Baltimore Sports Coming Through In the Clutch-Pt 1

0:00Welcome to the Statman and Robin podcast. We are the dynamic duo of Baltimore sports history. They got to do that deep voice also doesn't seem real. Well coming to you over the goodness purity again, coming to you over to the sports history network. I am Jim Johnson the Statman with my partner Robin Haynes. Robin how you doing today? Yeah, doing great. Yeah, we are going to get into an interesting list here in Baltimore sports history. Definitely one of those things that if you are a long time Baltimore sports follower, definitely going to remember some of the most of these I think pretty well. But I think so. I like the Mount Rushmore thing where we are going to have some probably have a lot of room for discussion. Any other list might not agree. Well, let's go for it. Well, in unlike Mount Rushmore, we didn't rank them one, two, three, four necessarily.

1:05We are doing them in chronological order. But yeah, we can have that discussion with us if you want how you would rank them. I have got a personal favorite. Yeah, Robin you probably do too and we can talk about that. Anyway, you know, one of the trends you are going to see, we are going to talk about four different situations here, four different Baltimore area teams as we go through. And a theme in most of those are, yeah, the stars being the stars, but they got some unexpected help. And guys that weren't the ones you would expect stepping up big in key situations. And that's generally what makes a championship team, although these were not necessarily championship teams, but they certainly had championship moments. And let's start with number one, the 1984 Miracle in Miami, the Maryland, Maryland, whatever you want to call it. I'm sure Miami fans would call it something that we wouldn't want to necessarily put out

2:06here. The Terps coming back and beating the highly ranked Miami Hurricanes 42 to 40 November 10th 1984. Right. Definitely, definitely want to growl time clutch performances on this list. Right. After maybe the first half you could say it was one of the all time clutch performances, it was 31 zip at halftime. Well, it was a first, you could say it was a first half choke and second half clutch, which, yeah, maybe that's a really choked in the first hand. You'd normally find choke, but it was bad. You could put a lot of bad adjectives there. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, generally you're thinking of choking in crunch time. Yes. And speaking of that, we normally don't tease episodes, but our next episode is we're

3:06going to go into some of the more painful chokes that we've been doing involved in the more sports history. But today's happy day because we're going to talk about good stuff. Good stuff. Now, Miami was a big deal then. This was in their sweet spot era. They were consistently outstanding in the 1980s. And they opened up 1984 as the number six ranked team in the nation. And they were, they won their first national championship a year before in that amazing archbow against Nebraska. Now how shall a burger was their coach then he bailed and took what job did he take after that? Oh, right, right. I can't think of anything. Did he go to Louisville? No, he couldn't go to Miami Louisville. Maybe took a pro. I forget where he cares, but he NFL might have. Yeah, I wouldn't make sense. But his replacement was a very familiar name.

4:09No relation. Jimmy Johnson. Now, he had a good but unspectacular run at Oklahoma State. So it was kind of a surprise. He got the job. And he didn't get off to the greatest start in the world. Again, they, in fact, I miss both. They opened number one in the preseason poll. But they dropped to number 16 after Florida State gave him a beat down 38 to 3. Now we know the story of Miami and Florida State. That usually went the other way in some excruciating manner. But Florida State gave him a beat down. But then in that dropped Miami, you three and two. But then Miami had a five game winning streak, including a beat down they put on Notre Dame. That was several years before the famous Catholic versus convict series. And the next four years, they went 44 and four with one national championship and two second place finishes. This wasn't quite that good year.

5:10And I'll touch on that a little more at the end. But boy did they bring their A game in that first half in this game before an underflow crowd in the orange hole of 31,000. Come on. What? But anyway, so Maryland was not ranked. They had started terribly. Oh, and two in Bobby Ross's second year. But they had bounced back to five and three. The only other loss being the annual Penn State loss, 25, 24. And well, Miami dominated in the first half. You don't get 31 nothing if you don't dominate. The first touchdown drive, 20 plays, nine minutes and 18 seconds. Their first possession of the game. Oh, wow. They mixed it up. Nine minutes, 18 seconds. Yeah. And the second areas they mixed it up, they went three plays in 37 seconds.

