PHOTO COURTESY U OF M ATHLETICS
Tiger coach Gene Bartow and Larry Finch after the 1973 NCAA championship game.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Gene Bartow coached the Memphis State Tigers to the 1973 Final Four, where they fell to mighty UCLA in the championship game. A member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame, Bartow died in 2012 at age 81. He shared these reflections on the most famous team in Tiger history in our March 2003 issue.
Without question, I will cherish [the 1972-73 season] as my favorite in coaching. I felt about the middle of January that we had an awfully good basketball team. It was obvious in Larry Kenon and Ronnie Robinson that we had two of the best rebounders in our conference. They were also both very talented offensive players. In Billy Buford and Wes Westfall, we had two other big men who could back one another up. In Larry Finch, we had an All-American up front. If we had a three-point line back then, he probably would have averaged 35 points a game. He was just a great player, a great person, and a great team leader. In Bill Laurie, we had a guy who complemented [Finch], a great ball-handler. It was just a well-rounded team. We had great depth. When you get enough good players, and they play hard and stay injury-free for the most part, [you’re going to be successful].
Our players thought we were going to win as we took the floor. We were playing great basketball. In the regional we beat a very good Kansas State team and a great South Carolina team coached by Frank McGuire. Down that home stretch, we had one mediocre game in St. Louis, but for 15 to 20 games down the stretch, we were playing really good basketball.
PHOTO BY LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
In 2008, Chris Douglas Roberts became only the third Tiger to earn first-team All-America honors from the Associated Press. The first two were Keith Lee in 1985 and Penny Hardaway in 1993.
We really played a very good first half, and UCLA’s great zone press didn’t bother us all that much. We did have a lot of foul trouble. We tried to guard Bill Walton out of a man-to-man to start off, and Robinson took a couple of fouls . . . then Kenon moved over to guard him. Walton just had an unbelievable night.
We were two points ahead, as we hit the first basket of the second half. If we had had a blizzard and the lights would have gone off, well . . . . We had some chances. Especially in the first half, we looked like a team that could go ahead and beat them. But it was a very good UCLA team, as all of Coach [John] Wooden’s were. He was the best college coach in the history of the business in my opinion.
A lot of people felt it was just a great thing for the city of Memphis. From the black-white standpoint, a lot of people felt like it was a unifying [event]. Everybody — black and white — could identify. Without question, Finch, Robinson, and Kenon were identifiable all over the state for being not only great basketball players, but great human beings, great citizens. They brought nothing but real credit to the program.
