KANSAS CITY - It should have been a classic college basketball game. The Kansas Jayhawks, led by the often-unstoppable Wilt Chamberlain, were up against top ranked North Carolina for the national championship. Everything pointed to this game being a college basketball classic, and for 30 minutes, it was. And while it's still remembered as one of the more memorable college basketball games ever played, it could have been so much more.
Led by all-American Lennie Rosenbluth, the Tar Heels took a 29-22 lead at halftime against Kansas, but Chamberlain started leading the Jayhawks back. In fact, it took Kansas only 3:20 to take the lead, going ahead 36-35. Kansas had outscored North Carolina 14-6 in only 3:20, a great display of scoring prowess.
And then, the game slowed down. Kansas was ahead 40-37 with 10:00 left in the game when both teams decided to start stalling. In the days before the shot clock, stalling was a perfectly legal strategy, and it was used often in close games, as coaches often held the ball for a final possession. And so, what had been a great, tight, often tense game was ruined by two coaches stalling.
From the 10:00 mark to the 5:00 mark, neither team attempted a shot. They finally started to pick up the play with 5:00 left, but not by much, and the game was tied 46-46 after regulation. From there, it looked like Kansas would have the advantage, as they still had Wilt, and North Carolina's great Rosenbluth had fouled out with 20 points.
Instead, both teams continued their stalling ways. Each team scored just one basket in the first overtime and didn't score at all in the second. It was 48-48 entering the third overtime when the two teams finally started to try scoring again. And once they did, the game returned to its legendary status.
A pair of free-throws put Kansas up 53-52 with :20 left in the third overtime. North Carolina's Tommy Kearns tried for a game-winning basket but had his shot blocked by Chamberlain. However, Chamberlain was called for the foul, putting Kearns on the line. Kearns made both free throws to give the Tar Heels a 54-53 lead with six seconds left. From there, there was little doubt what Kansas would try to do. As the Jayhawks tried to get the pass in to Chamberlain for a game-winning shot, Kearns tipped the pass away, clinching the national title for North Carolina.
As Wilt got older and turned into the most dominant force in basketball, he considered the 1957 national championship game to be his biggest failure as an athlete. For their part, the Kansas fans never blamed him for losing that game. It's probably best that they didn't. If their coach had just let the team play instead of ordering the stalling tactic, perhaps there wouldn't have been a reason for Wilt to feel shame.
Showing posts with label Wilt Chamberlain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wilt Chamberlain. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
March 2, 1962: 100
HERSHEY, Pa. - There was an overwhelming smell of chocolate hanging in the air that night, which sounds nice until you realize it was a never-ending, inescapable smell. After all, the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania, had been built around the chocolate factory. So everywhere smelled like chocolate pretty much all the time. It got old.
Nobody wanted to be there. Not the New York Knicks, not the Philadelphia Warriors, nobody. Wilt Chamberlain definitely didn't want to be there; he was hung over from the night before and almost missed the train to the game, and probably wouldn't have been too upset if he had missed it altogether.
The Warriors were technically the home team in this game, but it didn't feel like home to them. The court was small and run-down, basically a high school gym. If they had their say, they wouldn't have played any games anywhere near Hershey, but they had an agreement with the gym owner; they were allowed to practice at the gym for free as long as they played three home games a year there. This was number three. So off to Hershey they trudged.
Only 4,124 fans went to the game, and many of them were only there to see the exhibition basketball game between the NFL's Eagles and Colts. The main event that followed, the regular-season NBA game between the Warriors and the Knicks, felt like an afterthought.
But then Wilt started scoring.
His shooting from the field was down a bit in the first half, but Chamberlain made up for it with surprising - for him - accuracy from the free-throw line, going 13-for-14 from the line in the first half. He had 41 points in the first two quarters, putting him on track to break his own single-game scoring record of 78, which he set earlier in the season. The Knicks were keeping it relatively close, too, so there was a chance Chamberlain would have to keep trying and could get that record.
Then he scored 28 in the third quarter. From then, it became a matter of not if, but by how many. With 7:51 left in the game, Wilt scored his 79th point of the game, setting the new single-game record. The sparse crowd went nuts, feeling honored to have been a part of something historic when it seemed like the game would be anything but memorable.
Then the fans, the Knicks, and the Warriors all seemed to come to the same realization at the same time: there was still time for him to reach a previously unthinkable number. See, earlier in the year, when Wilt's 78 points had broken Elgin Baylor's single-game record of 71, somebody asked Baylor if he was upset his record was broken. He said no, because it was just a matter of time before Wilt got to 100 in a game. He wasn't the only one who said something to that effect, either, with everybody always mentioning that magic number of 100 in their statements of how high Wilt could hypothetically fly. Suddenly, that didn't seem so hypothetical.
So the fans started yelling at the Warriors to get the ball to Wilt. And the Warriors started passing the ball to Wilt every time down the floor, even if they were passing up open layups to do so. And the Knicks were, bizarrely, fouling anybody on the Warriors who wasn't Wilt, trying to do whatever they could to stop him from getting the ball. And the Warriors were in turn fouling the Knicks every time down just so that they could get the ball back so they could get the ball to Wilt.