6:10I'm saying you'll go. And then they just kept scoring for the heck of it. So 31 nothing. Sorry, 31 nothing at halftime. And the reports after the game said, Bobby Ross had threatened the team at halftime, saying if they didn't pick it up, they were going to have a 930 practice that night back at Bird Stadium. Wow. Wow. I must have caught their attention. Perhaps more importantly, he made a quarterback change. And in the first half, Bernie Kozar had gone 19 for 29 for 240 yards and the three touchdowns. First half. Stan Gellball, who was the starter, went 6 for 14 for 35 yards and one pick. So Bobby Ross made the incidentally wise decision to give the other guy a shot. Frank Reich. And if that name rings a bell, it should. Captain Kumbak, I know Roger Stahlbach had that nickname.

7:13But the all-timer Captain Kumbak is Frank Reich. Some fans are probably more familiar with the big comeback he made in the playoff day. He were down 31 to 3. I think it was. Yeah. To Houston, what are you just playing for Buffalo? Yeah. And I think there's people remember him for that because that was a playoff game. So, you know, the whole country watching basically. Right. Including you and me, probably. And I know this particular game, I'd had to work that afternoon. So I'd been listening to it on the radio and I got home right around the start of the second half. Okay, I'll give it a few minutes to see if they do anything. And, you know, if they had gotten like 41 nothing or something like that, I probably would have turned it off. I don't know if he had a chance to watch a game or not. It was on, I think it was on Jefferson Pilot Network, heirs of memory, huh? They had just started the regional football program broadcast of ACC games. And so the key thing.

8:15I remember watching it. I remember watching it. Pretty sure I watched the whole thing. And I don't know if I tuned it out for a while or not. Well, I wouldn't have blamed you if you did now. Maryland took advantage of very good field position. And three times they had relatively short fields to work on. Either the defense was getting a three in out or Miami was coughing up turnovers. But Maryland started three positions in the second half at their own 48, their own 40, their own 45. And each time they scored a touchdown. So that was a big help. So we come down to the key plays of the game. It's 34, 28 early in the fourth quarter. Maryland gets the ball and they got a third down situation. Frank Reich was put in to throw the long ball. He was better at that than Stan Gellwell. By the way, they were roommates. That was really good. Yeah. And they were pretty tight.

9:16So they kind of had a Billy Tillmer, sunny Germans and thing going where they became and stayed very close friends, even as they got swapped out a couple of times during the couple of years that they shared the room. But with 529 left, Reich through maybe his worst pass of the day. And he was deflected, not intercepted by the Miami defender. And the worst thing a defender can do, obviously knock the ball up in the air. And it felt wound up in Greg's hills hands. And Greg Hill was a wide receiver who had a lot of speed, questionable hands. Okay. He dropped a few in his career. That one he held on to and he took off from about the final 20, 25 yards and strode in for the touchdown that gave Maryland. It was a 68 yard play overall and gave Maryland their first lead of the game, 35 to 34. So they had out scored Miami in the second half of that point, 35 to three. Right. Talk about.

10:17I remember that Greg Hill play. And like you said, his hands worked the cause. Yeah. But with the deflection, it just basically floated into his hands. I mean, he would like to have caught that. Right. Right. So, but he did. He didn't credit. He caught it and he took it in. So now Maryland is up. So Miami did not exactly respond to that by champions like champions. They fumbled the kickoff at the six yard line and Maryland recovered. And two plays later, Rick Bidonix scored one of his three touchdowns of the game. Bidonix was one of my favorite players. Yeah. Like that guy. And he found the end zone. You know, it's one of the best things you can say about a running back. He found the end zone. I thought he was going to have a good career in the NFL. He only got basically a cup of coffee. Anyway, he don't stand. After two plays and with 442 to go, Maryland had a eight point lead. And now it was 42 to three in the second half.

11:17Right. My goodness. So defense held. Miami's defense held. But Maryland had had a bad habit and we were all waiting. I know he worked. I know I was and I'm not proud to admit it. I was waiting for the disaster and it looked like it. It happened on the punt with about two about three minutes to go. The snapper rolled the punt to the punter. And he bottled it and wound up taking it. Having his knee down while he held the ball and they called him down. It was at the Maryland 18 yard line. That was actually a break that they called that because he eventually did get up and kick it. And Miami took it in the end zone. Oh, that's right. That's right. That played. It took practically no time. Right. But they correctly called him with his knee down in possession of the ball.

