84 NCAA Oral Roberts vs Memphis St

[ORUalum]

it appears a memphis fan has posted the last 5 or 6 minutes of the their 84 NCAA win over ORU. i believe the game win was later vacated due to NCAA infractions.

so what is the story on why OR let Dick Acres go? was he simply there because of his sons and canned when their eligibility was up?

[oruvoice]

I was at that game. Was 13 years old at the time. Memphis State went on the play Purdue two nights later in the second round. Purdue was a top 25 team and the Tigers DRUBBED them. Probably Memphis State's best team in school history and playing on their home floor. That ORU team could have won a game or two in the tournament if not for such a horrible draw.

Also, in that regional I got to see Louisiana Tech with Karl Malone and Houston with Akeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Houston beat La Tech and met Memphis in the Sweet 16. I think the Cougars won the title that year, or at least made the Final Four.

Little did I know that 5 years later I would come to Oklahoma for the first time, as a freshman at ORU...

[ORUalum]

i could not get over how ORU did not try to use the 3 pt line to help comeback in the final few minutes. how 'bout baskerville holmes for memphis state -- somebody was a sir arthur conan doyle fan.

it's amazing to look at the list of legendary coaches in the field of 53.

"The 1984 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 53 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 13, 1984, and ended with the championship game on April 2 in Seattle, Washington. A total of 52 games were played. This was the last tournament in which some teams earned first round byes as the field expanded to 64 teams beginning in the 1985 field when each team played in the first round.

Georgetown, coached by John Thompson, won the national title with a 84–75 victory in the final game over Houston, coached by Guy Lewis. Patrick Ewing of Georgetown was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player. Thompson became the first African-American head coach to lead his team to the title."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

[oruvoice]

Alum...even though a 3-point line was painted on the floor at the Mid-South Coliseum, the 3-point shot was not a part of the college game in 1984.

The 3-point line came into the college game around 1988, or so.

[ORUalum]

Alum...even though a 3-point line was painted on the floor at the Mid-South Coliseum, the 3-point shot was not a part of the college game in 1984.

The 3-point line came into the college game around 1988, or so.

ok, i feel really stupid

[tmh8286]

ok, i feel really stupid

No worries, alum. It looks like for a while there NO ONE knew what was going on with the three point line:

The NCAA's Southern Conference became the first collegiate conference to use the three-point rule, adopting a 22-foot (6.7 m) line in 1980. The first collegiate team to score a three-pointer was Western Carolina University. Over the following five years, NCAA conferences differed in their use of the rule and the distance they required for a three-point shot. The NCAA adopted the 19-foot, 9-inch line nationally in 1986. In 2007, the NCAA lengthened the men's three point distance to 20 feet 9 inches, with the rule coming into effect at the beginning of the 2008–09 season.

Actually, the Wikipedia discussion of the three point line is pretty interesting. It says the trey was tested as early as 1933, but it didn't become commonly used till many years later.

[oruvoice]

NCAA adopted the 3-point line in 1986...even earlier than I recalled. So, don't feel too bad!

[theeagleman5]

First time TheEagleman ever saw any of that game...it wasn't televised on the East Coast back then....this was before CBS started televising every game....Acres was a tremendous talent...I don't remember much of Dorsey....we got some bad luck drawing Memphis on their home floor....it might have been a different result had we played in a neutral site....

[Cletus]

First time TheEagleman ever saw any of that game...it wasn't televised on the East Coast back then....this was before CBS started televising every game....Acres was a tremendous talent...I don't remember much of Dorsey....we got some bad luck drawing Memphis on their home floor....it might have been a different result had we played in a neutral site....

I remember watching Mark Acres and his brother during those years at ORU. (loved that games versus Kansas when ORU beat KU at the end with Acres last second right under the basket shot--after the boycott. I remember people screaming and running on the court!)

I recall Sports Illustrated wrote in their "Faces in the Crowd" section that Mark Acres was coming to Oral Roberts University. He was one of the top basketball players in the state of California.

ORU was definitely able to get some really good basketball players in those days.

[theeagleman5]

Wonder how we got the Acres brothers?....I guess we know how Dick Acres became the ORU coach.... .....TheEagleman never got to see that team play....the only time I saw Mark Acres was when he was with the Boston Celtics....

[Bogus Smith]

Wonder how we got the Acres brothers?....I guess we know how Dick Acres became the ORU coach.... .....TheEagleman never got to see that team play....the only time I saw Mark Acres was when he was with the Boston Celtics....

Dick and his wife followed OR and his ministry. Jeff was a good player (and the older brother), but Mark was the gifted player. If you got Jeff, you were probably going to get Mark - which turned out to be the case.

Once Mark finished high school, the family followed to Tulsa and Ken Hayes offered Dick a job on the staff. I don't know if Dick was forced on Ken or not, but Dick was not a D-1 coach. I believe that the players that came back from Christmas break after Ken's dismissal (including Mark Gottfried who almost didn't return, but did so at Ken Hayes' urging), were playing for pride and their fallen coach.

