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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis

    Where are they now?: Neill McGeachy

    I always wondered what became of Neill McGeachy, Duke MBB's head coach during the 1974 season, a 10-17 campaign you can read about in Brill 1986. McGeachy was saddled with the thankless task of following Bucky Waters, who had presided over a period of relative decline after Vic Bubas. (Not to dis Waters). That team may have struggled, but it did record the 1000th win in program history. It's also the team that lost the 8pt/17s game at Carolina. What Carolina fans never mention is that they had no damn business whatsoever trailing that Duke team by 8 points late.

    McGeachy is the AD at his alma mater, Lenior-Rhyne. The math seems to indicate he's in his late 60s.

    http://www.lr.edu/administration/neill-mcgeachy

    I think we're all aware Bucky's still around, but Bubas (1927-) and Bill Foster (1930-) are also still kicking, despite Foster's heart attack in the 1980s.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2009
    Location
    Durham
    Not really relevent, but Bucky was by far my most favorite guy in press row to stand behind in the student section...(much more fun than "suspenders guy" at least...)
    1200. DDMF.

  3. #3

    Our first season in Cameron

    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    I always wondered what became of Neill McGeachy, Duke MBB's head coach during the 1974 season, a 10-17 campaign you can read about in Brill 1986. McGeachy was saddled with the thankless task of following Bucky Waters, who had presided over a period of relative decline after Vic Bubas. (Not to dis Waters). That team may have struggled, but it did record the 1000th win in program history. It's also the team that lost the 8pt/17s game at Carolina. What Carolina fans never mention is that they had no damn business whatsoever trailing that Duke team by 8 points late.

    McGeachy is the AD at his alma mater, Lenior-Rhyne. The math seems to indicate he's in his late 60s.

    http://www.lr.edu/administration/neill-mcgeachy

    I think we're all aware Bucky's still around, but Bubas (1927-) and Bill Foster (1930-) are also still kicking, despite Foster's heart attack in the 1980s.
    McGeachy was the coach the first year we bought season tickets (the very same seats we still occupy!). It was pretty easy to get tickets; Dr. Pallas Athena was a resident at Duke Hospital, so we were able to buy the seats two-for-one. That's right, folks, $80 for TWO season tickets in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Been there ever since. Even though people sitting around us said things were on the decline, we loved the games and the atmosphere.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA

    Where are they now?: Neill McGeachy

    Not in Durham! End of discussion. Seriously, 8 points in 17 seconds. I usually get over things in a hurry, but almost 38 years later, I'm not over the 8 points in 17 seconds debacle.
    Bob Green

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by PallasAthena View Post
    McGeachy was the coach the first year we bought season tickets (the very same seats we still occupy!). It was pretty easy to get tickets; Dr. Pallas Athena was a resident at Duke Hospital, so we were able to buy the seats two-for-one. That's right, folks, $80 for TWO season tickets in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Been there ever since. Even though people sitting around us said things were on the decline, we loved the games and the atmosphere.
    Buy low, sell...well maybe never. Or high.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, within a couple of miles of Cameron

    I hesitate to inquire, but

    ...during all the Coach K celebration last month, I was impressed that no mention was made of Pete Gaudet. No, I'm not trolling here, just curious why he wasn't at least invited to join in the festivities, since he was a large part of the back-to-back years, and -if K's original Army team was brought in for the Davidson game- I wonder whether there is a bitter back story or just what that left him out of the list of celebrants. I don't count myself as a super-duper insider here, just a local fan since at least 1957, and got to spend some time with Gaudet at a local Health Fair function.
    PS, if this is destined to cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth, please ignore, like most of my usual comments...carry on.

    Quote Originally Posted by throatybeard View Post
    I always wondered what became of Neill McGeachy, Duke MBB's head coach during the 1974 season, a 10-17 campaign you can read about in Brill 1986. McGeachy was saddled with the thankless task of following Bucky Waters, who had presided over a period of relative decline after Vic Bubas. (Not to dis Waters). That team may have struggled, but it did record the 1000th win in program history. It's also the team that lost the 8pt/17s game at Carolina. What Carolina fans never mention is that they had no damn business whatsoever trailing that Duke team by 8 points late.