12:20Miami scored anyway. And with a minute to go. He goes our hit throwing a touchdown pass to Melvin Bratton his third of the day. He had a big day. He had a hundred and sixty yards receiving that day. So a minute to go. It's 42 to 40. And let's face. I don't know how you felt about this at the time. Rob, but I'm thinking at that point of time was going to feel like a loss. Yep. You know, to have it. The more the more Dracula. Oh, not not quite. Not quite. So. Yeah. Cows are wisely went to his hot guy Melvin Bratton. But this time he was met by Keta Covington who was a big time hitter. I think he was a defensive back. And he just. Lebled him at the two yard line. Here's. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now we weren't done yet. It was still a minute to go. Miami tried the onsite kick and the craziest thing almost happened.

13:24Maryland recovered it and took it down to the one yard line. We almost took the site kick in for the touchdown. We couldn't stop scoring touchdowns against them. And then. Right took a knee and that was the game 42 to 40. Yeah. What else? Those last few minutes seems like they took an hour. Right. Right. Well, the with the turf for me down 31 nothing. I know that Maryland players said after the game. When they were down 31 nothing a halftime now Miami has always had the reputation of being classless. And apparently their players just took it to the extreme when they were hit 31 nothing a halftime and all the trash talking and the things that they were seeing to the Maryland players. And. You got to give the Maryland players credit. They really took that to heart and they said.

14:24You know, we are going to do something in the second half. You know, this this is not happening. And you know, basically Miami just added fuel to the fire by their their classless behavior. Yeah. And in the later years they got away with it, but they weren't quite good enough to get away with it that year, even up 31 to nothing. Right. It was like they had a home field advantage with a stadium over half anything. And I'm sure some of the fans left to enjoy a nice fall afternoon and halftime. You know, so probably had 20,000 people in the stands by the time the game was over. Right. Right. Now, right had an incredible second half 12 of 15 for 240 and three touchdowns. Wow. So. Now Maryland wound up winning out and wound up nine and three and finished nine and nine

15:25to three and they finished number 12 in the nation. Miami went the other direction. I don't want to say they completely fell apart. But two weeks later, they had the Doug Flutey Hail Mary game that they lost at the orange ball. That's right. I'm not going to insult your intelligence Rob to ask if you remember that. Oh my God. How many times have we seen the replay? Right. That's up there almost like late in their shot in the tournament. But, um, yeah, so they lost that one 47 to 45. You know, their defense got pretty shaky there at the end didn't. Right. Because that would be in six quarters. Then they had given up 87 points. And these were good, but not powerhouse teams. Although Maryland's offense really clicked the second half that year. Games other than that. Then they wound up getting demoted. Miami did to the fiesta bowl and they lost to UCLA 39 to 37.

16:28So I didn't take the time to look this up, but they got to have a different defensive coordinator coming in the next year. Maybe a whole defensive coaching staff because they completely melted down and you know, I don't care. I'm looking at the right. They had to have players. You know, that's the same defensive one of championship. But anyway, good enough for him, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it was as happy an ending as could be to that season. And Maryland won the ACC that year because they were undefeated in the ACC. The two games they lost earlier were to. I forget. Oh, I got it up here. No, I don't. It was Syracuse and somebody else. Let's say it was Syracuse and Vanderbilt. Okay. That was again, not a good start, but that that team showed a lot of character coming back and probably rostered a good job of keeping them focused and you know, 31 and nothing to come back of one of the absolute great moments.

17:36You know, unfortunately, Maryland football, you know, going through the Penn State series, pick a game, right? They had those kind of moments and they never, they were a lot of swings and misses. That time, they made the plays and held on and made the plays to hold on. And they were a lot of, you know, one just that, you know, they still had to make a couple of plays there at the end and they did. So I think for anybody our age, got to be our favorite Maryland game. Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely definitely got to be in the top two or three. Yeah. There's other good ones. Don't get me wrong. You know, that's some good years. But wow. So. So let's stay in college park for another very, very happy memory, the 2004 ACC basketball tournament. Okay. Now, I don't know if you remember that coincidentally happened to be the year that I covered the Turks home games for a Maryland website.

