Status Note

The Washington Bullets had made two recent trips to the NBA Finals, in 1971 and 1975 respectively. But they hadn’t yet won a title–in fact, they hadn’t even won a game in the Finals, being swept out both times. The 1978 Washington Bullets weren’t as good as their ’71 and ’75 predecessors during the regular […]

By 1973, Al McGuire had Marquette basketball settled into a pattern which was mostly good, with a bit of a downside. McGuire churned out nationally competitive teams, won high-profile regular season battles and was a regular in an NCAA Tournament that then invited just 25 teams. He would successfully advance in the NCAA bracket. But […]

Florida football was riding high in 2009. The last three seasons had seen Urban Meyer’s program win a national title in 2006, Tim Tebow capture the Heisman Trophy in 2007 and then win another national championship in 2008. The 2009 Florida Gators played to these standards—except for one showdown game that left them short of […]

The Boston Celtics came into 1977 as the gold standard of the NBA. They were the defending champions and had won two of the previous three titles. This was on top of a long dynastic run with Red Auerbach and Bill Russell preceding. But the league was changing. A merger with the American Basketball Association […]