Four members of the championship USA Pan-American Games basketball team in 1967 earned a spot on the Olypmics: Calvin Fowler, former St. Francis of Loretto backcourt player who then moved on to play for Goodyear Wingfoots in Akron; JoJo White from U of Kansas, and a pair from the US Army : Captain Mike Silliman (then stationed in Korea) and John Clawson, a teammate of Cazzie Russell at the U of Michigan. The big men were Spencer Haywood (from Trinidad State Junior College in Colorodo) and Houston's Ken Spain. Upfront were Ohio State's Bill Hosket, North Carolina's Charley Scott, Don Dee from St. Mary's of the Plains in Kansas, and Jim King who played for Coach Iba at Oklahoma State, and who had also moved on to the Goodyear Wingfoots. Rounding out the backcourt were Glynn Saulters, a guard from Northeast Louisiana University and Mike Barrett, a 6'2" guard from West Virginia Institute of Technology, who went on to play in the ABA.
In that Sept 28, 1968 exhibition game between the Olympic team and the Knicks in which the Olympic team won 65-64 ... the game went into Overtime. The Olympic team was led by Haywood's 17 points and Mike Barrett's go-ahead shot with 37 seconds remaining. Cazzie Russell led the Knicks with 12 points. I'm sure, after this game, the supporters of the US Olympic team started feeling a little better about themselves.
Found a newspaper article from March 29, 1968. It described the Olympic basketball trials that were held the night before in Louisville. The East team defeated the College division 83-74. Tennessee's 7-foot Tom Boerwinkle paced the winning East squad scoring 23 points and grabbing 18 rebounds. In the second game, Calvin Murphy scored 20 points to lead Central to an 89-80 victory over the West. It's not clear what team Maravich played on, but he finished with two points, taking only three shots and playing about half the game.
Another reason that some NCAA stars choose not to participate was because of a strange policy instituted by Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This is described in the great book "American Hoops: U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball from Berlin to Beijing" by Carson Cunningham. Burndage maintained that even if a player had not yet turned pro, he we ineligible for the Olympics if he INTENDED to turn pro right after the Games. "It was an unrealistic and baffling stance that caused players and professional leagues to approach the subject with the utmost delicacy". Keep in mind that these Olympics were being played in October, which was around the time NBA preseason was underway. It is for this reason that Elvin Hayes decided not to play for the Olympic team. Right after his Houston team was eliminated in the NCAA tournament, Hayes decided to go pro. He wound up signing a $440K deal with the San Diego Rockets. He was married at the time and had a son, so felt he had an obligation to his family to stay healthy and not risk injury at the Olympics.
I really wanted to understand how Maravich, who had just finished the year (his sophomore year) averaging 43.8ppg for LSU, didn't make the team. A very good explanation comes from the book "Shooting the Pistol" by Danny Brown. Pete played on the 10 man team coached by (later Golden State Warrior coach) Johnny Bach. Bach has a very methodical style of play that didn't really give Pete a chance to impress the selection committee. In one game, Bach played Pete only 9 minutes and 28 seconds, all in the first half. And then there was head Olympic Coach, the legendary Hank Iba (of Oklahoma Sate), who also favored a deliberate style of basketball which didn't favor high scorers. Brown points out that only one of the nation's leading scorers (Bill Hosket of Ohio State) made the team, noting that Calvin Murphy (who averaged 38.2ppg for Niagara) was also cut. The announcement of the Olympic team members was made on April 7, 1968. Maravich himself wrote about the experience in "Pistol Pete, Heir to a Dream". He mentions that, on the final day, he knew the Olympic selection had been denied to opportunity to see what he could do, so he put on a little bit of a show during the pregame warm-ups. He shot behind-the-back layups and half-court hook shots. Haywood stated "They cut LSU's Pistol Pete Maravich, the nation's leading scorer and world's greatest all-time ball-handler and passer. Pete had some kind of personality clash going on with John Bach, the coach of his tryout team, and Pete barely got off the bench in the tryout games. A bad break for the Pistol, but another stroke of fortune for me. Had Pete made the team, he would have been the hero an star. I would have been a role player, instead of the guy who carried the team"
My Dad went to all USA basketball games at 1968 , and told me many years later that Maravich , Lew Alcindor and other great players werent in the USA team and he never understood why ...... my dad died some years ago , but somebody knows why these great players werent in the team ? ...... my dad told me he was the happiest man at Palacio de los Deportes wachtching all US basketball games .