18:41So I got to know that team just a little bit. That was a very challenging season. And in late February, it was questionable bordering on doubtful. If they were going to get an at large bid to the NCAA tournament. Now, at that time, Maryland had a streak of 11 years in a row making it. That was just like an assumption. At that point, Maryland makes a tournament, right? And they were down to the last two games of the year. Of course, remember, it's still the ACC days. And they were five and nine in the conference. So you figure there's no way they go in six and 10 or, of course, five and 11. So they got to win both of those games. The next to last game was at NC State. And state was ranked somewhere in the top 20 at that time. And I remember I was doing some radio at that time with my buddy, Bob Haney.

19:42He was on WNST at the time. And he said, yeah, he had me on. He said, what do you think? I said, I don't think you're going to win. Yeah, just because I've seen too much. I thought they'd get him a good game. I think you're going to, well, they won 70 to 69. And then on a Sunday night last game of the season, they, everybody thought they clinched it by beating Virginia. 70, 61. And I will never forget it. As a quarter mile, I, I saw in the last few seconds, as the clock is running down, Gary Wames jumping up and down and pumping his fist. He never did that. So you could tell that that street meant a lot to him. And getting that team. What we believe to be over the hump. Men a lot. But as it turns out, the party had was not yet started. It was in Greensboro, baby. And that's where the ACC tournament was. And ironically enough 20 years ago, almost to the day is where Maryland had won their ACC tournament. The last time beating Duke.

20:43And I can't even. And that was, that was a really good Maryland team. There was no doubt they were going NCAAs. That was. Len bias. Coleman Adrian branch. The keys. The keys. Gatlin. That was a good, good basketball team. But just as an aside, in 84, the number one team was North Carolina. You know, Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins. Okay. Duke did Maryland a big, big favor that year, knocked them out in the semis. So it was one of those deals where it's like, hey, wait a minute. We have a chance of winning the thing. It's there for the take. Right. And Maryland took it. There was Mike Sheshfke's first good team at Duke. And it's hard to believe in hindsight. He was on the hot seat going into that year. He had had three pretty blah years.

21:44And if they hadn't any, they wound up getting a bid to the NCAA. I don't think they went particularly far. But if they hadn't started turning it around. The whole history of college basketball. And I don't think that's hyperbole. Might have looked a lot different than it did. You just never know. But they were patient enough. And then of course, when he turned it around, they kept it turned around for 40, 30 years. So. Right. Anyway, enough of that. So Maryland wound up opening game. The tournament against Wake Forest. Now, Maryland had played well, top 25 teams that season. And they had until that NC State game, they had lost seven in a row. All of them by at least eight points. Whoa. So, so that, you know, it takes anybody's here and there's no, you didn't have any faith. Now, I just, I just saw the games. Okay. That was a surprise with them winning in Rawling. Okay. Against the top 25 team.

22:44So now here was top 25 teams. The lower loaded. Throughout the ACC bracket. Well, Wake Forest came in. I do not put down there, I think there were somewhere around 15. And, you know, Maryland was a six seed. Okay, Wake was a three seed. And it was an exciting back and forth game. Maryland wound up winning it 87 86. I think that was a great win. And it was a tight game all the way through. Maryland had a five point lead with under a minute to go in Chris Paul. Remember him. He was a freshman at that point and already. One of the best guards in the country. He had a three pointer and two free throws to tie it. And then John Gilchrist sealed it with a free throw with three point seven seconds left. Now, he had sat a lot of the first half and foul trouble. But that was kind of a harbinger of the rest of the tournament for Mr. John Gilchrist. A name which fortunately faded far too quickly from Maryland fans.