    McGeachy is the AD at his alma mater, Lenior-Rhyne. The math seems to indicate he's in his late 60s.

    http://www.lr.edu/administration/neill-mcgeachy

    I think we're all aware Bucky's still around, but Bubas (1927-) and Bill Foster (1930-) are also still kicking, despite Foster's heart attack in the 1980s.

  7. #7
    - McG of course hired Fred Goldsmith a few years ago to coach football at L-R

    - the best person to stand behind on press row was Lou Bello, former ACC ref ... Lou supposedly wore knee pads under his pants when calling a game so he could theatrically slide when making a call (no idea if this is actually true) ... Lou was a character coming to take his seat at press row ... he'd usually have popcorn and turn and offer it to us students, along w/ funny patter ...

    - wondered about Gaudet myself during the 903 celebrations ... wasn't he doing a Paulus-esqe Ohio State video coord. job w/ the OSU women's team at one time?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Quote Originally Posted by Reilly View Post
    - the best person to stand behind on press row was Lou Bello, former ACC ref ... Lou supposedly wore knee pads under his pants when calling a game so he could theatrically slide when making a call (no idea if this is actually true) ... Lou was a character coming to take his seat at press row ... he'd usually have popcorn and turn and offer it to us students, along w/ funny patter ...
    Funny you mention Lou Bello. I was just thinking about him the other day. He doesn't have a wiki article, but I found a reprint of his N&O obituary.

    http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/...u.Obit001.html

    I was thinking on him because I remembered that he had come to visit my class when I was in Duke Young Writers' Camp. I don't remember which class and I don't remember what the assignment was, although it seems plausible that we were supposed to write a profile of him. So somewhere in all the crap in my parents' house, there are two different DYWC binders, one autographed by Lou Bello and the other by Alex Haley. This was in 1988 or 1989, probably 1989. Both died just a coupla three years later.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    Not in Durham! End of discussion. Seriously, 8 points in 17 seconds. I usually get over things in a hurry, but almost 38 years later, I'm not over the 8 points in 17 seconds debacle.
    Many people forget that the same year, in Cameron, Duke had the ball out of bounds with the score tied with UNC, the in-bounds pass was stolen by Bobby Jones and he made the game winning lay up just before time expired. Two absolutely gut wrenching losses in Neil's only 2 games against the heels. I was an undergrad at UNC at the time, a big Duke fan, and attended both games. You can imagine the grief I took from my fellow heel students.
    "This is the best of all possible worlds."
    Dr. Pangloss - Candide

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by chrishoke View Post
    Many people forget that the same year, in Cameron, Duke had the ball out of bounds with the score tied with UNC, the in-bounds pass was stolen by Bobby Jones and he made the game winning lay up just before time expired. Two absolutely gut wrenching losses in Neil's only 2 games against the heels. I was an undergrad at UNC at the time, a big Duke fan, and attended both games. You can imagine the grief I took from my fellow heel students.
    Actually, our Paul Fox seemed to passthe ball in stride to a streaking Bobby Jones. Those were two very difficult Saturday nights (both were afternoon games if I recall).

  11. #11

    McGeachy

    Neil McGeachy got the Duke job because of the timing of Bucky Waters resignation.

    Bucky, who had signed a five year contract in the spring of 1969, had coached four years, going 17-9 (8-6 ACC), 20-10 (9-5 ACC), 14-12 (6-6 ACC) and 12-14 (4-8 ACC). That last season was Duke's first looking record in 34 years. His tenure was marked by the exodus of talented players -- from Jeff Dawson to Jim Fitzsimmons to Richie O'Connor to Sam May to Ron Righter to Dave Elmer (a big man who outplayed Tommy Burleson in a freshman game in Cameron). Worse, Duke spent the 1973 season on probation for two minor violations during the recruitment of David Thompson. Bucky didn't do them and knew nothing about them, but the culprit was a Shelby businessman who had in the past helped Duke football recruiting, He was not a Duke alum, but WAS working for Duke (at the suggestion of AD Carl James, a former football recruiter for the Devils).

