobe1]

I remember that group. I was out of college and my roommate and I would go to KC every year for the Big 8 pre-season tournament every year. I remember shooting the bull with John McCullough on a Saturday morning watching a game for 7th place with less than 100 people in the arena, and it was standing room only for the championship game later that night between KU and Missouri. Fun times.

Of course I remember Beal, Stotts, and Curry along with McCullough and Carrabine. I even remember Drew Head but don't remember Clifford Johnson.

 

[NMSooner'80]

I remember that group. I was out of college and my roommate and I would go to KC every year for the Big 8 pre-season tournament every year. I remember shooting the bull with John McCullough on a Saturday morning watching a game for 7th place with less than 100 people in the arena, and it was standing room only for the championship game later that night between KU and Missouri. Fun times.

Of course I remember Beal, Stotts, and Curry along with McCullough and Carrabine. I even remember Drew Head but don't remember Clifford Johnson.

Johnson left after his sophomore year and transferred to Stetson, a small D-1 school in Florida. He had some really good early-season games, and I think he torched eventual Final Four team UNLV for 31 in a game out there. But he didn't have a whole lot of range on his shot. But since dunks were a novelty in the fall of '76, he was an early fan favorite.

 

[NMSooner'80]

I had classes with Head and Beal while at OU, and I also got to know Stotts and Curry when we were all seniors. I wanted to post about that class because it's the 40th anniversary of their arrival (along with this weekend being my 40th high school reunion, but I digress). Those were all good guys.

 

[WaymanFan]

Great thread, NM! Those guys deserve mentioning. That class was very underrated and one of the 10 best in my lifetime (I'm only about 5 years younger than you). If they don't get more recognition, it was because Dave Bliss seemingly stopped recruiting and never built on that class. His next (and last) three full classes produced one impact player (Chucky Barnett, which Billy Tubbs deserves most of the credit for), and two solid ones (Raymond Whitley and Bo Overton)...but it all turned out for the best in the long run.

 

[Larry72]

John McCleod got OU's program re-established in the late 60's and early 70's. Bliss had a couple of good years, but then fizzled out. Billy came in and got it really rolling.

 

[Northbase]

Drew Head will be remembered mostly, for dunking the ball on top of Larry Bird's head and knocking him down. Nobody could snag a rebound out of mid air like Al Beal!
Aaron "Tic" Curry had a crisp shot.

 

[NMSooner'80]

A couple of other neat things these guys helped OU accomplish back then included:

1. An undefeated home season in the second year of the LNC, including epic wins over KSU and Mizzou, back-to-back.
2. The seniors went 6-0 against Kansas State to end their careers. The Purple Aggies were appalled. I know from having gone to Manhattan in January of '80 to see OU beat then for what was the fifth straight time. And the KSU fans still didn't really respect OU basketball too much, before or after, judging from the conversations some of us had with their fans from our seats behind the OU bench.
3. They never lost a home game to OSU. In fact, a great "Recruiting Class '76" moment came when Al Beal just abused a 7-2 Aggy on a couple of trips down the court (wicked blocked shot at one end, followed by an alley-oop dunk over the same skinny Ag about 15 seconds later). I think then-OSU coach Guy Strong got his big guy out of there quickly to prevent further embarrassment.

 

[NMSooner'80]

John McCleod got OU's program re-established in the late 60's and early 70's. Bliss had a couple of good years, but then fizzled out. Billy came in and got it really rolling.

I always wondered how Bliss' first OU team would have done had Alvan Adams come back for his senior year. The rest of the holdover roster was pretty weak the year before Stotts/Beal/Curry, etc. arrived. I saw 3-4 games while a senior in high school in '75-76, and the OU starting five was smaller than what a lot of high schools field these days.

 

[Sooner04]

This is good stuff. When I was a little kid I used to devour the press guides, and I was always fascinated by the well-balanced production of the '79 Big 8 champs.

Raymond Whitley
Cary Carrabine
Terry Stotts
Aaron Curry
Al Beal
John McCullough

All of those guys were 1,000 point scorers.

That '76 class is definitely up there in terms of an overall influx of talent. When I first saw the incoming freshman of the '12-13 season, I thought it had a chance to be one of our all-timers. Losing Hornbeak hurt a bunch, but you could just see something special with Buddy and Isaiah.

Good stuff, NM. I still think Billy's 1983 stocking of the cupboard (Choo, TMac, DJ and Sieger) is the standard bearer. But the success of the 1976 group cannot be overlooked. I bet it was a ton of fun to follow the '79 team. I have family members who still have nothing nice to say about Larry Bird.