23:45But boy did did he have himself a weekend. Yeah. And they desperately needed that weekend the next day against NC State. Now they had a conversation with the coach. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I have a good fit. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. I think that was a great win. Again since he stayed state. I think that was a great win. Again since he stayed state. They had a couple of there rotation guys out with injuries. But they still wanted to get a little revenge for losing. I think it was their senior night game they lost to Maryland and they came out and they came out and and punished Maryland in the first half. Forty five twenty six. It's a half and it's like, Okay, you know, we won a game. We beat wake. All right. And the rest of the team got a message from Gary Williams at halftime and I'm quoting, although I bet you this has gotten cleaned up a little bit, where he said, who are you to disrespect this program?

24:49Hmm. Yeah. I can say I'm pretty sure that's a sanitized version of it, but you still get the point. Sure. And the whole team took it to heart, but especially Mr. Gilchrist, who wound up with 23 points in the second half. Yeah. Nine for nine shooting. The team shot 67%. That's how you make up a 19 point deficit. Outscored NC State 59 to 37 in the second half. And the 52 points they had in the half was the third highest ever in a half at that point in time in the ACC tournament. And the 19 point deficit made up was the biggest at that time made up in the ACC tournament. And they started out quick. It was 20, the Maryland came out of the locker room and hit them with a 21 eight run and got right back in the game in the first five and a half minutes of the second half.

25:54Then it was a ball game and they were able to navigate it and win and gradually wore down a bit of a short handed NC State team. And of course nobody could guard Gilchrist. So here we were looking at Duke. Freakin Duke. Let me just say it. I was there that night in 2004 with the infamous FU Redic game at. Yeah. That became a national incident. No, and in sports. And I wound up writing a scathing editorial about it was I was sitting here listening to it. I'm like, oh, got it. Maryland lost the game 68 60 redic had had a pretty good game. So, you know, that was fine. But funny thing about redic people may not remember this about me. He turned into a great college player is junior and senior, especially senior year.

26:59But his first company was he was not in the greatest shape. And therefore when it came down to clutch time a lot of times he didn't have a lot of juice. And he would miss the shots that you would like him to make. And this game, the championship game was no exception. Now Maryland hung in there for most of this game. But with 314 to go it was 74 62 Duke. And you know, I'm sure you're watching it at home like I was. Riding your teeth but thinking, okay, we weren't supposed to be here anyway, right? Let's just make sure we don't get absolutely blown out. Look, let's, you know, see we can make a game of it here at the end of the game and at least make them sweat. Well, obviously Maryland did better than that. Outscored him 15 to 3 down the stretch. And with 34 seconds and here we start talking about the unharrowed of people.

28:0134 seconds left 75 71 Duke. Caner Medley and Chris McRae had both fouls. I was a lot of fouls in this game. Lots of fouls. And Mike Jones, one of the freshman class, the very, very heralded freshman class of that year. I think it was Gary's highest rated class ever. So they were down to Mike Jones who had only played a little, he played in the games, but he was only getting like a handful of minutes every game to see. Really had not developed the defense, the Gary one. The dude could still shoot. And he hit a tough baseline three with 34 seconds left to cut it to one. Now, Duke went down and hit a couple of free throws. And then it was, let me see, it was. Yes, so they went back up by three and it was Gilchrist hitting a three that tied it up

29:02with 19 seconds to go. And there were a couple of missed shots in there at the end, but we headed to overtime. And the overtime, you had Mike Grinnon. Now, if you have not heard of that, and I know you have not, but if you're listening to this, and you haven't heard of that game, don't feel bad. He had not taken a free throw in a game since December. Now nobody said this out loud, but the conventional wisdom was he was on the roster, because he was a good practice player and he helped the team's GPA. That's what I heard. Very nice. You know, teammates loved him. He's a great guy, great teammate, all that. So, he's in there. There's only one reason I remember that. There's only one reason I remember that name and you're about to talk about it. Yes. So, he hit two of the bigger free throws that were made in overtime.

30:04And he also played some good defense on a pretty wound down JJ Redick. And so, he wound up with a couple of rebounds. He hit the two big free throws and Maryland outscored Duke 18-10 in the overtime. Now, another bizarre thing of the sudden evolution of this Maryland basketball team, Maryland was horrible that year, shooting free throws. Now, how do I define horrible? 318th in the nation. Out of 326. So, ninth worst free throw shooting team in the nation. They shot 73% in the ACC tournament, including all the big ones. There was never a situation where they were looking to make a free throw and they missed them. So, by the way, Redick turned out to be a pretty good pro.