    Anyway, in the fall of 1973, Bucky went to James and asked about a contract extention. When James refused to commit to such an extention, Bucky quit -- in September! Caught without a coach, James called Adolph Rupp, who had been forced into retirement at Kentucky, and tried to bring hin in for one year as an interim coach. Rupp first accepted, but changed his mind after his estate manager died unexpectedly.

    In desperation, James turned to McGeachy, a recently added assistant under Waters, and gave him the job. At the press conference where he was introduced, James made it a point that McGeachy was the new head coach ... not the interim coach. At the same time, he admitted that he would be undertaking a nationwide coach to find the best coach possible for Duk basketball.

    McGeachy inherited a veteran -- albiet not all that talented -- team. Junior Bob Fleischer was a burly 6-8 bruiser. Chris Redding was a slender 6-8 scorer. Kevin Billerman was a slow, but very heady point guard. Junior Willie Hodge was a slender 6-9 junior forward, a very athletic kid from Texas, and one of just two black players on the team. Then other was freshman Edgar Burch, a potentially decent 6-2 wing guard guard from Detroit. Interesting that 1973-74 was the first year of freshman eligibility and Burch was the first freshman to play at Duke since Joe Belmont and Ronnie Mayer during the Korean War. He would flunk out after one season.

    It wasn't a terrible Duke team -- the problem is that the top of the ACC was so darn good that season. NC State, of course, finished No. 1 and won the national title. Maryland finished No. 3 nationally and lost one game outside the league -- a heartbreaker at UCLA in the season opener. North Carolina was No. 5 in the AP poll going into the ACC Tournament. The amazing thing about those three teams is that they only lost to each other all year ... other that two losses to UCLA (one each by State and Maryland) and an NIT loss by UNC to Purdue (in a made-for-TV matchup, the NIT paired its two best teams ... both in the top 10 ... in the first round).

    McGeachy's Blue Devils were blasted in two games with NC State and in two of three games with Maryland. But they did take Maryland to the wire in Cameron (losing 64-61) and in both games with UNC (losing in Cameron on Bobby Jones; steal and layup at the buzzer and in Chapel Hill on the Walter Davis miracle).

    In the end, Duke finished 10-16 (2-10 ACC). The team's best win was probably a January victory at Princeton. After it all ended with an 85-66 loss to Maryland in the first round of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, the players staged a sort of mini-revolt in the locker room afterwards, demanding that the school re-sign McGeachy and give him a chance. Their plea fell on deaf ears as James had already zeroed in on Utah coach Bill Foster who had his team in the NIT finals (and in that era, before NCAA expansion, that was a fairly big deal).

    I've always wondered whether ot not McGeachy might have gotten another contract if he had beaten UNC at least once? Probably not ...

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Not in Durham! End of discussion. Seriously, 8 points in 17 seconds. I usually get over things in a hurry, but almost 38 years later, I'm not over the 8 points in 17 seconds debacle.
    Yeah, that was a tough one. Heard it on the radio. Second worst loss of all time, after Louisville '86. Thought for sure we had that rascally Deano beat.
    Didn't finally beat 'em in Carmicheal until '85. McGheachy sure had a hard year. In reality, Carolina had a much more talented team. The games should
    never have been close. It was a tribute to the toughness of those Duke teams that they fought it out down to the wire and almost won.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Wilmington, DE
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    Not in Durham! End of discussion. Seriously, 8 points in 17 seconds. I usually get over things in a hurry, but almost 38 years later, I'm not over the 8 points in 17 seconds debacle.
    Bob:

    I share your pain about those 17 seconds. I've never forgotten them either. Never will. Forgiving and moving on is another matter (tho' it's the closest I've personally come to experiencing PTSD)

    There's usually more to any story than first meets the eye. I doubt the full story will ever be told and perhaps it's best that it isn't. (Olympicfan just posted on this thread after I began writing this and has gone a long, long way in putting forth the key elements of the odd backstory).

