Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category

Don’t forget: For all the links, Twitter feeds and news feeds related to Arizona and its opponents, go to Morales’ site WILDABOUTAZCATS.NET. No other Arizona sports Web site is like it!

In case you missed it: The Top 10 Badass Defensive Players and the Top 10 Badass Offensive Players in Arizona football history

1975-76 Arizona Wildcats (24-9)
–Lost to UCLA 82-66 in the West Regional Final. To note: The NCAA tournament only had 32 teams in 1976 and the regional final was played on UCLA’s campus at Pauley Pavilion.

2000-01 Arizona Wildcats (28-8)
–Beat Illinois 87-81 in the Midwest Regional Final; beat Michigan State 80-61 in the Final Four; and lost to Duke 82-72 in the national title game. To note: The Wildcats advanced through the tournament playing in honor of Lute Olson’s wife Bobbi, who died of ovarian cancer on Jan. 1, 2001.

Note: Please vote on which team you believe should advance in the bracket at WILDABOUTAZCATS.net. Thank you!

The cover of the Arizona basketball 1976-77 media guide, a year after the Wildcats advanced to the Elite Eight. Pictured (left to right): Bob Elliott, coach Fred Snowden and Herman Harris

The 2000-01 team currently pitted against the 1975-76 edition in the TucsonCitizen.com Arizona Elite Eight Event features squads coached by Lute Olson and the late Fred Snowden, respectively.

Few Arizona fans remember that Snowden actually coached Arizona against Olson and Iowa during that successful 1975-76 season.

The Hawkeyes defeated Arizona 82-80 in a controversial second-round game of the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu on Dec. 29, 1975, five years before many of the 2000-01 Wildcats, including standout point guard Jason Gardner, were even born.

“I probably played something like 114 games in my career at Arizona , and a lot of wins did not stick out like that loss,” former center Bob Elliott, laughing, told me in 1996 when I first wrote about the encounter for The Arizona Daily Star. “We fought hard to get back into the game, and for it to be decided on a (referee) call like that . . .”

Iowa took a 35-7 lead 12 minutes into the game, and the Wildcats trailed 51-33 at halftime. It appeared that the UA would rather be on the beach, while the Hawkeyes took the game seriously.

“ Arizona was frankly a better basketball team than we were,” Olson told me in the Arizona Daily Star interview. “With a program like ours at Iowa, at the time, we didn’t have a lot of room for error, so we got over there and everything was focused on playing.

“We didn’t allow them on the beach. We didn’t allow them out. We had curfews, that kind of thing.”

Arizona slowly chipped away at the deficit in the second half, and with 14 seconds remaining, the Wildcats tied the game at 80 on a basket by Elliott. No records have been kept, but that is arguably the greatest comeback (trailing by 28 points at one point) in Wildcat history.

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Javier Morales took first place in the 2010 Arizona Press Club’s Metro Sports Reporting category

Don’t forget: For all the links, Twitter feeds and news feeds related to Arizona and its opponents, go to Morales’ site WILDABOUTAZCATS.NET. No other Arizona sports Web site is like it!

In case you missed it: The Top 10 Badass Defensive Players and the Top 10 Badass Offensive Players in Arizona football history

1975-76 Arizona Wildcats (24-9)
–Lost to UCLA 82-66 in the West Regional Final. To note: The NCAA tournament only had 32 teams in 1976 and the regional final was played on UCLA’s campus at Pauley Pavilion.

2000-01 Arizona Wildcats (28-8)
–Beat Illinois 87-81 in the Midwest Regional Final; beat Michigan State 80-61 in the Final Four; and lost to Duke 82-72 in the national title game. To note: The Wildcats advanced through the tournament playing in honor of Lute Olson’s wife Bobbi, who died of ovarian cancer on Jan. 1, 2001.

Note: Please vote on which team you believe should advance in the bracket at WILDABOUTAZCATS.net. Thank you!