Jesus Christ, 72% FG for the entire tournament! This team won gold medal without Pistol Pete, Abdul-Jabbar, Elvin Hayes, Calvin Murphy, Wes Unseld, Bob Lainer, that team had potential to be the best of all college teams.
+Larry Legend I read that Big Bob Lanier was not invited to try out. Can you imagine!? 1968 was Bob's first year on varsity for St. Bonaventure and he had an incredible impact. At one point in the season, they had a 23-0 record and ranked 3rd nationally. Bib Bob averaged 26.2ppg while grabbing 15.6rppg in '68!
+ddenuci However, in another account (the book "Black History: More than just a month" by Mike Henry), the claim is that Lanier rejected the invitation to the Olympic trials. That would make more sense than the report that Lanier did not receive an invitation.
@Larry Legend Oh man, if only the player who represented USA team were all of that player you mentioned, that could've been the 2nd all amateur dream team ever assembled after the 1960 one !
As far as the Gold Medal game itself, the game was close in the 1st half. USA led by only 3 at halftime (32-29). The 2nd half started with the Americans playing a torrid defense. Yugo didn't score a point until 8:50 went by. Meanwhile, JoJo White and Haywood combined for 26 points in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half. USA won 65-50. Haywood was high scorer with 26. JoJo followed with 14.
The Cunningham book also provides some more details on the fates of the three great sophomore guards who didn't make the team. Mount, the Purdue guard who scored 28.4ppg during the college season, cored 21 points to lead all scorers in the first day of action at Albuquerque. Mount averaged just over 18ppg at the trials. Maravich managed only 6 points in his opener, as the NCAA Blues lost to the Haywood-led Junior College all-stars. Mount and Maravich lost out seemingly because of their relative youth and issues with their style. Murphy, who averaged 38.2ppg at Niagara, played solidly in Albuquerque. He helped his team, the NCAA Whites, to a 2-1 record. In early April, just days before he was cut, Auerbach described Murphy as the only college player that he would pay to see. Only one sophomore, 6'5" Charlie Scott from North Carolina, made the Olympic squad.
Apparently the way things worked for the Trials was as follows. 40 players were chosen to represent the NCAA, and they would make up four teams in the 8-team Olympic Trials. One of the squads of 10 men each will be composed exclusively of College Division players. Following exhibition games played in March, 40 of the 44 NCAA players would move to Albuquerque. (Note that Albuquerque was chosen because of its 5000 foot elevation, which would prepare the athletes for the even higher elevation of Mexico City). There, they met teams representing the nation's junior colleges, the armed forces, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and the AAU. The four NCAA teams played in a 3-game tournament, with members of the USOC Basketball Game Committee (45 members) observing. Then 18 players were picked(of the 80 participants) for a final Olympic training camp held in the summer. Just 12 players were pckied to go to Mexico City.
It's difficult to understand what was going on during the selection process for the '68 team. Maravich was a 1st team All-American in 1968 and Murphy was 2nd team!! How could they not be good enough for the Olympics?! They both went on to the NBA and the HoF. Other great scorers who didn't make the team (although they did make it as alternates) were Rick Mount and HoF Dan Issel. Part of the problem involved the history of how the US selected teams for the games. By '68, the Olympic Trials consisted of 3 NCAA all-star teams, and separate all star squads representing the AAU, NJCAA, NAIA and US Armed Forces.
The '68 USA team tuned up for the Olympics by playing a few games against the pros. On Sep 28, 1968, the Olympic team defeated Willis Reed and the Knicks 65-64. The next day, they lost to Oscar Robertson and the Cincinnati Royals 71-63. Then on Oct 5, they defeated the ABA Denver Rockets 69-53. (As an aside, Haywood would play for the Rockets a couple of years later and completely dominate the ABA in his rookie season).
Had he not had drug issues in the middle of his career, we would be talking about Spencer Haywood as a top 50 talent of all time. I got to see him with the Knicks, and the Knicks had no idea on how to use him, but he still made the most of his talents. it still sucked to see a PF trying to guard guys like Jabbar, McAdoo, Lanier and others.
