1/27/2024 0 Comments 1976 michigan basketball roster16 Kansas State 67-66 in a comeback win in the next round. After dominating the first game, Marquette barely beat No. The NCAA Tournament wasn’t a breeze, though. “Not only did we lose a number of games that year, but we lost a number of those games at home which was very unusual for an Al McGuire team.” “We lost more games in the arena - the Milwaukee arena where we played at the time - that year than Al McGuire lost in the previous 10 years,” former forward Jim Dudley says. 3 Michigan to end with a 25-7 record, they reached the NCAA Tournament for the 9th time in McGuire’s career. Even though they fell 69-68 in the final game of the season to No. The team took one game at a time, beating Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Tulane and Creighton all on the road. We knew in order for us to get in, we had to win (most) those games.” “We had five games left and they were all on the road. “By the time the end of the season rolled around we had our backs against a wall,” former Marquette guard and Bucks and Bulls’ interim head coach Jim Boylan says. With five games left, the team sat at 16-6, on the bubble of even making the NCAA Tournament. “We were a very confident group because we knew how good we were,” Ellis says. But the team was not rattled and lost all but one game either in overtime or by one or two points. Marquette went on a three-game losing streak in the MECCA, including falling in Ellis’ last home game 75-64. “That was like the craziest thing to happen in my basketball career probably, as far as being a downer,” former guard Alfred “Butch” Lee, the Most Outstanding Player at the 1977 Final Four, says. Following the announcement, the team lost the next two games on their home court in the MECCA Arena. Ellis notes McGuire’s decision was due to basketball taking a toll on his body. 17, 1976, head coach Al McGuire announced his retirement. I remember making the comment after the ’74 championship that we lost that we would be back,” former forward Bo Ellis, the only player in Marquette history to play in two national championship games, says.Įllis was a senior in 1976-77. ![]() “I was the only returning player from that team on the ’77 team. Three years prior, the team made it to the 1974 NCAA national championship game, but fell to North Carolina State 76-64. In 1977, the Marquette men’s basketball team was coming off a 28-2 season in 1975-76 and were picked to be in the top five in almost every preseason poll.
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