Friday, March 28, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
They began the season as a bunch of unknowns. By the time late March rolled around, an entire nation was curious and fascinated by them.
And no one realized it at the time, but the legacy of UNLV basketball, as it is known today, began with them.
This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of UNLV's first NCAA Division I Final Four team. Three other teams have made it to the Final Four and the 1990 team won the school's only national championship when it routed Duke 103-73 in Denver.
But without the exploits of the 1977 Rebels, it's arguable whether the 1990 team would have been pieced together, let alone been good enough to win it all. Or, for that matter, the 1991 team which went undefeated until Duke exacted a measure of revenge six years ago in the semifinals at the same venue -- the RCA Dome in Indianapolis -- where this weekend's Final Four is taking place.
"We put Las Vegas on the basketball map," said Robert Smith, the point guard of the '77 team which went 29-3 and finished third.
Reggie Theus, a reserve guard on that team, said: "We were everything that people today look for in a team."
Talented and tight
When the subject of the 1977 Rebels comes up, a couple of themes keep surfacing.
For starters, this was a very talented team. It had tremendous athleticism, which enabled it to play the full-court pressure defense coach Jerry Tarkanian had installed early in his UNLV career. There was a great work ethic which carried over from the practice floor to game night.
It also had great individual players, guys like Eddie Owens, Sam Smith and Tony Smith who could shoot the lights out from long distance and bangers inside like Big Lew Brown and quick jumpers like Larry Moffett.
It had heady players like Robert Smith, the 5-foot-11 guard who could weave his way through traffic and find the open man and the 6-7 Theus, who was the heir apparent at the point and could beat you in so many ways.
And there was Glen Gondrezick, the wily veteran who did a lot of the dirty work under the boards but still found a way to average 14.6 points a game.
Tarkanian had an eight-man rotation that season, something he always preferred. And from that eight-man group, six were drafted by the NBA that June, none lower than the fourth round.
Three of them (Gondrezick, Moffett and Owens) were all second-round picks. The following year, Theus would be a first-round pick of the Chicago Bulls and Tony Smith, the eighth player from that team, was tabbed by Cleveland in the seventh round.
"Everyone had come from a winning program, so no one accepted losing," said Gondrezick, who has spent the past five years as the color analyst for UNLV basketball on television and radio. "But while we were talented, people don't realize how hard this team worked.
"Our practices were like wars, and that's something that goes back to my freshman year. My first season, there was literally a fight every day because the competition for playing time was so fierce that if you didn't practice hard, you didn't play.
"Guys were getting into fights all the time. One guy brought a gun one time after getting into it. Another day, someone brought a knife. Another time, a guy went back to his car and brought this big chain. It was that crazy.
"By the time I was a senior, the standard had been set."
And through that intense competition evolved a close-knit relationship among the players. There was an unselfishness on the court that spread to a closeness off it.
"The guys genuinely liked each other," said Robert Smith, who teaches and coaches basketball at Bishop Gorman High School. "You could see it the way they looked for each other on the court. And afterwards, we'd hang out together. It was a team in the truest sense of the word."
Tarkanian said it was one of his most enjoyable teams he coached during his 19-year tenure at UNLV.
"Everything just fit right," he said. "It was such an unselfish team. We played eight guys in our rotation and it was perfect."
But it took a freak accident for the pieces to fit together. Senior Jackie Robinson was expected to be one of the leaders and the 6-6 forward would've started, meaning someone else would've been on the bench.
During the preseason Red and White scrimmage, as it was called back then, Robinson severely sprained his ankle. The scrimmage had ended, but things were going so well, Tarkanian decided to play an extra period.
Robinson got hurt during the bonus time. Had Tark ended the scrimmage when he should've, Robinson would've been healthy and who knows how harmonious things would've been?
"There were a lot of strong personalities on that team, but when it came time to play, everyone sacrificed for the good of the team," said Theus, who played 13 seasons in the NBA and currently does TV work for NBA games on Turner Network Televsion as well as Fox Sports West.
Getting noticed
UNLV was an independent program back in 1977. It was trying to join the Western Athletic Conference, but the WAC had not yet accepted the school on a provisional basis.
So it meant barnstorming the country to get games. Word had gotten out the year before when the Rebels went 29-2 with a group known as "The Hardway Eight" and averaged 111 points a game. The 1977 team was expected to be even better.
"There was a lot of pride," said Theus. "Especially on defense. We didn't even want guys crossing mid-court."
The Rebels pressed and trapped all over the court. And even if the opposition broke the press and scored, UNLV would come right back down and score.
"People talk about how we gave up 87 points a game," said Gondrezick. "But what they don't realize was the other teams had more possessions because we were scoring 107. That's why they scored so much."
