So this is becoming kind of a thing. Last week we looked at the Big 12 basketball players we hated most; this week we look at our favorite Bedlam basketball memories.
First up, OKC Dave…
OKC Dave
2/13/02: OSU wins 79-72 in OT. This is the game featured in Dan Wetzel’s great column. This was my last year as a student at OSU, so it carries a little extra nostalgia for me. I loved those Vic/Melvin/Ivan teams because they played well above their ability level, especially on defense. As a fan, they pulled you in and made you feel a part of the team.
This game was the perfect example. We held the #4 team in the country to 22-67 shooting (32.8%), including 2-11 from Hollis Price (thank you Melvin!). The game featured technical fouls on Quannas White and Cheyne Gadsen that got the true sellout crowd rocking.
Ivan sealed the victory with a run-through steal and slam. How does it get any better than that? Eddie put it best: “I’ve coached a lot of basketball games, but I don’t think you will ever see a game where two teams played any harder than that.”
@CarsonC5
I was 12. Dad and I took our usual seats, 3 rows from the top of Old Gallagher. Dad split season tickets with his friend, but we won the coin toss. I wanted Bedlam, so here we were. Anytime people ask me how loud Old Gallgher was, I refer to this exact game.
The Sooners and senior Ryan Minor, who OSU fans despised, came to town. (Had Gary Ward offered Damon Minor in baseball Ryan would’ve gone to OSU, but I digress).
The crowd was especially venomous to Minor in pre-game (Minor was shown on TV the previous game crying due to “injury”, even though he played today). Before tip-off, the student section unveiled a 10-15 foot sign that read: “CRYIN’ RYAN” and followed that up with a “CRY-IN-RY-AN… clap-clap…clap-clap-clap” chant.
Needless to say, that low-hanging roof in GIA was ready to pop. It was the perfect the storm. OSU proceeded to run OU out of the gym, leading by 30 throughout. I can’t even exaggerate this: It was ear-popping loud for the entire game. You couldn’t hear yourself scream, let alone ask Dad how awesome this was (or how badly Brett Robisch was working Ernie Abercrombie in the post).
OSU won going away and it will forever be known as The Cryin’ Ryan game.
Amilian
Nothing beats John Lucas and I-Mac lifting up one giant middle finger so big all the Sooners 90 miles south of Stillwater would see it.
With a ten point lead and only six seconds left in the game, Lucas gets the in-bounds pass as the entire Sooners team is standing lifeless, pushes it up the floor and sends up a lob for the Warrior to throw down OU’s throat.
It wasn’t a dagger. It was dropping a two-ton wrecking ball on top of a limp body without a pulse.
After the dunk the ESPN commentator said “I’m not sure the Sooners are happy with that last basket.” Hell no they weren’t and that’s the point. This is Bedlam. Screw sportsmanship. I miss the hate that used to fuel this rivalry. I don’t want to see a great basketball game tomorrow. Give me Smart and Markel in the sequel of Lucas & I-Mac.
Pistolsboy
I have a lot of great Bedlam memories but one really stands taller than all the others.
Neither team was ranked in the 1998 version of Bedlam in Norman, but that mattered little.
And my goodness, I hated those late 90s OU teams. Tim Heskett, Eduardo Najera, Renzi Stone, Ryan Humphrey…the list goes on and on. These two teams (OSU and OU) were actually just young versions of teams that would a few years later go on to have a lot of tournament success1.
Anyway, OSU trailed by 12 in the second half but actually held a two-point lead with 50 seconds left and the ball. Eddie called a timeout.
Every OSU fan alive had this exchange during the TO: “anybody but Gottlieb.”
We had no idea what was coming.
OU was in a full court press so Desmond faked a move towards the ball and went back door the length of the court. Brett Robisch put it in his breadbasket and Desmond almost tore the goal from its stanchion (drawing an intentional foul in the process) to seal the deal.
I’ll let some people who were there take you home (from the Tulsa World)…
Eddie: I told Sean we had two special scoring plays where we do that very thing. I said ‘Golly, I wish we had called that play.’ Lo and behold if he didn’t take off and John Elway throws a perfect strike.
Robisch: He was so open. I just had to put it out there. Baseball is my first love. I was a pitcher. I had to make that play.