31:07Didn't see that came on up in the A&B for 15 years. And of course, now he's the, as of this moment, at least the Los Angeles Lakers coach. Yeah. But back to the free throws, Maryland only hit one or a couple of hoops in the overtime. 13 out of 16 from the line. That's almost 80%. Wow. Well, yeah, I kind of remember the big free throws. But yeah, I mean, you know, just another way they came through in the clutch. Right. And I remember one of the things that Duke always like to talk about is they made more free throws than their opponents attempted. Well, in this game, Maryland reversed that. And Maryland made more free throws than Duke attempted. And I think Maryland fouled out two or three of their guides, including Sheldon Williams, their All-American candidate center. And that loosened up Jamar Smith. Now, Jamar Smith got as much crap as anybody that year.

32:09You know, he had a tough assignment coming in, replacing ultimately Lonnie Baxter, two years later. He was a senior. He was the only senior on the team. And he struggled. And it hurt Maryland because Maryland had that low post offense that Baxter was so good at. And Ryan Randle did fairly well the following year. But that was not Jamar Smith's game. And what happened was his playing time kind of diminished. And his role was not as clearly defined leader in the season as it could have been. But he stepped up in this game against Duke and had 25 points and 12 rebounds. And like Gilchrist, he played 43 minutes. I haven't said enough about Gilchrist here. Gilchrist wound up, excuse me, with 30 points in this game and the MVP of the tournament. One of the great individual performances in ACC history. The only one I can think of like it in 95, I think it was Randolph Schilker, some Wake Forest,

33:13kind of took over the tournament. And Gilchrist did the same thing, especially in those last two games. You know, they obviously don't win either of those two games. They're probably not Wake Forest without the way that Gilchrist stepped up. So one of the more unexpected performances. Again, Marilyn had lost some tough games in the post season, especially in the ACC tournament, don't get me started. One of them in particular jumps out to me at Duke. Don't want to get you started on that either because yeah, I'm pretty sure it was in that same bill. But Marilyn did not have very good memories of that building except for me before. So that turned into Gary Williams, one and only ACC tournament championship. Right. And that was kind of the last bestages of greatness would be too strong a word for that team. But the teams unfortunately in later years with Gary became less relevant.

34:16They missed the NCAAs the next two years. And got into them a couple of times later and the 2010 team was really good. But the O4 was pretty much the last in my opinion, the last shining moment. Gary Williams teams had the boy. Was it a good one? It's a and it's a sweet memory. That was sweet. Well, the only thing I'm going to add about that and I don't know how well, well, I think as soon as I say your memory. And I think I called you before the game or I might have called you a half time. I think sometimes we did that if we're watching a big game. It might have been a half time. But the thing was half time because repeatedly in the first half of that game, there was a kid with a Duke jersey on. Oh, how could I forget the Duke the crying Duke kid? Oh, thank you for remembering that. Please go ahead. Go ahead. You could just do an internet search crying.

35:18You can have a link in the show notes of that. Yes. So he'll pop right up. But I remember because they kept the kept showing this kid sitting there with his dad. He's got a Duke jersey. The kids like nine or 10 years old. And because he had really good seats, you know, he's like, I don't know, 10th, 12th row. And the camera just kept going to him over and over. And I'm over calling you. I think I have time. I said, at the end of that game, I want that kid in tears. Yes. I know it's a kid, but you can't show any mercy. To Duke in any way. I don't care if it's a calling ball. And end of the game, the camera was on that kid multiple times crying his eyes out. So I remember the first the first crying shot. I remember saying, oh, I like there's Romans drawing crying Duke kid. Yes. Yep. That was the icing on the cake. Yep. So I'll take credit for that. You should.

36:20I put it in the ball. It's what it would have been incomplete without that story. So thank you for adding. You got a couple of ones that you want to bring up, including the next one. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Statman and Robin podcast. We'll continue this discussion in part two on our next episode. If you have many questions, ideas or feedback, you can email us at Statman and Robin at gmail.com. Remember, it's good to look back as long as you live forward. Thanks for joining us.