In short, the game became a farce. It stopped being about winning or losing and became about one guy getting an individual achievement, and the other team trying to prevent that. But the Knicks, already missing their starting center due to injury, were helpless to stop the onslaught.
With less than a minute to play, Wilt scored on a layup to get to 98 points. When the Warriors got the ball back and drove up court, all five Knicks ignored the ball carrier and surrounded Wilt. He got the pass anyway, but missed the shot. With all the Knicks around Wilt, it was easy for teammate Ted Lukenbill to get the rebound; he passed it right back to Wilt, who missed again. Lukenbill again got the rebound, but this time passed to Joe Ruklick, who had a wide open layup. Not wanting to miss his chance at history, Ruklick saw Wilt break free from his defenders for a moment and threw him a lob pass. Wilt converted the alley-oop - whether he dunked the ball or merely laid it in is still debated - and the fans stormed the court in celebration of the unthinkable milestone.
The farce wasn't over, though. With 46 seconds left on the clock, everybody who had gone to the game was on the floor; it took nine minutes to clear everybody off. In the chaos, Ruklick went to the
scorer's table to make sure the scorer saw that he had the assist that led to point number 100. When the game finally restarted, Wilt merely stood at midcourt, his hands on his hips, not wanting to touch the ball. As he said, "100 sounded better than 102."
When the game was over, the joyous Warriors retreated to the locker room. An AP photographer was at the game, but as a fan, not on assignment. He got into the locker room anyway. Seeing the photographer, Warriors PR director Harvey Pollack quickly scribbled the number "100" on a piece of paper and handed it to Chamberlain. The photographer snapped the shot, and the resulting photo has become the iconic photo of Chamberlain.
The 100-point game has come to define Chamberlain as well, for better or for worse. On the plus side, it shows just how dominant he was, the highlight of what was his peak season. On the other hand, it also showed his obsession with numbers, and how that obsession often seemed to take precedence over his team's ambitions.
Today, the 100-point game is rightly viewed as one of the most untouchable record in sports. It's hard to imagine anybody being able to approach it. It's also hard to imagine anybody wanting to.
Nobody wanted to be there. Not the New York Knicks, not the Philadelphia Warriors, nobody. Wilt Chamberlain definitely didn't want to be there; he was hung over from the night before and almost missed the train to the game, and probably wouldn't have been too upset if he had missed it altogether.
The Warriors were technically the home team in this game, but it didn't feel like home to them. The court was small and run-down, basically a high school gym. If they had their say, they wouldn't have played any games anywhere near Hershey, but they had an agreement with the gym owner; they were allowed to practice at the gym for free as long as they played three home games a year there. This was number three. So off to Hershey they trudged.
Only 4,124 fans went to the game, and many of them were only there to see the exhibition basketball game between the NFL's Eagles and Colts. The main event that followed, the regular-season NBA game between the Warriors and the Knicks, felt like an afterthought.
But then Wilt started scoring.
His shooting from the field was down a bit in the first half, but Chamberlain made up for it with surprising - for him - accuracy from the free-throw line, going 13-for-14 from the line in the first half. He had 41 points in the first two quarters, putting him on track to break his own single-game scoring record of 78, which he set earlier in the season. The Knicks were keeping it relatively close, too, so there was a chance Chamberlain would have to keep trying and could get that record.
Then he scored 28 in the third quarter. From then, it became a matter of not if, but by how many. With 7:51 left in the game, Wilt scored his 79th point of the game, setting the new single-game record. The sparse crowd went nuts, feeling honored to have been a part of something historic when it seemed like the game would be anything but memorable.
Then the fans, the Knicks, and the Warriors all seemed to come to the same realization at the same time: there was still time for him to reach a previously unthinkable number. See, earlier in the year, when Wilt's 78 points had broken Elgin Baylor's single-game record of 71, somebody asked Baylor if he was upset his record was broken. He said no, because it was just a matter of time before Wilt got to 100 in a game. He wasn't the only one who said something to that effect, either, with everybody always mentioning that magic number of 100 in their statements of how high Wilt could hypothetically fly. Suddenly, that didn't seem so hypothetical.
So the fans started yelling at the Warriors to get the ball to Wilt. And the Warriors started passing the ball to Wilt every time down the floor, even if they were passing up open layups to do so. And the Knicks were, bizarrely, fouling anybody on the Warriors who wasn't Wilt, trying to do whatever they could to stop him from getting the ball. And the Warriors were in turn fouling the Knicks every time down just so that they could get the ball back so they could get the ball to Wilt.
In short, the game became a farce. It stopped being about winning or losing and became about one guy getting an individual achievement, and the other team trying to prevent that. But the Knicks, already missing their starting center due to injury, were helpless to stop the onslaught.