Whenever I think of the great Spencer Haywood, I am also reminded of Sidney Wicks. Both guys were forwards who started their NBA careers in the early 70's with expansion teams in the great Northwest - Haywood with the Supersonics and Wicks with the TrailBlazers. And both got off to great starts and then somewhat faded as their careers moved on. For example, Haywood averaged 29.2 ppg in his third year with the Sonics at the age of 23. But his scoring averaged declined for each of the next 5 years, until he was averaging 13.7 ppg for the Knicks in 1977-78 season. Similarly, Wicks started his rookie season by averaging 24.5 ppg and his scoring average declined in each of his next 9 seasons!
Yet another reason that some stars were missing from the '68 Olympic team was due to the emergence of the ABA, according to Red Auerbach, as described in the book by Cunningham. The ABA, according to Red, were raiding college teams to sign underclassman. The NBA, on the other hand, had a policy of not drafting players until their eligibility is completed.
The 1968 Olympic team would've been the 2nd all-amateur dream team ever assembled after the 1960 one, if the team literally had a bunched of talented college player at the time like Pete Maravich, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, Calvin Murphy and Bob Lanier but sadly all of these player weren't chosen to be in the team. By the way, still respect for those USA line up who played in 1968s olympic and managed to carried USA to won 7th consecutive champion title though
Hank Iba ( USA Coach ) in my opinion was not a good Olympic Coach. His slowdown style of play really hurt our team in 1972. I fact the team with Kevin Joyce and Doug collins and others decided to up the tempo against Iba wishes. they were down too many points to play that slow pace. Iba was mad = but it worked as the USA team finally took the lead on Collins' foul shots with 3 seconds left. Everyone knows what happened after that. But players like Rick Mount and Pistol Pete and Calvin Murphy were cut from the squad. Are you kidding me .Those were the top offensive players in College ball. John Bach was a coach at Penn State ( Which never won anything in college Basketball.
The April 15, 1968 edition of Sports Illustrated has this to say "True enough, the Olympic Committee had coaxed and cajoled players into coming to Albuquerque for the tournament - 88 warm bodies spread across eight teams.... But most of the interest centered around those who didn't appear. The Big E had taken money (to sign a contract with the San Diego Rockets), Big Lew had taken a stand (he admits his decision included implicit approval of the boycott), and many others had just taken a powder of undetermined origin. ... Among the missing were Louisville's Westley Unsled, who said he was tired, Dayton's Don May, who said he was exhausted, and North Carolina's Larry Miller, who said he was injured. " One member of the selection committee, Pete Newell, said that the committee filet it lost 20 to 25 of the country's top college players, including the six best centers. Some college coaches suggested that the trials were ill-timed and should have been held in late summer when the players would be fresher and more enthusiastic, and would not have to miss classes. Charlie Scott stated that he didn't believe a boycott was the proper means of protest, but also said he wouldn't be "the only Negro out there". Jo Jo White didn't care if he was the only black player - he was going to play no matter what.
+ddenuci Just as a follow up to Pete Newell's comment that the Olympic team was missing the top 6 centers from the NCAA... the center on the team, i.e. the one who backed up Spencer Haywood, was 6'9" Kenny Spain from Houston. Houston, of course, had a great team in 1968 having defeated UCLA in the great game in the Astrodome that year. Spain was 2nd to Elvin Hayes for the Cougars in both points (14.4) and rebounds (12.8) per game that year. Houston coach Guy Lewis said that Spain was "strong as a bull". But, although he was selected by the Bulls with the 20th pick in the 1969 NBA draft and Oakland in the ABA draft, his only pro experience was playing 11 games for the ABA Pittsburgh Condors in the 1970-71 season. I believe he wanted to give the NFL a shot immediately following college and that is why he didn't start his pro basketball career until 1970. Sadly he passed away at the young age of 44 , due to cancer.
For comparison purposes, here are the 1968 All-American teams - 1st team: Alcindor, Hayes, Maravich, Larry Miller, Unseld. 2nd team: Lucius Allen, Lanier, Don May, Murphy and JoJo White. Could you imagine what an Olympic team consisting of these 10 players would have done? Alcindor, Hayes and Unseld as your starting frontcourt? Three guys who made the NBA Greatest 50 Players team.
