'The LaBradford Smith game,' Danny Ainge goes 94 ft for the win, and Oscar Robertson's historic win - This DiSH March 19

This day in Sports History.

And welcome back.

It's March 19th and on this day in Sports History, the legend of Michael Jordan grew just

a little bit more.

Danny Aange pulled off an incredible mad dash for the win and there were not one but two

historic basketball games played on this day, 11 years apart.

All that plus a non-sports fun fact at the end coming your way about jumping the shark

and I'll get going right after this.

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So in last year's edition of this dish, I talked about Michael Jordan making his return

to the NBA on this day in 1995 after his first retirement and the pursuit of his baseball

dream ending.

Now, I do not want to dwell on that again, instead let's go back two years earlier for

another Jordan memory.

And this one became known as the Labradford Smith game.

So the game on this night was in Chicago and it was the first of a back-to-back with

the Washington Bullets.

Jordan, the nine-year vet and two-time NBA champ, was struggling a bit.

He could not find the bottom of the basket on this night.

teammate BJ Armstrong remembers him missing 19 shots in a row and that's a bit of an

overstatement but Jordan was misfiring.

He finished with 25 but he was 9 of 27 from the field.

While the Bullets, the Labradford Smith, their second-year man out of Louisville, was one

of those on the long list of the next Jordan.

Now, his numbers were not exactly Jordan-esque at this point but on this night, he did put

on a show.

Smith hit 15 of the 20 shots he took and he was a perfect 7 of 7 from the line to score

37 on the night.

But the Bullets still won the game, 104-99.

So the story goes that as the teams were walking off the court afterwards, Labradford Smith

came over to MJ, put his arm around him and said, nice game, Mike.

Now according to his teammates, Jordan was pissed in the locker room after the game, saying

something to the effect of whatever that guy had tonight, I'm going to have in the first

half tomorrow night.

Well, next night, Jordan essentially did just that.

By the time the horn sounded ending the second quarter, Jordan had 36 on his way to a 47-point

night, and he only played three quarters, and the Bullets won again, this time by 25.

Revenge served up nice and cold, but hang on a minute.

Decades later, long after MJ had hung up his air-Jordan's for good, a rumor started

to swirl that the impetus behind the revenge game was a myth.

Bullwriters asked Jordan about whether Smith had actually put his arm around him and said,

nice game, Mike.

MJ smiled and said, nah, I made it up.

Well, as the NCAA tournament gets underway today, let's go back to 1981 when Danny

Ange's Mad Dash gave enhanced meeting to March Madness.

This was a sweet 16 match-up between the number six Notre Dame fighting Irish and the

18th ranked BYU Cougars, and this was the pre-shot clock era and the pre-three-point shot

era in college basketball, and the score reflected that.

With 20 seconds remaining, the Irish were down 49-48, but they had the ball in the front

court.

The Cougars call to time out with eight seconds to set up a final play, which must have

been pretty simple to diagram.

But to Danny Ange, get out of the way.

One other big difference from then to today is that at that point, the clock did not stop

after a made basket in the final minute of the game.

MJ's 94-foot drive was perfectly timed and executed, and it sent BYU on to the Elite

8.

This year's NCAA tournament will culminate in the final four in Indianapolis in a couple

of weeks, but one of the most significant high school basketball games was played in

Indianapolis on this day in 1955, when Oscar Robertson led his high school team to a historic

win.

This was the 1955 Indiana State Championship game between the Big O's Crispus Attics team

from Indianapolis against Roosevelt High out of Gary.

This was the year after the famous Milen vs. Muncie game that inspired the movie Hoosiers.

In fact, Robertson had been a sophomore in 54 when Crispus Attics High lost to Milen

and the State Quarter Finals.

Now here in 55, the now high school junior poured in 30 points in a 97-74 route of Roosevelt.

The win was historic because it was the first State Championship anywhere in the U.S. for

an all-black team playing in an integrated sport.

Crispus Attics High, led by Robertson in his senior year, would come back in 56 and repeat

as champions.

So that's a pretty nice segue into what happened 11 years later in the men's NCAA Tournament

Championship game.

On this day in 1966, Texas Western, now known as the University of Texas El Paso, and

the Kentucky Wildcats played for the national title.

Texas Western, coached by Don Heskins, featured an all-black starting five against Adolf

Rupp's all-white Kentucky starting five, and there were a lot of people paying attention.

The miners took the lead midway through the first half with some pickpocket defense

and they never gave it up.

They shot 45% from the field for the game and spent a lot of time at the free-throw line

hitting 28 of 34.

Kentucky did not have a good shooting night hitting 39% of their shots, and when the game

ended, the scoreboard read Texas Western 72, Kentucky 65.

And on this day in 1961, golfer Bob Goldby rolled in eight consecutive birdies to set

a new PGA Tour record at the time, playing in the final round of the St. Petersburg open

in Florida.

golby hopped on the birdie train at the eighth and he wrote it all the way through to the

15th.

He was throwing darts at the pens, leaving himself only short pots along the way, and he finished

with a 65 to win by three shots over Ted Crowell for his fourth win on tour.

golby's record was equaled seven times before it was finally broken by Mark Calcovecchi's

nine straight birdies in 2009 at the Canadian Open.

And time now for today's, that's got nothing to do with sports, fun fact.

If you know that the term, jump the shark originated from a scene in Happy Days, then you

may be interested to know that the concept of the fonds getting on water skis and then

jumping the literal shark originated from Henry Winkler's dad.

Winkler was an accomplished water skier and his dad told him, hey, you should try to find

a way to work that into the show.

Oh, and even though the term, jump the shark is supposed to be the point when something

begins to decline, Happy Days did another 160 episodes after this one with high ratings.

This has been an original, thrifesweet production.