1978 Marquette Basketball: From McGuire To Raymonds
Marquette basketball was facing a new world in 1978, one without Al McGuire. Their great head coach had gone out in a blaze of glory in 1977, winning the national championship after announcing his retirement. Al’s top assistant, Hank Raymonds, was promoted to the head job. Throughout the regular season, it looked like nothing had changed. The Warriors continued to be a nationally elite team. But a big March disappointment proved to foreshadow a steady decline.
A VETERAN ROSTER KEEPS ROLLING
Al might have been gone but Butch Lee was back in the fold. The senior guard knocked down 18 points/5 assists per game and won National Player of the Year honors. Jerome Whitehead, a tough big man, was another senior and he averaged 14 points/8 rebounds. The lineup was rounded out with more contributing seniors in Jim Boylan and Gary Rosenberger in the backcourt, along with Ulice Payne up front. Bernard Toone, a 6’9” junior was another key piece.
Marquette had experience and depth. If you have to go through transition on the coaching staff, this is the way to do it. The Warriors were ranked #3 in the preseason polls
STARTING STRONG
Marquette cruised through their first four games, and then went to Louisville right before Christmas. It was a high-profile game against a Cardinal team that would end up in the Sweet 16 and was ranked #8 coming into this game. MU dropped a tough 61-60 decision.
Undeterred, the Warriors picked themselves up and won their next six games. That included beating Texas, the eventual Southwest Conference champ, 65-56. The win streak included going to Missouri and beating a Tiger team that went on to win the Big Eight’s conference tournament. By the middle of January, Marquette was 10-1, and back to #2 in the polls. The transition was going along smoothly.
SHOWCASE WINS
Super Bowl Sunday came early in this era, this time on January 15. Before America watched Roger Stabauch’s Dallas Cowboys win a championship, they got to see Marquette host UNLV in college basketball’s national showcase game.
Jerry Tarkanian’s Rebels had also made the Final Four the previous March and they were ranked #11. But the Warriors put on a show. They got 22 points from Whitehead, a career-high 19 from Payne, raced to a 16-point lead by halftime and closed out a 97-81 win.
On Wednesday night, Marquette hosted their Midwest Catholic archrival DePaul, a good team headed for the Elite Eight in March and ranked #18 for this game. Whitehead continued to roll, with another 22-point game. Lee was electric, pouring in 31 points. The Warriors won 80-74.
Marquette got to 14-1, before suffering 68-64 upset loss at Loyola-Chicago on January 28. But the Warriors responded by winning seven in a row, including an 82-57 blowout of NCAA Tournament-bound Creighton. MU also handled their in-state rivalry with a 75-64 win over Wisconsin.
By mid-February, Marquette’s record was soaring at 21-2. They moved to #1 in the country and went to Notre Dame on the final Sunday of February.
DERAILED IN SOUTH BEND
Digger Phelps had an excellent team, one that would end up in the Final Four. Under his leadership, the Irish had developed a reputation for knocking off #1 teams on their home floor. No one in the country was going to overlook this game.
Marquette came ready to play and took a 39-25 lead. But their offense bogged down in the second half and the problem of being #1 and playing in South Bend reared its ugly head. The Warriors lost 65-59.
They still went on to close out the season with wins over Butler and Detroit. With a final record of 23-3, they finished where they had begun, at #3 in the polls. In Hank Raymonds’ first year, he was going into March with a real shot at a repeat national title.
A BRUTAL BRACKET
The NCAA Tournament was very different in 1978 than it is today. To begin with, they were only 32 teams. From a team on Marquette’s level, the fact the bracket was not seeded, or even balanced across the regionals, was also a big difference from today Kentucky, ranked #1, was not only in the same Mideast Regional as Marquette, they were on the same side of the draw—meaning they would play in the Sweet 16.
But if nothing else, the Warriors seemed to have a favorable Round of 32 game, facing Miami-Ohio at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis. The Redskins were a good program, but at 19-9, the MAC champs were well off the pace of the national elite. Nor were they deep, with only Archie Aldridge and future Ohio State head coach Randy Ayers putting up notable numbers. If the tournament were seeded the way it is today, Miami-Ohio would have almost surely played Kentucky
Thus, it was no surprise when Marquette seemed to be in control with a 68-58 lead and 3:38 to play. Lee was on his way to a 27-point game. There was no shot clock and no three-point line in effect. This game might as well have been over.
A SHOCKING ENDING
But Marquette was struggling from the foul line and would only shoot 13-for-20 on the game. By comparison, Miami-Ohio went 16-for-19 from the stripe. The biggest free throws came at the threshold 3:38 mark when Whitehead was whistled for a flagrant foul. Raymonds protested hard and got a technical of his own. The free throws and subsequent possession immediately sliced the lead in half, to 68-63 and gave the underdog new hope.
The Redskins pulled even and forced overtime. Marquette ultimately lost 84-81.
In today’s NCAA Tournament this kind of result would still be an upset, but in a parity-driven environment where everyone is on the alert for a “bracket-buster” this would simply have answered the question of what favorite was going to fall. In the world of 1978, a Round of 32 upset of this magnitude was by no means the norm. Miami-Ohio’s win was the headline story in Sunday newspapers around the country.
THE LONG DECLINE BEGINS
The defending champs had fallen. And while it would be a stretch to say they never got back up, it was a long time before Marquette was this good again. Their 1979 team made the Sweet 16 and after that, the Warriors spent several years mostly around the bubble of an expanding NCAA Tournament field.
This decline was not necessarily on Raymonds. Life was just getting more difficult for most independents, particularly with the rise of the Big East. McGuire himself would say that having the success he enjoyed in the 1970s would have been much harder in the landscape Raymonds was inheriting. There are lot of reasons why Marquette started to slide, but the historical benchmark of its beginning is their upset loss in the 1978 NCAA Tournament.