Desmond: I knew they were going to pressure big-time. So I just decided to make a back cut. Brett was able to run the baeline and go to the second option. Brett made a good pass. That took a lot of heart to make that pass at a time like that.
- OU made the Sweet 16 in ’99 and OSU made the Elite 8 in ’00. ↩
Good stuff, boys. I can’t freaking wait.
@Pistolsguy – That game was incredible! Do you know anywhere I can find clips of that. On the “Eddie Sutton Show” on youtube, it doesn’t have that game.
Clearly my 12-year-old memory is fuzzy. It was Jerome Lambert who worked Abercrombie all night. OSU led by 25 (!) at halftime.
Eddie: “Everybody had a great time.”
Here are the highlights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMjvnXbwzwU&list=SP3B799F09D1A446A4#t=7m39s
Thanks for bringing up the Minor thing. I’d finally forgotten about that. They ended up being pretty decent baseball players too..
I wonder if the combination of a packed house, a fun OSU team, a Bedlam win, and a Thunder loss can serve as a bit of a defibrillator for our fanbase.
For me it was my Senior year 1997. This team wasn’t great. Desmond Mason was a Freshman and not yet the beast he turned out to be. Chianti Roberts was our go to guy. He couldn’t hit free throws but he could take it to the rim against anyone. Down 2 at the end of regulation he takes it to the rim and hits the shot at the buzzer to send it to OT. I was sitting right behind the goal he hit the shot on. This is the loudest I remember GIA during my years there. When people ask me how loud GIA was this is the game I talk about. We never sat down and I was literally screaming to my friend and we couldn’t hear each other. I was at just about every home game from 94-97 which included the final four year and this was the game I remember. That was when the Rowdy was there. A 17-15 team and the place was packed and loud as ever.
A close second for me: Jan 27, 1997. Neither team was ranked. My sister had won the coin flip to go with my dad for bedlam, but my dad managed to pick up an extra for me. I sat by myself on the top row of the old GIA.
This game featured Najera, Erdmann, and Renzi…three of the guys on the most-hated list we put out last week.
We were down by as many as 14. Chianti Roberts had got himself into early foul trouble, but he had taken the game over in the second half. He hit a last second bucket to send the game to overtime (this is my holy-crap-GIA-is-loud moment). Then he hit a pair of clutch free throws in OT to win the game. A couple great quotes from the TW:
Chianti on what Eddie said to him before the free throws in OT: “All I can remember was coach grabbing me and saying, “Chianti, I believe in you,” said Roberts. “I just stepped up there and hit them.”
Sampson on Chianti: “He is the most unique matchup in our league,” OU coach Kelvin Sampson said. “There aren’t very many power forward-type bodies who can play point guard. That’s a tribute to how good a player he is.”
And we won in OT 73-72
I know I’m super biased and my memories are cheapened by the fact I’ve only been a fan since ’05, but the ’09 Big XII tournament win in OKC when they had Willie Warren and the Griffen brothers and were ranked #4 in the country was pretty sweet. I’ll never forget being nervous about who they were going to foul at the end, then we got the ball to James and Triple C’s took us home and locked us into the NCAA’s.
The Cryin’ Ryan game was one of the all time greats. That was my “Senior” night as well. Last game I attended as a student at OSU. I was on the Conoco Balloon crew that year. Ryan spent much of the end of that game with a towel hung over his face if I recall.
However the best all time Bedlam match for me was when Randy Rutherford hit 8 Treys and Billy Tubbs got ejected with 2 seconds on the clock amid a sea of flying foam Pistol Petes.
From the Tulsa World’s story of Eddie’s first bedlam victory at GIA in 1991:
OSU police are investigating an alleged altercation between
an Oklahoma City television cameraman and Tubbs after the
game. While walking toward the locker room, Tubbs allegedly
grabbed a camera lens, ripped it off the equipment and threw
it to the floor, striking the KFOR-TV photographer in the right leg.
Campus police confirmed the cameraman, whom they declined
to identify, filled out a “Witness/Victim Voluntary Statement”
Wednesday night. Police said the cameraman hasn’t decided
if he will file charges.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?no=subj&articleid=198004