Said Theus: "We were extremely structured. We had a unique group of guys who understood the game.
"We won with defense, not offense. We never let anyone get an uncontested layup or a dunk. If you didn't take a charge or draw contact, you were coming out of the game and you knew there was trouble."
And trouble meant a confrontation with assistant Ralph Readout. If former UNLV assistant Tim Grgurich was considered intense, Readout was off the scale.
"Readout would want to fight you," said Gondrezick. "It was easier to take a charge than to face Ralph."
Off and Runnin'
The 1976-77 season started with a 102-87 win over Nevada-Reno. But just four games into its schedule, UNLV hit a bump in the road when it was upended by a very talented Utah team, 100-96. The Utes had built a commanding 20-point lead and were cruising until the Rebels launched a furious second-half comeback which fell just short.
But it was a wake-up call for the team and they won 14 straight before losing at Illinois State, 88-84. A few days later, one of the key moments of the team's season took place in Philadelphia.
The Rebels were facing Rutgers, which went to the Final Four the year before and had most of its team back. The game was televised throughout the east coast, giving fans their first look at UNLV.
It was a hotly contested game and it took a jumper by Robert Smith from the top of the key for the Rebels to prevail, 89-88.
"That was a big game for us," Smith said. "We had just lost to Illinois State and we needed to get the momentum back.
"On that last shot, they were playing off of me and I guess they didn't think I'd take it. But that shot from the top of the key has always been my bread-and-butter, so I had no problem taking it."
UNLV then parlayed that victory into something bigger when Louisville came to the Las Vegas Convention Center. The Cardinals were known back then as the Doctors of Dunk and were led by Darrell Griffith. The game was completely sold out and a couple of thousand fans, including many of a contingent from Louisville, had to watch the game on huge projection screens in the rotunda.
UNLV wound up winning that game 99-96 in one of Tarkanian's most memorable victories. It was a game that helped bond the team with the city.
"That was a big win," Tark said. "The crowd was unbelievable. They were so loud."
Theus said: "The closeness of the fans to the players was something that always sticks out in my mind," said Theus. "We were like part of their families. They were protective of us and we were protective of Las Vegas.
"We were constantly defending the city. But we knew all the attacks were b.s. and that made us closer."
Tourney time
By the time the NCAAs rolled around, UNLV was 25-2, ranked in the top 10 and looking for the ring.
But the road to Atlanta was not going to be an easy one. San Francisco, which had spent most of the season atop the polls, was the first opponent. And despite Gondrezick getting knocked out by a flagrant foul, the Rebels rolled, 121-95.
That brought a rematch with Utah. It was another tough battle, but UNLV avenged its early-season loss to the Utes with an 88-83 win to put the Rebels a step away from the Final Four.
Idaho State was the opponent. The Bengals had beaten UCLA and had an imposing force in the middle in 7-foot center Steve Hayes. But Moffett held his own against Hayes, Owens had 24 points and UNLV was going to the Final Four for the first time.
And it was crazy. Dominic Clark, the school's sports information director at the time, recalls having Tarkanian on a live teleconference hookup from his office at UNLV with about 200 reporters in Atlanta.
"They were asking questions like 'Where do your players live?' and 'Do they go to school?' " he said. "They had no idea what Las Vegas was.
"You almost felt like you were in a fog. The media's demands were unbelievable. In a seemingly short time, UNLV went from being a mirage in the desert to this buried treasure that had been found that everyone wanted to know about."
But within the media whirlwind, other winds were swirling. The NCAA was making preliminary inquiries regarding alleged improprieties in Tarkanian's program. And he had received calls from some of his friends in the coaching fraternity that hardly put him at ease.
"Abe Lemons called me in Vegas and Eddie Sutton called me when I got to Atlanta and they both said the same thing," he said. "They said, 'Tark, enjoy Atlanta because they'll never let you win it.' "
"They" was the NCAA and Tarkanian didn't want to believe it. But then the semifinal game with North Carolina was under way and before the Rebels knew what hit them, the Tar Heels were parading to the foul line.
"Gondo took three of the best charges you ever saw and they called every one of them a black," Tarkanian said. We shot just five free throws and they had like 28 or something."
Gondrezick also took out one of his teammates when he accidentally elbowed Moffett in the face going for a rebound early in the second half. UNLV had led by as many as 10 and the Rebels were up five when Gondo clipped Moffett.
Moffett left with a broken nose and never returned. Tarkanian went to put Brown in the game, but Big Lew refused. To this day, nobody knows what was said or why Brown would not go back in.
"It remains one of the great mysteries," said Theus, who at 6-7 was UNLV's tallest player on the floor. "But Lewis always went by his own beat."
