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Username Post: A modest proposal        (Topic#26306)
cc66 
Postdoc
Posts: 2201

Reg: 10-09-09
05-16-22 08:58 PM - Post#341495    

In November, 1965, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and his freshmen teammates beat the UCLA varsity squad that had won the college championship earlier that year.

The recollection of this event made me wonder: what would happen if the newly recruited 1st years plus one soph. played the varsity. How close a game would that be?

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
Re: A modest proposal
05-17-22 09:51 AM - Post#341497    
    In response to cc66

I remember that discussion from the last years of freshman ball at Penn, when Penn had a freshman team of Tony Price, Bobby Willis, Matt White, Tim Smith, among others. And Columbia had a freshman team of Ricky Free, Juan Mitchell and Alton Byrd. I had friends at Columbia and we used to compare who was going to have the better team in the coming years. (It was close). But as to the topic of the last years of freshman ball, here's a NY Times article about the decision to allow freshman eligibilty and the moaning of the Ivy coaches about not allowing them to offer scholarships as the costs of education increase. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1977...

 
LocalTiger 
Masters Student
Posts: 406

Age: 58
Reg: 11-15-17
05-17-22 01:53 PM - Post#341502    
    In response to palestra38

the Columbia team you mention was a year older than the Penn
team. Kevin McDonald, et al were the same age as Byrd and Free.
Princeton's class that year was Sowinski, Omeltchenko, Rizzuto.
They won the League as Juniors and only lost once as a freshman team.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
A modest proposal
05-17-22 02:47 PM - Post#341503    
    In response to LocalTiger

Sorry---while you are right about the Princeton team, you are wrong about Columbia. All three--Byrd, Mitchell and Free were class of '79, as were Price, Smith, Willis and White of Penn. They had the same freshman class. The Sowinski/Roma class at Princeton was 1 year ahead of them and won the league in '76 and '77 (but lost to Penn their senior year in '78)---years I called the games at Penn on XPN. All great teams but the Penn and Columbia teams came up at the same time. Penn had 3 really good players who graduated in '78 as well (McDonald, Greene, Crowley) but the Final Four team edged out the best Columbia team since the McMillian years

 
LocalTiger 
Masters Student
Posts: 406

Age: 58
Reg: 11-15-17
05-17-22 05:53 PM - Post#341511    
    In response to palestra38

Bob Roma, who recently passed away, was not in the same class
as Frank Sowinski. Roma was '79.

 
palestra38 
Professor
Posts: 32680

Reg: 11-21-04
05-17-22 07:15 PM - Post#341514    
    In response to LocalTiger

Sad to hear...he was a very good player.

 
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