With less than a minute to play, Wilt scored on a layup to get to 98 points. When the Warriors got the ball back and drove up court, all five Knicks ignored the ball carrier and surrounded Wilt. He got the pass anyway, but missed the shot. With all the Knicks around Wilt, it was easy for teammate Ted Lukenbill to get the rebound; he passed it right back to Wilt, who missed again. Lukenbill again got the rebound, but this time passed to Joe Ruklick, who had a wide open layup. Not wanting to miss his chance at history, Ruklick saw Wilt break free from his defenders for a moment and threw him a lob pass. Wilt converted the alley-oop - whether he dunked the ball or merely laid it in is still debated - and the fans stormed the court in celebration of the unthinkable milestone.
The farce wasn't over, though. With 46 seconds left on the clock, everybody who had gone to the game was on the floor; it took nine minutes to clear everybody off. In the chaos, Ruklick went to the
scorer's table to make sure the scorer saw that he had the assist that led to point number 100. When the game finally restarted, Wilt merely stood at midcourt, his hands on his hips, not wanting to touch the ball. As he said, "100 sounded better than 102."When the game was over, the joyous Warriors retreated to the locker room. An AP photographer was at the game, but as a fan, not on assignment. He got into the locker room anyway. Seeing the photographer, Warriors PR director Harvey Pollack quickly scribbled the number "100" on a piece of paper and handed it to Chamberlain. The photographer snapped the shot, and the resulting photo has become the iconic photo of Chamberlain.
The 100-point game has come to define Chamberlain as well, for better or for worse. On the plus side, it shows just how dominant he was, the highlight of what was his peak season. On the other hand, it also showed his obsession with numbers, and how that obsession often seemed to take precedence over his team's ambitions.
Today, the 100-point game is rightly viewed as one of the most untouchable record in sports. It's hard to imagine anybody being able to approach it. It's also hard to imagine anybody wanting to.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
December 14, 1962: 63 to 50
DALY CITY, Calif. - In March of 1962, Wilt Chamberlain sent shockwaves around the NBA by scoring 100 points in a single game for the Philadelphia Warriors. It was the highlight of a season in which he averaged a jaw-dropping 50 points per game, by far an NBA record and one that will never be touched.
When the fall of 1962 rolled around, the Warriors were no longer in Philadelphia, having moved across the country to San Francisco, but Chamberlain was still a scoring machine. He would average 44.8 points per game for the 62-63 season, the second-best total of all time. While he wasn't the most popular player in the NBA because of his selfishness, it couldn't be denied that he was, for the most point, unstoppable.
Elgin Baylor also had a career high for scoring in the 1961-62 season, averaging 38 points per game. His feat is probably more impressive than Chamberlain's, considering that Baylor spent the season as a member of the Army Reserves, allowed to leave the base only on weekends. He would leave on a weekend pass, catch charter planes to wherever the Lakers were playing that day, and would play, and would play well despite not practicing all season.
The next season, back to playing a full season, Baylor's numbers dropped only slightly, establishing him as the top forward in the NBA. With the Warriors newly moved to the West Coast, Baylor and the Lakers also had a new natural rival.
It was with this backdrop that the Lakers and Warriors met on December 14, 1962, for their fourth meeting as West Coast rivals. Perhaps inspired by the the new rivalry, Chamberlain and Baylor put on a scoring show. Baylor scored 50 points for the Lakers, but Chamberlain topped him with 63. It marked the first time that two players had scored 50 points in the same game. While Baylor lost the individual scoring battle, his team won 120-118.
The Lakers got the better of the Warriors most of the season and ended up winning the Western Division, losing to the Celtics in the finals. It would be the third time that Baylor and the Lakers would lose to the Celtics in the championship series. The Lakers would go on to lose the next five times they made it to the finals, finally breaking through in 1971 - the year after Baylor retired.
When the fall of 1962 rolled around, the Warriors were no longer in Philadelphia, having moved across the country to San Francisco, but Chamberlain was still a scoring machine. He would average 44.8 points per game for the 62-63 season, the second-best total of all time. While he wasn't the most popular player in the NBA because of his selfishness, it couldn't be denied that he was, for the most point, unstoppable.
Elgin Baylor also had a career high for scoring in the 1961-62 season, averaging 38 points per game. His feat is probably more impressive than Chamberlain's, considering that Baylor spent the season as a member of the Army Reserves, allowed to leave the base only on weekends. He would leave on a weekend pass, catch charter planes to wherever the Lakers were playing that day, and would play, and would play well despite not practicing all season.
The next season, back to playing a full season, Baylor's numbers dropped only slightly, establishing him as the top forward in the NBA. With the Warriors newly moved to the West Coast, Baylor and the Lakers also had a new natural rival.
It was with this backdrop that the Lakers and Warriors met on December 14, 1962, for their fourth meeting as West Coast rivals. Perhaps inspired by the the new rivalry, Chamberlain and Baylor put on a scoring show. Baylor scored 50 points for the Lakers, but Chamberlain topped him with 63. It marked the first time that two players had scored 50 points in the same game. While Baylor lost the individual scoring battle, his team won 120-118.
The Lakers got the better of the Warriors most of the season and ended up winning the Western Division, losing to the Celtics in the finals. It would be the third time that Baylor and the Lakers would lose to the Celtics in the championship series. The Lakers would go on to lose the next five times they made it to the finals, finally breaking through in 1971 - the year after Baylor retired.
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