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1971 Mens BB, what happened?

Yellow Shirt

Yellow Shirt

Club Member
The end of Brooks' article has CU's weeks ranked going back to 1953. Looks like we were a good team from '61-'63, and again from '69-'70... and then vanish from the top 25 for basically 30 years until Billups shouldered us like Atlas. What happened for thirty years?
 
I don't think it helped that they were playing in a 4k capacity Balch Fieldhouse through the 1978 season that didn't even have a wooden court.

You'd think we would have gotten a bump when the CEC was opened in 1979, but that was also right when the CU AD hit its huge budget issues. Baseball, Wrestling, Men's/Women's Swimming, Women's Diving, and Men's & Women's Gymnastics were cut in 1980.
 
In 1971, Cliff Meely graduated. This was toward the end of the Sox Walseth era. Following that, there was a series of poor coaching hires and poor recruiting. We had some occassional players - Shaun Vandiver, Chauncy Billups and David Harrison come to mind, but never a complete roster to compete. Colorado historically didn't have good basketball talent and the Big 8/12 footprint didn't help CU much either.

Things have now aligned.

Facilities investment + good coach + Pac 12 move + retaining local talent (Scott, Gordon, etc.) + recruiting california well = wins
 
oh I see. my son just played on a tile floor. I'm not even kidding. it was at an old Catholic School gym. thought Balch might have been tile before the rubber (tartan) it is currently
 
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Tartan courts are now the domain of tiny rural high schools.

I don't know how widespread they were in the 50s and 60s, so I can't complain about how embarrassing that was then, but to have been playing in there in the 1970s.... wow.
 
Fight CU said:
oh I see. my son just played on a tile floor. I'm not even kidding. it was at an old Catholic School gym. though Balch might have been tile before the rubber (tartan) it is currently
Click to expand...

ha ha - I went to a Catholic school for a while in elementary school in the 80s and we had a tile floor. We also had an analog game clock.
 
A lot of rural schools went to that stuff in the 70's.....having coached at Crowley County High School which has one..the floor is cracked and not very easy on the legs
 
Thanks, to all of you. Akron, CO had a rubber floor in the 90's (may still). Had no idea that's what they had in Balch.
 
SECOBuffsFan said:
A lot of rural schools went to that stuff in the 70's.....having coached at Crowley County High School which has one..the floor is cracked and not very easy on the legs
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Go Chargers! Pueblo Centennial and, until late 90s, CSU-Pueblo had tartan floors. DU's old field house also had a tartan floor. Hated that stuff.
 
PuebloBuff said:
Go Chargers! Pueblo Centennial and, until late 90s, CSU-Pueblo had tartan floors. DU's old field house also had a tartan floor. Hated that stuff.
Click to expand...

DU's field house tartan floor ended up in my middle school that I now coach at. It was okay for a while, but the typical maintenance on those floors is to just shave like a quarter inch off of the top. It was brutal on joints. We raised money to replace it with a wood floor about 3 years ago.
 
I'm not an expert on Big 8 facilities of the 60s and 70s, but it seems our move to Coors was quite late. At least in ACC country, the move to next generation "modern" (at the time) arenas largely happened in the 60s. They've now all moved on to the next wave (and some like UNC are considering even another).
 
CVilleBuff said:
I'm not an expert on Big 8 facilities of the 60s and 70s, but it seems our move to Coors was quite late. At least in ACC country, the move to next generation "modern" (at the time) arenas largely happened in the 60s. They've now all moved on to the next wave (and some like UNC are considering even another).
Click to expand...

Here's the Big 8 for you:

Iowa State: Hilton Arena (14.4k capacity) replaced the Iowa State Armory (4k capacity) in 1971
Kansas: Allen Fieldhouse built in 1955, but it had a 17k capacity - modern facility way ahead of its time
Kansas State: Ahearn Fieldhoust built in 1950 and not replaced until 1988 - but had a seating capacity of over 14k
Missouri: Hearnes Center opened in 1972 with a capacity of 13.6k - replaced Brewer Fieldhouse which seated 5k
Nebraska: Bob Devaney Sports Center opened in 1976 with capacity of 13.6k - replaced Nebraska Coliseum which seated 4k
Oklahoma: Lloyd Noble Center opened in 1975 with capacity of 12k - replaced the 5k capacity Oklahoma Field House
Oklahoma State: Gallagher-Iba Arena opened in 1938 and had a capacity of 6.4k until 2000, when they doubled the seating
 