Here's the 12-man squad that should have constituted the 1968 team: Guards: JoJo White, Calvin Murphy, Pete Maravich, and Rick Mount. Forwards: Charlie Scott, Elvin Hayes, Haywood, Larry Miller and Dan Issel. Centers: Lew Alcindor, Wes Unseld and Bob Lanier. ALternates : Lucious Allen, Neal Walk, Don May. It's safe to say that team would have won games by an average of 50 points, assuming Coach Iba allowed to play an uptempo game.
Jabbar (at that time, Lew Alcindor) gave conflicting accounts of why he didn't play in the '68 Olympics. But, from my reading, it does seem like he was part of the boycott called by Harry Edwards. I do find it interesting that the great black track stars of the era (Tommie Smith, Lee Evans, John Carlos, etc) participated in the Olympics and some of them made a statement (e.g., the black power salute). For track athletes at that time, the Olympics were the big thing. For great college basketball players, there was the NBA (and ABA, at that time). There was no equivalent for the track athlete (as well as many other events), i.e., no professional league waiting to pay the athlete a lot of money.
A couple of other guys who went on to have very good NBA careers who did not play on the '68 team include Neal Walk and Tom Boerwinkle. Walk is the answer to the trivia question of who did the Phoenix Suns get when they lost the coin flip to determine the #1 pick in the '69 NBA draft. The Bucks got Alcindor with the #1 pick, and the Suns got Neal Walk. But Walk did have a very respectable NBA career, including a year where he averaged 20ppg / 12rpg. The Suns obviously thought he was the 2nd best player in the nation. And yet he did not play on the '68 team. I believe Walk was part of the boycott and, for those who might not know, Walk was a white basketball star (and passed away not too long ago, in 2015). Boerwinkle was invited to try out for the team, but didn't make the cut. He went on to a fine 10 year career with the Chicago Bulls.
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Spencer Haywood was a beast, dude was amazing.
Four members of the championship USA Pan-American Games basketball team in 1967 earned a spot on the Olypmics: Calvin Fowler, former St. Francis of Loretto backcourt player who then moved on to play for Goodyear Wingfoots in Akron; JoJo White from U of Kansas, and a pair from the US Army : Captain Mike Silliman (then stationed in Korea) and John Clawson, a teammate of Cazzie Russell at the U of Michigan. The big men were Spencer Haywood (from Trinidad State Junior College in Colorodo) and Houston's Ken Spain. Upfront were Ohio State's Bill Hosket, North Carolina's Charley Scott, Don Dee from St. Mary's of the Plains in Kansas, and Jim King who played for Coach Iba at Oklahoma State, and who had also moved on to the Goodyear Wingfoots. Rounding out the backcourt were Glynn Saulters, a guard from Northeast Louisiana University and Mike Barrett, a 6'2" guard from West Virginia Institute of Technology, who went on to play in the ABA.
In that Sept 28, 1968 exhibition game between the Olympic team and the Knicks in which the Olympic team won 65-64 ... the game went into Overtime. The Olympic team was led by Haywood's 17 points and Mike Barrett's go-ahead shot with 37 seconds remaining. Cazzie Russell led the Knicks with 12 points. I'm sure, after this game, the supporters of the US Olympic team started feeling a little better about themselves.
Found a newspaper article from March 29, 1968. It described the Olympic basketball trials that were held the night before in Louisville. The East team defeated the College division 83-74. Tennessee's 7-foot Tom Boerwinkle paced the winning East squad scoring 23 points and grabbing 18 rebounds. In the second game, Calvin Murphy scored 20 points to lead Central to an 89-80 victory over the West. It's not clear what team Maravich played on, but he finished with two points, taking only three shots and playing about half the game.
Another reason that some NCAA stars choose not to participate was because of a strange policy instituted by Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This is described in the great book "American Hoops: U.S. Men's Olympic Basketball from Berlin to Beijing" by Carson Cunningham. Burndage maintained that even if a player had not yet turned pro, he we ineligible for the Olympics if he INTENDED to turn pro right after the Games. "It was an unrealistic and baffling stance that caused players and professional leagues to approach the subject with the utmost delicacy". Keep in mind that these Olympics were being played in October, which was around the time NBA preseason was underway. It is for this reason that Elvin Hayes decided not to play for the Olympic team. Right after his Houston team was eliminated in the NCAA tournament, Hayes decided to go pro. He wound up signing a $440K deal with the San Diego Rockets. He was married at the time and had a son, so felt he had an obligation to his family to stay healthy and not risk injury at the Olympics.