    As for Neill McG. himself, I prefer to think of him as a "bridge loan" that was necessary in moving out of Bucky Waters' house and on into Bill Foster's "house". This vital move reminded us that there was still a real chance of returning Duke BBall to national relevance. Bucky was well liked by those who didn't have to run up and down the floor for him. The pain that so many of the players felt during the Bucky years,however, exceeded the pain felt by all of us during the 17 second brainf*rt that Neill subsequently had as the team's coach and ultimate decision-maker that fateful day. Giving instructions to the man/men throwing the ball in-bounds to haul it to the other end of the court each time would have made that miraculous comeback in 17 seconds impossible in the era that had no 3-pointers.

    The exodus of players during that era from Duke to other schools was pretty much unprecedented by the orderly expectations of the Duke program in those days. This was not the "one and done era" that offered players the smorgasbord of options that they exuberantly exercise today.

    House buyers often don't like admitting to or discussing "bridge loans" because it makes them look unprepared for their chosen transition. Indeed, so it was with the Neill McG. "bridge loan". Once the brief purpose was served, things moved on and the need for the loan was little discussed.

    However, all this ultimately led us to where we are today looking proudly down at Coach K Court in the re-habbed house we can all be very much proud of. For the most part, that pride drives us here to share thoughts and experiences on DBR.

    Neill was actually much liked by his players (Olympic fan did a very accurate portrayal of the facts on this thread) - unlike with Neill's predecessor, who was loved by almost every non-player he ever met, but not so much so by many of the players themselves - and I'm glad to learn that Neill has carved out a good niche for himself and fathered kids that most parents would be glad to claim.

    Throatybeard, thanks for posting the link. Brings back unpleasant memories, but I take comfort that a "bridge loan" has little to do with real reasons that we moved out of our old house into our new one. It was simply necessary to make that move possible...

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley
    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post
    Neil McGeachy got the Duke job because of the timing of Bucky Waters resignation.

    Bucky, who had signed a five year contract in the spring of 1969, had coached four years, going 17-9 (8-6 ACC), 20-10 (9-5 ACC), 14-12 (6-6 ACC) and 12-14 (4-8 ACC). That last season was Duke's first looking record in 34 years. His tenure was marked by the exodus of talented players -- from Jeff Dawson to Jim Fitzsimmons to Richie O'Connor to Sam May to Ron Righter to Dave Elmer (a big man who outplayed Tommy Burleson in a freshman game in Cameron). Worse, Duke spent the 1973 season on probation for two minor violations during the recruitment of David Thompson. Bucky didn't do them and knew nothing about them, but the culprit was a Shelby businessman who had in the past helped Duke football recruiting, He was not a Duke alum, but WAS working for Duke (at the suggestion of AD Carl James, a former football recruiter for the Devils).

    Anyway, in the fall of 1973, Bucky went to James and asked about a contract extention. When James refused to commit to such an extention, Bucky quit -- in September! Caught without a coach, James called Adolph Rupp, who had been forced into retirement at Kentucky, and tried to bring hin in for one year as an interim coach. Rupp first accepted, but changed his mind after his estate manager died unexpectedly.

    In desperation, James turned to McGeachy, a recently added assistant under Waters, and gave him the job. At the press conference where he was introduced, James made it a point that McGeachy was the new head coach ... not the interim coach. At the same time, he admitted that he would be undertaking a nationwide coach to find the best coach possible for Duk basketball.

    McGeachy inherited a veteran -- albiet not all that talented -- team. Junior Bob Fleischer was a burly 6-8 bruiser. Chris Redding was a slender 6-8 scorer. Kevin Billerman was a slow, but very heady point guard. Junior Willie Hodge was a slender 6-9 junior forward, a very athletic kid from Texas, and one of just two black players on the team. Then other was freshman Edgar Burch, a potentially decent 6-2 wing guard guard from Detroit. Interesting that 1973-74 was the first year of freshman eligibility and Burch was the first freshman to play at Duke since Joe Belmont and Ronnie Mayer during the Korean War. He would flunk out after one season.

    It wasn't a terrible Duke team -- the problem is that the top of the ACC was so darn good that season. NC State, of course, finished No. 1 and won the national title. Maryland finished No. 3 nationally and lost one game outside the league -- a heartbreaker at UCLA in the season opener. North Carolina was No. 5 in the AP poll going into the ACC Tournament. The amazing thing about those three teams is that they only lost to each other all year ... other that two losses to UCLA (one each by State and Maryland) and an NIT loss by UNC to Purdue (in a made-for-TV matchup, the NIT paired its two best teams ... both in the top 10 ... in the first round).