With Moffett out and Brown unwilling to play, the Rebels' inside game shrunk. Carolina rallied, took the lead, used a 1-3-1 zone to control tempo, kept shooting free throws and ran its famed "Four Corners" offense to kill time (in those days, there was no shot clock).
And despite some late heroics from Tony Smith, UNLV came up short, 84-83. The dream of a national championship was over.
"Our goal was to get to the Final Four and that was a mistake," Gondrezick said. "Our goal should've been to win it all. We were the most talented team there. We should've won it."
Instead, that honor went to Marquette, which sent its retiring coach, Al McGuire, riding happily into the sunset with a 67-59 win over Dean Smith' Tar Heels.
With the bitterness of the narrow defeat still gnawing at their collective gut, the Rebels had one more game to play. Back then, the NCAA played a consolation game and UNLV was facing North Carolina-Charlotte for third place.
"Nobody wanted to play," said Theus. "Everyone was still in shock over losing (to North Carolina)."
And it showed. UNLV had squandered a 15-point first-half lead to trail 55-50 at halftime. But behind Owens' shooting and a renewed defensive effort, the Rebels rallied in the second half to win 106-94, finishing 29-3.
A special season
When you look back on the accomplishments of the 1977 Rebels, there's more to it than the statistics and the records. It was the attitude and the way it performed at such a high level.
"We played only one way," said Theus. "No matter how a team was playing, if we kept up the pressure, they would eventually crack. We never let up."
It was the trademark of the 1977 team. It was constantly pushing itself to see how good it could be.
"Our biggest challenge was ourselves," Theus said. "How many points can we score? How many turnovers can we force?"
Smith said: "We didn't realize what we had was special until we got going. But the competition from within was what made that team so good."
The Rebels were so good from outside, Clark shudders to think what it would've been like had there been a 3-point line in '77.
"At the Final Four, they charted where all the shots came from," he said. "If they had the 3-point line in that game, it would've been no contest. We would've had 13 threes to none for North Carolina.
"I remember we were playing the University of Denver at the old (Denver) Coliseum and that's where the ABA team used to play. The 3-point line was still on the floor and Sam Smith had hit a bunch from beyond the line.
"Denver's coach said something to Sam during the game and Sam was smiling. When we asked him what he was smiling about, Sam said the coach told him they were going to give him four points for every shot he made beyond the line."
Tarkanian never thought about the Final Four for his 1977 team. But he was hopeful they would be good enough.
"You never think you can go to the Final Four," he said. "But I knew we had a good team. that was such a great shooting team. We just raced it up the floor and shot it quick. We kept the tempo going."
Theus said: "Tark was a great coach to play for because our game was about the players. Back then, the coaches all wanted to control everything you did.
"Tark's thing was work hard in practice and carry it into the game. He never held us back. We had a team that was so athletic and could shoot so well, he didn't care when or where we shot. As long as we were within our range and had our rhythm, he didn't care if we had a hand in our face."
So the Rebels bombed away and pressed teams into submission. If the media hype of today existed in 1977, there's no telling how popular or famous this team could've been.
"Can you imagine if they had ESPN back then?" said Theus. "We'd have been unbelievable. Guys would've had shoes named after them and had their own clothing line."
Lack of recognition
Yet despite the gaudy 29-3 record, the averaging 107 points a game, the then-14 NCAA records and the school's first Final Four appearance, the 1977 UNLV team has received little public recognition.
There is no display commemorating the team's accomplishments in the Si Redd Room trophy case other than the third-place trophy. No player's uniform number has been retired. The team was elected to the school's athletic hall of fame in 1987 and four players (Theus, Gondrezick, Robert Smith and Robinson) are in the UNLV hall individually.
Yet there isn't much else to remember that team. And that bothers Gondrezick.
"It's very disappointing to go into the Thomas & Mack there's nothing to commemorate what we did," he said. "We're the ones who put Runnin' Rebel basketball on the map.
"Nobody's jersey from that team has been retired. I'm not taking anything away from what Larry (Johnson), Stacey (Augmon) and those guys accomplished. But this is a great team. And if we played them, I believe we would win."
Tarkanian said the 1977 is among his favorites. Only the 1991 team which lost in the semifinals to Duke at the Final Four tops the '77 squad.
"It was a great group of guys to coach," he said. "They were a tremendous team and they deserve to be remembered."
But those who were part of the program will always have the memories. And they remain as fond today as they did 20 years ago when they were still fresh.
"It was an incredible part of my life that could not be duplicated or surpassed," said Clark.
Gondrezick said: "I consider myself lucky to play with those guys and to have played for Tark. Those four years are some of the best of my life."
Smith said: "The biggest thing I'm proud of is we helped build a program. We laid the foundation and helped build the tradition of the Runnin' Rebels."
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