MATCHUPS

Point Guard

Jim Rappis (1972-76) vs. Jason Gardner (1999-2003)

Both of these leaders exemplified fortitude.

The media coined Rappis, a senior, as Arizona’s “Six Million Dollar Man” before the Cats lost to UCLA in the West Regional Final at Pauley Pavilion.

He fractured an ankle as a freshman and still managed to play nine games. He suffered a ruptured appendix at the beginning of his sophomore year and had a series of ankle injuries but still played in 24 of 26 games. Another ankle injury when he was a junior forced him to use a cane off the court throughout the season. He underwent surgery to correct a spinal disc before the 1975-76 season and was in grave danger of losing his life when he contracted peritonitis.

In the 1976 West Regional Semifinal — one of the most thrilling games in UA history when the Wildcats beat coach Jerry Tarkanian and UNLV 114-109 in overtime — Rappis injured his left heel with 5:57 left in the first half but continued to play despite being hobbled throughout. He finished with 24 points and 12 assists against the Running Rebels.

“Jimmy is the epitome of courage,” Snowden said after the game. “He was in great pain but he went out there anyway.”

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FOLLOW JAVIER MORALES ON TWITTER AT @JavierJMorales

RELATED LINK: Analyzing Arizona’s recruiting classes since 1972

Arizona coach Sean Miller has a high-profile recruiting class and adequate returners that would soften the blow of a potential departure of Derrick Williams to the NBA after his sophomore season (US Presswire photo/Jason O. Watson)

Arizona coach Sean Miller has a potential top five recruiting class to soften the blow if Derrick Williams foregoes his last two years with the Wildcats to enter the NBA draft and hires an agent.

What did former coach Fred Snowden, bless his soul, have in mind in a similar situation in 1974 with the threat of losing prolific-scoring sophomores Eric Money and Coniel Norman to the NBA?

This is what was written by Steve Weston of the Tucson Citizen near the end of Snowden’s second season at Arizona on March 2, 1974:

No. 1 on most (recruiting) lists this season is 6-11 Moses Malone from Petersburg, Va. “We hope to have him visit,” said Snowden. “Of course, he’d be a great asset to our program.”

A great asset? How about a validation for a national championship?

Moses, a 13-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer, never took that recruiting visit to Tucson, although he reportedly became interested in Snowden and the Wildcats after watching them play New Mexico in Albuquerque that season. He signed a national letter of intent with Maryland but eventually went straight from Petersburg High School to the ABA in 1974.

Money and Norman, meanwhile, were chosen in the NBA draft that year. Money was taken in the second round (the 33rd pick overall) and Norman was the first pick in the third round (37th overall). That equates to early-second round selections today because the number of NBA teams has increased from 18 then to 30 now.

How did the Wildcats respond the following season after they finished 19-7 and failed to reach the postseason in the final year with Money and Norman? They actually had a better season, finishing 22-7 after losing to Drake in the championship game of the defunct National Commissioner’s Invitational Tournament (which featured teams that finished second in their respective conference).

The Wildcats excelled behind All-Western Athletic Conference frontcourt players Bob Elliott and Al Fleming, and a solid recruiting class that included playmaker Gilbert Myles and burly forward Phil Taylor.

Sports Illustrated, noting the Wildcats would take on a more physical look without Money and Norman, rated the UA No. 16 that year in its preseason Top 20. Snowden wanted more of a fearsome defensive presence after the loss of his star guards, who combined for more than 40 points a game in their UA careers.

Taylor, SI wrote, “bears a strong resemblance to Sonny Liston.” Snowden, known for his hyperbole, told the magazine that the team would be his best at Arizona after he went 35-17 in his first two seasons in Tucson.

Snowden proclaimed that Arizona would be “one of the five best in America by season’s end.” He looked like a prophet when the Wildcats started 11-1, but they staggered down the stretch.

Chances are that Miller, who is more close to the vest, will not proclaim next season that Arizona will be one of the nation’s top five teams if Williams does not return.

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