Interestingly, it just so-happened that the ORU win over KU, by the first game in the Acres-coached era, was the demise of Ted Owens' tenure at KU as he was fired after that season, primarily due to the loss he took in Tulsa that year. No one gave ORU any chance to beat KU in that game and it was one of the more gutsier games I have seen in the Mabee.

[TrueBlue82]

First time TheEagleman ever saw any of that game...it wasn't televised on the East Coast back then....this was before CBS started televising every game.

Not only was it not televised on the East Coast - it wasn't televised in Tulsa either! At that time, each local television affiliate could only request a certain number of games for their market - and Tulsa, Arkansas, and Oklahoma all qualified for the tournament with a better seed than ORU. The powers that be at the station in Tulsa didn't want to risk not being able to televise all of the "big name" schools, and left ORU off of their schedule. While that was upsetting enough, I found out during the game that the OKC affiliate DID carry the game, but it was too late to drive west into the OKC broadcast area.

It was the opinion of many ORU fans who made the trip to Memphis that the Titans would have likely won that game on a neutral court.

[LarryL]

I have always believed and said that it was a successive string of coaching resignations and firings in the late 70's through mid 80's that began a downward spiral, landing ORU in the NAIA, to which it has never fully recovered. Maybe during the Dr. Rutland era we will.

[Cletus]

Dick and his wife followed OR and his ministry. Jeff was a good player (and the older brother), but Mark was the gifted player. If you got Jeff, you were probably going to get Mark - which turned out to be the case.

Once Mark finished high school, the family followed to Tulsa and Ken Hayes offered Dick a job on the staff. I don't know if Dick was forced on Ken or not, but Dick was not a D-1 coach. I believe that the players that came back from Christmas break after Ken's dismissal (including Mark Gottfried who almost didn't return, but did so at Ken Hayes' urging), were playing for pride and their fallen coach.

Interestingly, it just so-happened that the ORU win over KU, by the first game in the Acres-coached era, was the demise of Ted Owens' tenure at KU as he was fired after that season, primarily due to the loss he took in Tulsa that year. No one gave ORU any chance to beat KU in that game and it was one of the more gutsier games I have seen in the Mabee.

I recall OR telling us in chapel after he came back from recovering from surgery to correct the retina falling off the back of his eye, that the Acres brothers came to see him in the hospital in California.

[ORUalum]

I have always believed and said that it was a successive string of coaching resignations and firings in the late 70's through mid 80's that began a downward spiral, landing ORU in the NAIA, to which it has never fully recovered. Maybe during the Dr. Rutland era we will.

-city of faith

-money problems

-8 mil or "i'm going home"

-university a punchline

-more money problems

-no more law, medical, or dental schools

-naia athletics

much more than coaching changes, the building of a ridiculously large and unneeded hospital brought both the school and the athletic department to its knees.

[theeagleman5]

Sounds like some poor decisons were made by the powers that be back then regarding coaches after Ken Trickey's first tenure...it became a coaching merry go round after TheEagleman left ORU in 1976 and I know that every time I picked up a paper back then it seemed like we had a new basketball coach....the 80's were some up and down years for ORU roundball....sure makes what we have now in Mike Carter and Scott Sutton seem like paradise....

[Cletus]

-city of faith

-money problems

-8 mil or "i'm going home"

-university a punchline

-more money problems

-no more law, medical, or dental schools

-naia athletics

much more than coaching changes, the building of a ridiculously large and unneeded hospital brought both the school and the athletic department to its knees.

I'm not interested in getting in a discussion or debate about this topic but you can't fault OR for trying with the large hospital idea. When years before, a Pentecostal Holiness preacher is told that he can't even build a small Bible college and ORU transpires--well, you just think you can do it. Do you really think he thought he'd have the kind of basketball teams ORU had in the 70's? I wonder how many times he was told that sports weren't Christian or worth the time or money (I'm sure a bunch of times). Plus, the 1980's were the beginning of the end of tv evangelists--Bakker, Swaggart, Robertson running for president. I think people had enough of it. Lots of variables to throw in the mix.

If City of Faith had survived OR would have been the only American other than Johns Hopkins to see his project of a university and medical school come to fruition. All haven't lived to see it happen because it's too much stress and money.

Maybe OR was grandiose but we were all part of the MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS HERE concept, too. My opinion is that you can't fault OR for trying. Your great when you win! People throw you out when you lose. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.

[theeagleman5]

Good points, Cletus...OR was a man who got things done and did what God told him to do....the City of Faith may have worked out were in not for the moral failings of Baker and Swaggart both of whom killed the finances of a lot of TV preachers in the 80's...I guess the big mistake back then was OR tying in the hospital/ministry finances with the University.......true, it's over 20 yrs ago and not worth the debate...Oral did God's work at 7777 South Lewis and ORU stands and is successful as a testimony to the man's hard work and faithfulness...also the obedience of the many associates and employees who stood with OR when it counted....