    McGeachy's Blue Devils were blasted in two games with NC State and in two of three games with Maryland. But they did take Maryland to the wire in Cameron (losing 64-61) and in both games with UNC (losing in Cameron on Bobby Jones; steal and layup at the buzzer and in Chapel Hill on the Walter Davis miracle).

    In the end, Duke finished 10-16 (2-10 ACC). The team's best win was probably a January victory at Princeton. After it all ended with an 85-66 loss to Maryland in the first round of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro, the players staged a sort of mini-revolt in the locker room afterwards, demanding that the school re-sign McGeachy and give him a chance. Their plea fell on deaf ears as James had already zeroed in on Utah coach Bill Foster who had his team in the NIT finals (and in that era, before NCAA expansion, that was a fairly big deal).

    I've always wondered whether ot not McGeachy might have gotten another contract if he had beaten UNC at least once? Probably not ...
    That's a great report, let me share a small follow up. My dad was a young doctor at Duke then and had always been an avid fan of the sports programs since his undergrad days. I'm not sure how he knew McGeachy, but they were friends. My dad even worked out some sort of program with him where faculty members would sponsor a few members of the team for dinner one night, which is how it ended up that we had the whole team over for dinner one evening. As a little kid, I was awestruck by the size of those guys dunking on the hoop in our driveway, it's a memory I will always have. Anyways...from the story my dad tells me, McGeahy and James did not have a bad relationship...they had NO relationship. James wouldn't even see McGeahy in his office to discuss his job, or how he was doing, or if he would be signed on for another year. Let me restate that...he would not even see him. Can you imagine an AD not even talking to his coach?
    So my dad as he is often want to do, decided to see if he could make any headway himself. His solution was to talk to James, which didn't happen, so his next thought was to talk to someone who at least knew James on a professional level, and in this case he figured that Wallace Wade would be a good person to ask. Wade was retired and living on his farm in Durham, so dad took me out with him to meet Wade and pick his brain. Maybe WW wasn't tall enough, or couldn't impress me with his dunking, so I don't remember meeting him at all, but dad did talk to him and got some insight, but little in the way of a solution.
    In the end of course McGeahy's contract was not renewed and Duke got Bill Foster. In hindsight, it's hard to find any fault with that hire and it layed the groundwork for where Duke basketball is today. But thanks to Neil McGeahy, I got to eat dinner with Terry Chili and a bunch of other guys that had to duck to get in our doorway. If any of y'all run into my dad at Cameron or a football game, feel free to ask about his attempts at getting McGeahy a contract extension, he tells it way better than I do..mostly because he isn't relying on the memories of a 5 year old kid.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by JStuart View Post
    ...during all the Coach K celebration last month, I was impressed that no mention was made of Pete Gaudet. No, I'm not trolling here, just curious why he wasn't at least invited to join in the festivities, since he was a large part of the back-to-back years, and -if K's original Army team was brought in for the Davidson game- I wonder whether there is a bitter back story or just what that left him out of the list of celebrants. I don't count myself as a super-duper insider here, just a local fan since at least 1957, and got to spend some time with Gaudet at a local Health Fair function.
    PS, if this is destined to cause great wailing and gnashing of teeth, please ignore, like most of my usual comments...carry on.
    I think Pete was busy working out of the country.
    http://hoopistani.blogspot.com/2011/...ch-former.html

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Good find - thanks for the link!
    "This is the best of all possible worlds."
    Dr. Pangloss - Candide

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    near the Thrillerdome in ATL