I really wanted to understand how Maravich, who had just finished the year (his sophomore year) averaging 43.8ppg for LSU, didn't make the team. A very good explanation comes from the book "Shooting the Pistol" by Danny Brown. Pete played on the 10 man team coached by (later Golden State Warrior coach) Johnny Bach. Bach has a very methodical style of play that didn't really give Pete a chance to impress the selection committee. In one game, Bach played Pete only 9 minutes and 28 seconds, all in the first half. And then there was head Olympic Coach, the legendary Hank Iba (of Oklahoma Sate), who also favored a deliberate style of basketball which didn't favor high scorers. Brown points out that only one of the nation's leading scorers (Bill Hosket of Ohio State) made the team, noting that Calvin Murphy (who averaged 38.2ppg for Niagara) was also cut. The announcement of the Olympic team members was made on April 7, 1968. Maravich himself wrote about the experience in "Pistol Pete, Heir to a Dream". He mentions that, on the final day, he knew the Olympic selection had been denied to opportunity to see what he could do, so he put on a little bit of a show during the pregame warm-ups. He shot behind-the-back layups and half-court hook shots. Haywood stated "They cut LSU's Pistol Pete Maravich, the nation's leading scorer and world's greatest all-time ball-handler and passer. Pete had some kind of personality clash going on with John Bach, the coach of his tryout team, and Pete barely got off the bench in the tryout games. A bad break for the Pistol, but another stroke of fortune for me. Had Pete made the team, he would have been the hero an star. I would have been a role player, instead of the guy who carried the team"
I always wondered why Pete got cut.
Very good points Thanks for the information
My Dad went to all USA basketball games at 1968 , and told me many years later that Maravich , Lew Alcindor and other great players werent in the USA team and he never understood why ...... my dad died some years ago , but somebody knows why these great players werent in the team ? ...... my dad told me he was the happiest man at Palacio de los Deportes wachtching all US basketball games .
Jesus Christ, 72% FG for the entire tournament! This team won gold medal without Pistol Pete, Abdul-Jabbar, Elvin Hayes, Calvin Murphy, Wes Unseld, Bob Lainer, that team had potential to be the best of all college teams.
+Larry Legend: I thought the same thing. I'm still wondering, 'How did they do that?'
+Larry Legend I read that Big Bob Lanier was not invited to try out. Can you imagine!? 1968 was Bob's first year on varsity for St. Bonaventure and he had an incredible impact. At one point in the season, they had a 23-0 record and ranked 3rd nationally. Bib Bob averaged 26.2ppg while grabbing 15.6rppg in '68!
+ddenuci However, in another account (the book "Black History: More than just a month" by Mike Henry), the claim is that Lanier rejected the invitation to the Olympic trials. That would make more sense than the report that Lanier did not receive an invitation.
@Larry Legend
Oh man, if only the player who represented USA team were all of that player you mentioned, that could've been the 2nd all amateur dream team ever assembled after the 1960 one !
As far as the Gold Medal game itself, the game was close in the 1st half. USA led by only 3 at halftime (32-29). The 2nd half started with the Americans playing a torrid defense. Yugo didn't score a point until 8:50 went by. Meanwhile, JoJo White and Haywood combined for 26 points in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half. USA won 65-50. Haywood was high scorer with 26. JoJo followed with 14.
The Cunningham book also provides some more details on the fates of the three great sophomore guards who didn't make the team. Mount, the Purdue guard who scored 28.4ppg during the college season, cored 21 points to lead all scorers in the first day of action at Albuquerque. Mount averaged just over 18ppg at the trials. Maravich managed only 6 points in his opener, as the NCAA Blues lost to the Haywood-led Junior College all-stars. Mount and Maravich lost out seemingly because of their relative youth and issues with their style. Murphy, who averaged 38.2ppg at Niagara, played solidly in Albuquerque. He helped his team, the NCAA Whites, to a 2-1 record. In early April, just days before he was cut, Auerbach described Murphy as the only college player that he would pay to see. Only one sophomore, 6'5" Charlie Scott from North Carolina, made the Olympic squad.