Buffnik said:
Here's the Big 8 for you:

Iowa State: Hilton Arena (14.4k capacity) replaced the Iowa State Armory (4k capacity) in 1971
Kansas: Allen Fieldhouse built in 1955, but it had a 17k capacity - modern facility way ahead of its time
Kansas State: Ahearn Fieldhoust built in 1950 and not replaced until 1988 - but had a seating capacity of over 14k
Missouri: Hearnes Center opened in 1972 with a capacity of 13.6k - replaced Brewer Fieldhouse which seated 5k
Nebraska: Bob Devaney Sports Center opened in 1976 with capacity of 13.6k - replaced Nebraska Coliseum which seated 4k
Oklahoma: Lloyd Noble Center opened in 1975 with capacity of 12k - replaced the 5k capacity Oklahoma Field House
Oklahoma State: Gallagher-Iba Arena opened in 1938 and had a capacity of 6.4k until 2000, when they doubled the seating
Click to expand...

Seems to validate us being behind. Every conference has that old historical gym (in this case Gallagher-Iba) but for the most part we were drastically far behind by the early 70s.
 
CVilleBuff said:
I'm not an expert on Big 8 facilities of the 60s and 70s, but it seems our move to Coors was quite late. At least in ACC country, the move to next generation "modern" (at the time) arenas largely happened in the 60s. They've now all moved on to the next wave (and some like UNC are considering even another).
Click to expand...

NC State is an exception, they didn't move out of Reynolds Coliseum until 1999.
 
CVilleBuff said:
I'm not an expert on Big 8 facilities of the 60s and 70s, but it seems our move to Coors was quite late. At least in ACC country, the move to next generation "modern" (at the time) arenas largely happened in the 60s. They've now all moved on to the next wave (and some like UNC are considering even another).
Click to expand...
How did I miss that? UNC considering another building or just a renovation to the Dean Dome?
 
Buffnik said:
I don't think it helped that they were playing in a 4k capacity Balch Fieldhouse through the 1978 season that didn't even have a wooden court.
Click to expand...

Fight CU said:
if not wooden, what was it?
Click to expand...

sockdolager said:
Tartan, I think that's still what's there now.
Click to expand...

Fight CU said:
oh I see. my son just played on a tile floor. I'm not even kidding. it was at an old Catholic School gym. thought Balch might have been tile before the rubber (tartan) it is currently
Click to expand...

Not exactly true. The old man (CU '71) always talks about he and his buddies would go see games in Balch, and they did have a wood floor, BUT it was elevated on 2x4 sawhorses off the tartan floor. Said opponents hated coming in because they were always worried about falling off the edges, and courtside seats were basically eye level with the floor.
 
cubuffs85 said:
Cville,
You think once K leaves Duke, they'll go into the 21st century?
Click to expand...

Not sure how much they'll do other than perhaps a facelift. It's so historic and engrained at this point that I don't know how much support there would be for any major change. And K's shadow will loom over Duke (and be highly influential) for quite a while after he retires.
 
Creebuzz said:
In 1971, Cliff Meely graduated. This was toward the end of the Sox Walseth era. Following that, there was a series of poor coaching hires and poor recruiting. We had some occassional players - Shaun Vandiver, Chauncy Billups and David Harrison come to mind, but never a complete roster to compete. Colorado historically didn't have good basketball talent and the Big 8/12 footprint didn't help CU much either.

Things have now aligned.

Facilities investment + good coach + Pac 12 move + retaining local talent (Scott, Gordon, etc.) + recruiting california well = wins
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about CU's basketball history, but it's pretty amazing how easy it is to fall into mediocrity. There wasn't "1" thing, it's a combination of things, it's also kind of surprising that during the late 80's early 90's CU didn't attempt to put some of the $ they were presumably bringing in from football to try to prop up basketball to some level of respectability.
 
jgisland said:
I don't know anything about CU's basketball history, but it's pretty amazing how easy it is to fall into mediocrity. There wasn't "1" thing, it's a combination of things, it's also kind of surprising that during the late 80's early 90's CU didn't attempt to put some of the $ they were presumably bringing in from football to try to prop up basketball to some level of respectability.
Click to expand...
They should've but if football were doing well, most of the fanbase would be more than content with that IMO with having no basketball team of significance. This is only the third year I believe that men's basketball has even profitable.
 
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