    73-74 season

    Quote Originally Posted by Olympic Fan View Post



    McGeachy inherited a veteran -- albiet not all that talented -- team. Junior Bob Fleischer was a burly 6-8 bruiser. Chris Redding was a slender 6-8 scorer. Kevin Billerman was a slow, but very heady point guard. Junior Willie Hodge was a slender 6-9 junior forward, a very athletic kid from Texas, and one of just two black players on the team. Then other was freshman Edgar Burch, a potentially decent 6-2 wing guard guard from Detroit. Interesting that 1973-74 was the first year of freshman eligibility and Burch was the first freshman to play at Duke since Joe Belmont and Ronnie Mayer during the Korean War. He would flunk out after one season.
    Great recap of the turmoil of the Duke 73-74 season by Olympic Fan. Bob Fleisher has always been one of my favorite Duke players and Chris Redding bears a remarkable resemblence to this years Ryan Kelly with beard. Edgar Burch did play as a freshman in 73-74 but the freshman recruits and my classmates for the 72-73 season, Willie Hodge, Paul Fox, Dave O'Connell and Terry Chili all played for the Devils as freshmen as 72-73 was the first year of freshman eligibility, not 73-74.

    8 points in 17 seconds would have been moot if Pete Kramer, one of Duke's better FT shooters, not missed the front end of a one and one during that agonizing segment in Carmichael.

    One last comment on Buckey who also had a career as a decent color man of ACC and other NCAA hoops broadcasts. When Bubas retired, two of his assistants, Hubie Brown and Chuck Daley, applied for the head coaching job. James was looking for a candidate with head coaching experience so he hired former Bubas assistant Waters who had left to coach West Virginia. Had anyone of the assistants McGeachy, Daley or Brown been hired full time by James, Duke basketball history might have been much different.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Had anyone of the assistants McGeachy, Daley or Brown been hired full time by James, Duke basketball history might have been much different.
    Yes, but it's hard to say. People tend to blame Bucky without recognizing how difficult that historical era (the war, the race riots) was to deal with.
    I certainly don't think Brown would have done much better; he's about as old school as Bucky was. Daly might have had more success, but who knows.
    The admininstration did what they thought was right at the time; it just didn't work out that way.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by hq2 View Post
    Yes, but it's hard to say. People tend to blame Bucky without recognizing how difficult that historical era (the war, the race riots) was to deal with.
    I certainly don't think Brown would have done much better; he's about as old school as Bucky was. Daly might have had more success, but who knows.
    The admininstration did what they thought was right at the time; it just didn't work out that way.
    When Bucky left for West Virginia he was the heir apparent to Vic. When Vic retired, somewhat suddenly, Bucky was hired as his replacement. I don't think there was much thought about doing anything different. I don't remember Carl James or others speaking of anyone except Bucky to replace Vic.

    When Bucky returned, the world had changed, as has been alluded to. Bucky never seemed to be able to relate to the kids of the Vietnam era. I also think that the societal changes that took place led to Vic retiring as well. It was a hard time to deal with young people.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    The City of Brotherly Love except when it's cold.
    Quote Originally Posted by gotoguy View Post
    One last comment on Buckey who also had a career as a decent color man of ACC and other NCAA hoops broadcasts. When Bubas retired, two of his assistants, Hubie Brown and Chuck Daley, applied for the head coaching job. James was looking for a candidate with head coaching experience so he hired former Bubas assistant Waters who had left to coach West Virginia. Had anyone of the assistants McGeachy, Daley or Brown been hired full time by James, Duke basketball history might have been much different.
    Quote Originally Posted by Indoor66 View Post
    When Bucky left for West Virginia he was the heir apparent to Vic. When Vic retired, somewhat suddenly, Bucky was hired as his replacement. I don't think there was much thought about doing anything different. I don't remember Carl James or others speaking of anyone except Bucky to replace Vic.

    When Bucky returned, the world had changed, as has been alluded to. Bucky never seemed to be able to relate to the kids of the Vietnam era. I also think that the societal changes that took place led to Vic retiring as well. It was a hard time to deal with young people.
    I've wondered how interested Daly was in the Duke job. His Penn teams at the time were very talented, much better than Duke, and competed at the national level. Maybe the challenge of trying to restore Duke to a national power was an allure. I do know for certain from someone who played for Daly, that the Duke job was never mentioned by him to the team nor a rumor in the Penn locker room.

    Neill seemed like a decent guy thrown into an untenable situation. It should come as no surprise that he did just fine. I'd just as soon forget the 1973-74 season, all things considered
    Last edited by 77devil; 12-11-2011 at 05:50 PM. Reason: additional thought

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