1972 memphis tigers

Shannon Kennedy. Jim Liss. Billy Buford. Larry Finch. Larry Trosper. Ken Andrews. Ronnie Robinson. Ed Wilson. Larry Kenon. Doug McKinney.

Wes Westfall. Bill Cook. Clarence Jones. John Tunstall. John Washington. There is no additional information to display: View Full Bio. Full Bio. The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy. We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. Players G 5'10". Versailles, Mo. Versailles H. Junior Versailles, Mo. G 6'4". South Bend, Ind.

Andrew Jackson H. Senior South Bend, Ind. G 6'3". Muncie, Ind. Burris H. Sophomore Muncie, Ind. G 6'2". Finch and Robinson won wide acclaim in Memphis, as the city was finally removing the distinction between the all-white Prep League and all-black Negro League. During their senior year, they led Melrose to a 34—2 record. Before the city championship game, four thousand fans were turned away from a sold-out Mid-South Coliseum.

Various college programs recruited Finch and Robinson. Leonard Draper, an African American recruiter for the Tigers, became a consistent presence on their doorsteps. In they both chose Memphis State out of some combination of hometown pride and family ties. Melrose coach William Collins refused to attend their signing ceremony since the university had a reputation as being hostile to African Americans.

At Memphis State, though, Finch often celebrated how basketball erased racial barriers. He considered his team a model for the larger society. Everybody would try to understand more about the races. Black people would try to understand the whites better and the whites would try to understand the blacks.

Finch, for instance, had declined two lucrative summer jobs so he could mentor children at the Melrose gym. In a somewhat extraordinary gesture, the —73 team media guide was dedicated to their mothers, Mabel Finch and Naomi Robinson.

For whites, MSU basketball had long been the biggest show in town. The team kept achieving success and appeared in the NCAA tournament. These teams were all-white, mirroring the segregation of college sports in the South until the mids. Moe Iba became head coach in , after four seasons as a recruiter and scout for Texas Western University, which beat the No.

In Memphis, he started recruiting more African Americans. By —69 his team had eight blacks, including the outstanding Richard Jones. Despite recruiting players who thrived in a fast-paced style, Iba insisted upon a deliberate passing offense and traditional man-to-man defense. The new coach, Gene Bartow, quickly won admiration for his integrity, courtly manners, and close-knit family. He also courted the Rebounders, a booster club of about three hundred members, which supplied his players with mentors and high-paying summer jobs.

Bartow embraced the trappings of big-time college basketball. Now, at Mid-South Coliseum, players were introduced under a spotlight, fans hung banners and posters, and a pep band, pretty cheerleaders, and uniformed color guards entertained the crowd. While urging fast-break basketball, he resuscitated the Memphis State program. When Finch and Robinson were sophomores, the team finished 18—8. The next year, the Tigers went 21—5 and tied for the Missouri Valley Conference championship before losing a one-game playoff for the berth to the NCAA tournament.

Finch and Robinson flourished under Bartow. Finch, a 6'2" guard, was a brilliant shooter and deft passer. Before the —73 season Bartow landed a prize recruit.

Larry Kenon, a 6'9" All-American at Amarillo Junior College in Texas, had averaged twenty-seven points and twenty-five rebounds a game. Despite scholarship offers from big-time college programs and contract offers from the American Basketball Association, he chose Memphis State because it was a quality program near his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. He impressed his new teammates before the first practice, when he palmed two basketballs, soared above the rim, and dunked them both.

He also nursed a pulled groin muscle throughout the early season, so it took time for Memphis fans to appreciate his greatness. Bartow lured two other junior college transfers, Wes Westfall and Billy Buford. Like Kenon and Robinson, both were talented, athletic forwards who wore fashionable Afros. The new supply of talent meant that Memphis State basketball featured four black starters, with Buford the first player off the bench.

The only white starter was Bill Laurie, a tough little point guard who focused on passing and defending. Moreover, the three junior college arrivals felt some resentment.

Louis, Wooden, beat your Bruins there! Meet me in St. When the season started, that confidence seemed absurdly misplaced. Even in a win over South Florida, the Tigers looked sloppy on offense and sluggish on defense.

In Milwaukee, they lost a close game to fifth-ranked Marquette, and in a home game against a mediocre Texas squad, the Tigers turned the ball over, failed to feed their big men, allowed too many layups, blew a ten-point second-half lead, and lost by one point.

Their record stood at 2—3. Bartow was tinkering with the lineup. The players were despondent. Fans were grumbling. Finch was in a shooting slump and looked overweight. Robinson was in-and-out of the lineup with injuries, as were others.

But the biggest problem was learning to sacrifice for the sake of the team. After the Texas debacle, the players held a closed-door meeting. Slowly, the Tigers rounded into form.

In consecutive home dates, they routed Navy and overcame an eleven-point deficit against UC—Santa Barbara. In Little Rock, they edged a scrappy Arkansas team—reserve guard Jim Liss played only the last twenty-seven seconds, but he sank the free throw that gave Memphis State a one-point victory.

Finch then netted thirty-five points in a post-Christmas annihilation of Cornell. The last game of was on the road against undefeated, 10th ranked Vanderbilt. The Commodores were favored by seven and a half points. The Tigers led early, but Vanderbilt staged a comeback. Bartow grew furious.