Apparently the way things worked for the Trials was as follows. 40 players were chosen to represent the NCAA, and they would make up four teams in the 8-team Olympic Trials. One of the squads of 10 men each will be composed exclusively of College Division players. Following exhibition games played in March, 40 of the 44 NCAA players would move to Albuquerque. (Note that Albuquerque was chosen because of its 5000 foot elevation, which would prepare the athletes for the even higher elevation of Mexico City). There, they met teams representing the nation's junior colleges, the armed forces, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics and the AAU. The four NCAA teams played in a 3-game tournament, with members of the USOC Basketball Game Committee (45 members) observing. Then 18 players were picked(of the 80 participants) for a final Olympic training camp held in the summer. Just 12 players were pckied to go to Mexico City.
It's difficult to understand what was going on during the selection process for the '68 team. Maravich was a 1st team All-American in 1968 and Murphy was 2nd team!! How could they not be good enough for the Olympics?! They both went on to the NBA and the HoF. Other great scorers who didn't make the team (although they did make it as alternates) were Rick Mount and HoF Dan Issel. Part of the problem involved the history of how the US selected teams for the games. By '68, the Olympic Trials consisted of 3 NCAA all-star teams, and separate all star squads representing the AAU, NJCAA, NAIA and US Armed Forces.
I have read Coach Iba didn't care for free wheeling type players. There goes any chance for Maravich and Murphy.
The '68 USA team tuned up for the Olympics by playing a few games against the pros. On Sep 28, 1968, the Olympic team defeated Willis Reed and the Knicks 65-64. The next day, they lost to Oscar Robertson and the Cincinnati Royals 71-63. Then on Oct 5, they defeated the ABA Denver Rockets 69-53. (As an aside, Haywood would play for the Rockets a couple of years later and completely dominate the ABA in his rookie season).
Had he not had drug issues in the middle of his career, we would be talking about Spencer Haywood as a top 50 talent of all time. I got to see him with the Knicks, and the Knicks had no idea on how to use him, but he still made the most of his talents. it still sucked to see a PF trying to guard guys like Jabbar, McAdoo, Lanier and others.
Whenever I think of the great Spencer Haywood, I am also reminded of Sidney Wicks. Both guys were forwards who started their NBA careers in the early 70's with expansion teams in the great Northwest - Haywood with the Supersonics and Wicks with the TrailBlazers. And both got off to great starts and then somewhat faded as their careers moved on. For example, Haywood averaged 29.2 ppg in his third year with the Sonics at the age of 23. But his scoring averaged declined for each of the next 5 years, until he was averaging 13.7 ppg for the Knicks in 1977-78 season. Similarly, Wicks started his rookie season by averaging 24.5 ppg and his scoring average declined in each of his next 9 seasons!
Absolutely. Superb analogy. Each was great early on, but neither developed as they should have.
love these stories
Yet another reason that some stars were missing from the '68 Olympic team was due to the emergence of the ABA, according to Red Auerbach, as described in the book by Cunningham. The ABA, according to Red, were raiding college teams to sign underclassman. The NBA, on the other hand, had a policy of not drafting players until their eligibility is completed.
The 1968 Olympic team would've been the 2nd all-amateur dream team ever assembled after the 1960 one, if the team literally had a bunched of talented college player at the time like Pete Maravich, Kareem-Abdul Jabbar, Wes Unseld, Elvin Hayes, Calvin Murphy and Bob Lanier but sadly all of these player weren't chosen to be in the team. By the way, still respect for those USA line up who played in 1968s olympic and managed to carried USA to won 7th consecutive champion title though
Hank Iba ( USA Coach ) in my opinion was not a good Olympic Coach. His slowdown style of play really hurt our team in 1972. I fact the team with Kevin Joyce and Doug collins and others decided to up the tempo against Iba wishes. they were down too many points to play that slow pace. Iba was mad = but it worked as the USA team finally took the lead on Collins' foul shots with 3 seconds left. Everyone knows what happened after that. But players like Rick Mount and Pistol Pete and Calvin Murphy were cut from the squad. Are you kidding me .Those were the top offensive players in College ball. John Bach was a coach at Penn State ( Which never won anything in college Basketball.
