NOTE: It was 20 years ago today when LSU met No. 2 Georgetown in a made-for-television game in the Louisiana Superdome that CBS Sports would televise to the nation. The No. 1 team had fallen and Georgetown was in position to move into the nation’s top spot. LSU lost three players ? three pretty important recruits (Maurice Williamson, Stanley Roberts and Harold Boudreaux) ? to the 1980s dilemma known as Prop 48. Georgetown had Alonzo Mourning, Charles Smith, Jarren Jackson. But the story of this game has to begin with what happened to the Tigers in their previous game at Georgia.
It was a Wednesday night in Georgia and no one was probably paying much attention to the Bulldogs. After all, LSU was scheduled to play a game in the Louisiana Superdome against No. 2 Georgetown, a game that Dale Brown had been promoting as only Dale knows how ? radio shows, interviews, getting a show company to give away tickets to the entire upper terrace of the massive building. Was LSU playing that night? For a while it looked like they weren’t aware they were playing that night as well.
LSU trailed Georgia, 50-33, which was double teaming Tigers freshman phenom Chris Jackson. They put the freak defense Brown made famous on LSU. It was LSU’s Lyle Mouton who hit three treys and 11 points in the first four minutes of the second half that opened things up for the Tigers. LSU cut a 17-point deficit to 10, and then to four. By the end of nine minutes in the second half, LSU led 61-60, and won 80-79 in a game in which Brown said it had to be divine intervention. “Somebody’s in our corner,” he said.
LSU was 13-5 and in the lead in the Southeastern Conference. Not bad for a team of no-respect Tigers who almost never got the chance to play Georgetown.
That’s right. The game for the ages for LSU basketball was almost cancelled.
After the LSU roster was decimated by Prop 48, national promoter Russ Potts, who put the game together, and CBS went to Brown in the summer and offered to cancel the game. Brown refused.
“We could have gotten out of the game, but I didn’t want to, I thought I would be hypocritical if I did that,” Brown said. “If I would have gone behind the players’ backs and done that that wouldn’t have been right. We showed more confidence in them (by playing).”
New Orleans was LSU’s home away from home. At that time, LSU was almost unbeatable at UNO’s Lakefront Arena or the Superdome. Brown was confident that not only could his team play with Georgetown, but he could smash the attendance record for college basketball.
Maybe it was the David-and-Goliath billing of the game that made it so attractive. Georgetown, its New Orleans players, and a Catholic school in a predominantly Catholic city made this game a curiosity even for the casual sports fan.
The fans came in droves. There were 64,144 tickets distributed and the actual attendance of 54,321 topped the attendance for the Houston-UCLA game in the Astrodome in 1968.
The Superdome was like a Mardi Gras parade all game long. Even from the worst seats in the house came loud, lasting noise that started and never ended.
LSU came out and tried to show it belonged, building a 44-41 halftime advantage. Billy Packer of CBS was amazed at the talent showed by not only Chris Jackson, but Vernel Singleton.
Despite leading most of the game, including two 10-point margins in the second half, LSU had some misses at the free-throw line and the Tigers got in a little trouble.
But with Georgetown breathing down the Tigers necks, Alonzo Mourning missed badly on a follow shot of a missed free throw with 35 seconds left and Ricky Blanton rebounded and was fouled by Bobby Winston. Blanton made the two free throws and LSU was up, 80-79.
Hoyas senior Charles Smith came down and missed an off-balanced jumper but he was fouled by LSU guard Dennis Tracey. Smith had a chance to give the Hoyas the lead, but he missed his first attempt. His second tied the game at 80-80.
It was LSU’s chance to win it at the end, and how it happened is the stuff of fairy tales.
LSU wanted to keep the ball in hands of Jackson who had 26 points in the game. Smothered by three Hoyas, Jackson passed off to a wide-open Russell Grant.
Grant got off a set shot that was heading in the right direction before Mourning soared in the air and deflected it. The ball floated short of the basket, but LSU forward Wayne Sims tipped it toward Blanton, who grabbed the loose ball, shot in a hurry and watched as the ball went in as the buzzer sounded.
The second-chance basket sent the record crowd into delirium as LSU won, 82-80.
“I knew I either had to try to get fouled or try to take shot,” Blanton said, “because of the time on the clock. I was fortunate enough to get the shot.”
Dale Brown wrote later after retiring in his book “Tiger in a Lion’s Den”:
“In one sense I was amazed at the players who were on the floor when the game ended. Dennis Tracey was a walk-on from the New Orleans area who made the team because of an emotional letter he had written to me about his dream to be a Tiger. Russell Grant was another walk-on from Louisville who was put in the position to take shot to try to upset the Hoyas. Ricky Blanton was a spirited player, but was only 6-6 and asked to play center. Chris Jackson was a freshman who was on his way to setting the NCAA record for scoring in a freshman season. Wayne Sims was the cousin of my assistant Johnny Jones and a player who had made the most of his abilities.”
When ice was thrown on the court, stopping play with 2:25 left in the first half, Dale Brown went to the public address microphone and asked the crowd to tone down its enthusiasm. “Don’t ruin a spectacle,” Brown said. His words were effective and prophetic.
It was a spectacle indeed.
What was supposed to be Alonzo Mourning versus Stanley Roberts in a battle of college basketball’s two best freshman centers, the game took on a different dynamic.
“If you took our talent and matched it up against Georgetown’s, maybe we shouldn’t have even shown up for the game,” Brown said. “But I have my own poll. I don’t care whether we’re ranked by the wire services. I have a poll for desire, and a poll for hustle, and a poll for love, and we’re No. 1 in all of those.”
It took all of that and the greatest crowd to that date in college basketball who all worked together to make it one of the special days in the history of LSU basketball.