His players kept getting battered, while the referees choked on their whistles. After receiving a technical foul, Bartow waved his arms, motioning for his club to leave the floor and head to the locker room—a bluff, to be sure, but it made a point. The Tigers held on for a three-point upset victory. Afterwards, the players exuded a quiet pride, a good sign for a once-troubled team.

Yet MSU lacked the intellectual or social community of many big universities. By more than three-fourths of the eighteen thousand students were commuters, and approximately 60 percent worked at least part-time.

Students complained about overcrowded classes, underqualified instructors, and an apathetic campus culture. Sports thus served as a critical binding agent, uniting students while connecting the campus to the city. Despite hiring a promising new coach, Fred Pancoast, the football team lost its first four games and finished 5—5—1. Home crowds were disappointing all season. Civic leaders envisioned big-time sports in Memphis, but that vision kept fading.

In the fall of , the city council reviewed proposals to expand Memphis Memorial Stadium and possibly add an exclusive stadium club or even a domed plexiglass roof. Supporters touted that it would lure visitors and entice an NFL team, but critics balked at the price tag.

That same fall, Memphis State announced plans for a new basketball arena just north of campus. It would have seated five thousand more people than the Mid-South Coliseum, which was located at the fairgrounds almost three miles away. But students and residents complained about the costs and disruption, and that arena was never built, either. Professional sports had a tenuous foothold in Memphis. After two months of terrible crowds, the owner deeded the franchise to the league office.

Memphians managed to keep the team through a February stock offering, but in the Pros finished in last place and bled money. Flamboyant sports magnate Charles O. The team endured player holdouts and dizzying roster changes. Finley looked to sell the franchise. Its latest coach resigned. The Tams finished in last place, with an even worse record.

By contrast, Memphis State basketball had about seven thousand season ticket holders. Students loyally attended games. Most away games were televised, while fans often listened to home games on the radio and then watched the replay on late-night public television. After all, Memphis State basketball is the biggest show in town. During the November elections, Memphis State basketball directly figured into one local campaign. His Republican opponent was Brad Martin, the student government association president at Memphis State who would turn twenty-one two days before the election.

A cloud of disillusion hung over the national political scene, with the Vietnam War finally ending and the Watergate scandal just beginning. Even with African American progress in electoral politics—Barbara Jordan and Andrew Young became the first two black representatives from the South—there remained a widespread black pessimism.

Kuykendall won, in part, by offering coded warnings about the burgeoning threat of black political power. Local black leaders remained loyal to the Democratic Party, but the young Martin cast himself in the mold of moderate Tennessee Republicans, such as Gov.

Winfield Dunn or Sen. Howard Baker, who sought alliances with black power brokers. Martin was friends with Finch and Robinson—he loved basketball and even traveled to various road games. When he ran for office, the Memphis State stars endorsed him and attended campaign rallies. Finch and Robinson helped render Martin a legitimate option in Orange Mound, despite his Republican affiliation.

Five children were distributing pro-Jim Williams campaign leaflets in a white neighborhood. In this context, the Williams campaign was suggesting that Martin was an unsavory race-mixer. Martin and his campaign manager drove there and talked to the kids, who admitted that they had been hired by Jim Williams.

The adults drove them home. The judge ultimately dismissed the charges. Martin narrowly edged Williams, becoming the youngest state representative in Tennessee history. He won about 30 percent of the black vote, an unusually high percentage for a Republican in Memphis State began its Missouri Valley Conference schedule after the New Year, starting with a harrowing two-game road trip in the Midwest.

Traveling through a blizzard, the team had to deplane in Kansas City and ride a bus all night to reach Iowa City, where it took two overtimes to beat a resilient, pressing Drake squad.

The Tigers then started a seven-game home stand. After outlasting a deliberate St. Louis team, Finch set a single-game scoring record with forty-eight points against St. Memphis State next faced its nemesis, Louisville.

Fueled by a raucous crowd, the Tigers staged a 20—5 run in the second half and held on for the win. The Tigers were now 13—3 and back in the national conversation, ranked No. During these January games, Bartow unveiled a new weapon: a full-court zone press, which forced turnovers and fueled surges of momentum. When New Mexico State tried to stall after opening an early lead, Bartow used the zone press to discombobulate the opposing guards. The Tigers then beat Drake and faced Bradley, which tried to slow the game to a crawl, drawing hisses and boos from the crowd.

Again pressing their stalling opponent, Memphis State prevailed and swept its homestand. Two nights later, Tulsa had an eight-point edge late in the second half. Finch found his shooting touch, Kenon blossomed into a superstar, Robinson was healthy, and Billy Buford sparked the team off the bench. Memphis State needed two more difficult road wins. The team then played under tight security at New Mexico State, where a recent ban on female visitation in male dormitories had ignited violence and arson.

With five seconds left and Memphis State up 54—53, superstar guard John Williamson uncharacteristically missed a seventeen-foot jump shot. Kenon soared over the opposing center to grab a spectacular rebound, and Memphis State claimed the conference championship.

On campus, everyone wanted to talk about basketball. The raucous crowds at Mid-South Coliseum gave the team an advantage, but their zeal had a dark edge. During one game, three officers tackled and beat a recent Memphis State graduate, simply because he had questioned the arrest of his friend. Find out more. We present them here for purely educational purposes. Our reasoning for presenting offensive logos.

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See our list of forfeits and vacated games for more details. More Memphis Pages. Full Site Menu Return to Top. Heisman Trophy Winners: D. Henry , B. Sanders , R. Williams , T. Dorsett , T. All-Americans: A. Cooper , J.