The April 15, 1968 edition of Sports Illustrated has this to say "True enough, the Olympic Committee had coaxed and cajoled players into coming to Albuquerque for the tournament - 88 warm bodies spread across eight teams.... But most of the interest centered around those who didn't appear. The Big E had taken money (to sign a contract with the San Diego Rockets), Big Lew had taken a stand (he admits his decision included implicit approval of the boycott), and many others had just taken a powder of undetermined origin. ... Among the missing were Louisville's Westley Unsled, who said he was tired, Dayton's Don May, who said he was exhausted, and North Carolina's Larry Miller, who said he was injured. " One member of the selection committee, Pete Newell, said that the committee filet it lost 20 to 25 of the country's top college players, including the six best centers. Some college coaches suggested that the trials were ill-timed and should have been held in late summer when the players would be fresher and more enthusiastic, and would not have to miss classes. Charlie Scott stated that he didn't believe a boycott was the proper means of protest, but also said he wouldn't be "the only Negro out there". Jo Jo White didn't care if he was the only black player - he was going to play no matter what.
+ddenuci Just as a follow up to Pete Newell's comment that the Olympic team was missing the top 6 centers from the NCAA... the center on the team, i.e. the one who backed up Spencer Haywood, was 6'9" Kenny Spain from Houston. Houston, of course, had a great team in 1968 having defeated UCLA in the great game in the Astrodome that year. Spain was 2nd to Elvin Hayes for the Cougars in both points (14.4) and rebounds (12.8) per game that year. Houston coach Guy Lewis said that Spain was "strong as a bull". But, although he was selected by the Bulls with the 20th pick in the 1969 NBA draft and Oakland in the ABA draft, his only pro experience was playing 11 games for the ABA Pittsburgh Condors in the 1970-71 season. I believe he wanted to give the NFL a shot immediately following college and that is why he didn't start his pro basketball career until 1970. Sadly he passed away at the young age of 44 , due to cancer.
For comparison purposes, here are the 1968 All-American teams - 1st team: Alcindor, Hayes, Maravich, Larry Miller, Unseld. 2nd team: Lucius Allen, Lanier, Don May, Murphy and JoJo White. Could you imagine what an Olympic team consisting of these 10 players would have done? Alcindor, Hayes and Unseld as your starting frontcourt? Three guys who made the NBA Greatest 50 Players team.
Here's the 12-man squad that should have constituted the 1968 team: Guards: JoJo White, Calvin Murphy, Pete Maravich, and Rick Mount. Forwards: Charlie Scott, Elvin Hayes, Haywood, Larry Miller and Dan Issel. Centers: Lew Alcindor, Wes Unseld and Bob Lanier. ALternates : Lucious Allen, Neal Walk, Don May. It's safe to say that team would have won games by an average of 50 points, assuming Coach Iba allowed to play an uptempo game.
+ddenuci BTW, no disrespect to the 1968 USA team that did win the gold. They deserve all the credit in the world for what they achieved.
Thats a great lineup. If Bob Knight coached that team it would be a 50 margin at the very least
@@stever1791 It sure is. Four players (Maravich, Hayes, Alcindor and Unseld) are on the recently announced 75th NBA all-time list.
Jabbar (at that time, Lew Alcindor) gave conflicting accounts of why he didn't play in the '68 Olympics. But, from my reading, it does seem like he was part of the boycott called by Harry Edwards. I do find it interesting that the great black track stars of the era (Tommie Smith, Lee Evans, John Carlos, etc) participated in the Olympics and some of them made a statement (e.g., the black power salute). For track athletes at that time, the Olympics were the big thing. For great college basketball players, there was the NBA (and ABA, at that time). There was no equivalent for the track athlete (as well as many other events), i.e., no professional league waiting to pay the athlete a lot of money.
A couple of other guys who went on to have very good NBA careers who did not play on the '68 team include Neal Walk and Tom Boerwinkle. Walk is the answer to the trivia question of who did the Phoenix Suns get when they lost the coin flip to determine the #1 pick in the '69 NBA draft. The Bucks got Alcindor with the #1 pick, and the Suns got Neal Walk. But Walk did have a very respectable NBA career, including a year where he averaged 20ppg / 12rpg. The Suns obviously thought he was the 2nd best player in the nation. And yet he did not play on the '68 team. I believe Walk was part of the boycott and, for those who might not know, Walk was a white basketball star (and passed away not too long ago, in 2015). Boerwinkle was invited to try out for the team, but didn't make the cut. He went on to a fine 10 year career with the Chicago Bulls.