We need a funny basketball story

I've got one, which has been posted on other boards before, from my junior year at OU.

Back in the peach-basket days of the 1978-79 season, OU hosted Cal-Bakersfield in a game right after finals. It wound up a blowout, as the eventual Big 8 champs rolled visitors by about 25-30 points.

The interesting part came from the students' reaction to one of the Bakersfield players. He was a balding, "every-man" looking guy named Ethan Aronie. The thing that caught the students' attention was that he had just "E" on the back of his warm-up top. And, this was back when Elvin Hayes of the Washington Bullets was still in his prime, and his signature move was a turn-around jumper, after backing down his defender, while the home crowd chanted "E-E-E-E-E-E!" the whole time.

Since the game was in hand, the students started rooting for the chance to do their own "E-E-E-E-E-E!" chant. Aronie received a few of those but passed off without shooting. Finally he made a move on Al Beal and got fouled with about three minutes to go in the game, all the while being serenaded with "E-E-E-E-E-E!"

Aronie went to the line and clanked his first foul shot. You'd have thought the home team was about to lose, by the crowd reaction. But he made his second FT, and the place went nuts. Then, not long after, he was taken out of the game, and his replacement was verbally pummeled with boos.

And, with about a minute to play, the students started chanting, "We want 'E!' We want 'E!'" He never got back into the game, and I've always wondered what he thought of that attention.

On a funnier note, my brother tells of his med-school days, when Sam Hill of Iowa State would visit the LNC every year. One time, during the introductions, Hill trotted out when he name was called, probably NOT knowing that a guy in the "BLOB" section was up there with a newspaper behind his head, flapping them like Dumbo ears (and even rolling his head like Dumbo the Elephant). My brother said the guy doing the Dumbo thing had a facial expression (of dead-seriousness) that was about as funny as the act itself.
 
It's always fun when the crowd picks up on one of the opposition to razz...or even in some cases hoo-rah.

ODU was playing Fairfield, Hampton, or some school like that and they had the absolute dorkiest, nerdiest, most unathletic looking guard on their bench. He had the whole 9 yards going - BC glasses, greasy unkept hair, and long athletic socks. We in the student section started calling him "Spaz" and begged for the opposition to send him in.

"We want Spaz"
"send in Spaz"

Then the whole crowd began to chant "Spaz, Spaz, Spaz..." and he went in with about 90 seconds left in the game. They inbounded the ball - to Spaz - and HE HAD GAME! That kid had some major handles ... we were just going nuts cheering for him (Monarchs were up by like 20)..and then he hit a back door cutter with a no look pass from near the top of the key.

I had never heard the place so loud. A meaningless bucket, by the other team no less, and the place had gone azz wild. Fun times.
 
Billy Tubbs addressing the crowd about throwing things on the floor is always good for a laugh.
The chant when playing Morehead State is entertaining. (we want......Morehead!)
Or Austin Peay's Let's Go Peay! cheer. College life is great, isn't it?
 
In the 86 or 87 season, we played NC State in Norman. NCSU had a player by the name of Shackelford, who was a 6'11" post and even played a few years in the NBA. They also had another post on that team by the name of Chris Washburn, who was a big time prospect and I think he played even longer in the NBA than Shackelford.

Anyway, in the pre-game warmups the OU students were really giving Shackelford a hard time about something. I think he may have missed a dunk or an easy layup and they picked him to razz and they were really giving it to him. This was back when they used to setup the temp bleachers (that had 3 or 4 rows) behind the North goal for big games (NCSU was a top 20 team that season). The students behind the goal were the ones who were really razzing Shackelford.

So, the NCS team is doing a 3 line layup drill, and Shackelford get's the pass and it appears he is going up for a shot, but instead it appeared the ball slipped out of his hand and he threw a rope into the bleachers that hit a student on the top row right in the face. It tagged the guy pretty hard and he wasn't ready because of the way Shackelford pulled it off. The entire NCSU team busted out laughing while Shackelford is looking at his hands like it slipped and was an accident.

My dad and I laughed our butts off...it was hilarious.
 
It's always fun when the crowd picks up on one of the opposition to razz...or even in some cases hoo-rah.

ODU was playing Fairfield, Hampton, or some school like that and they had the absolute dorkiest, nerdiest, most unathletic looking guard on their bench. He had the whole 9 yards going - BC glasses, greasy unkept hair, and long athletic socks. We in the student section started calling him "Spaz" and begged for the opposition to send him in.

"We want Spaz"
"send in Spaz"

Then the whole crowd began to chant "Spaz, Spaz, Spaz..." and he went in with about 90 seconds left in the game. They inbounded the ball - to Spaz - and HE HAD GAME! That kid had some major handles ... we were just going nuts cheering for him (Monarchs were up by like 20)..and then he hit a back door cutter with a no look pass from near the top of the key.

I had never heard the place so loud. A meaningless bucket, by the other team no less, and the place had gone azz wild. Fun times.


My senior year, OU played Midwestern State of Wichita Falls. That was no cupcake - they beat Utah in Salt Lake City, and the Utes later beat Louisville (the eventual national champ) and only lost to OU by one point in an epic finish at the Cable Car Classic.

They had a guy that looked sort of like Spaz also. If you've never seen the movie "Meatballs," it's a must-see, even 31 years later. My frat-house roommate has one of voices that carries, and he yelled out, "Hey, SPAZ!" It reverberated all over the LNC, and people who knew about that movie were LOL.
 
Don't have one of me holding a basketball, but I do have this one of Harvey Grant "releasing" one through the hoop in 1988 against UNM.

GrantOverRobbins.jpg


The thing that makes this shot funny is that the guy getting posterized is a world champion peckerwood who was a problem for every coach since high school who didn't coddle him.
 
Don't have one of me holding a basketball, but I do have this one of Harvey Grant "releasing" one through the hoop in 1988 against UNM.

GrantOverRobbins.jpg


The thing that makes this shot funny is that the guy getting posterized is a world champion peckerwood who was a problem for every coach since high school who didn't coddle him.

looks like he's doing the coddling in that pic...
 
who's the fellow getting posterized by Harvey?


That's Rob Robbins, then a redshirt freshman for the UNM Lobos. His team got worked that day back in February of '88, and this dunk capped a 10-0 run that took all of 35 seconds.

His dad was a world-champion enabler, and from what I've heard, he was that way clear back to the mid-1980's at Farmington (N.M.) High. He had a decent career but was a one-dimensional player. He always seemed to resent it that guys came along later at UNM who were simply better than him, and there were always strong rumors about him being a malcontent and party-animal.

I didn't like it when he basically danced on the grave of Patrick Dennehy, the ill-fated ex-Lobo and Baylor payer. Since it made Dave Bliss look bad (Bliss didn't recruit him, and probably wished he'd run him off), it seemed perfectly fine with Robbins that Dennehy was murdered.

That sounds like an exaggeration, but I definitely wasn't the only Albuquerque person who was offended by how this then-35-year-old guy was that childish and vindictive. No one was excusing what Bliss did in Waco, but too many people knew enough about Robbins to respect his trying to act like Mr. Morality years later, either.

BTW, I almost missed that shot, because I thought Grant was going to feed Mookie Blaylock trailing the play. He fed the leather to Robbins instead. :clap
 
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