Monday, March 6, 2017

The Freakin' Weekend (1971)

It has been a very, very closely contested 1971 Second District boys' basketball tournament. The biggest margin in the first four games was four points, and that game went to double overtime. 

The good news is that Heath won that game--47-43 over Lone Oak. The bad news is that our Pirates then lost in the regional semis, 46-45, against Paducah Tilghman. The tournament is being played at Tilghman, so, of course, we know what that means. Coach Frank Wright's Pirates finish their season at 16-11. 

Saint Mary's advanced through the other side of the bracket with 59-57 and 43-40 wins over Ballard Memorial and Reidland, respectively. So it's the Vikings and the Blue Tornado for the district championship today (March 6) 1971, and then both teams are on to the First Region tournament at Murray State ...




We've got a little while to wait until WKU and UK get going in the NCAA tournament ...



So that means it's a fairy relaxing weekend for Hoptown 1971 me, which is kind of nice after all of the exciting trips down to Bowling Green over the last week ...


I'll probably just chill out with my new personal Soul Brothers Top 20 and concentrate on browsing the most 1971 edition of Sports Illustrated that one could imagine ...




6 comments:

  1. Here's my Soul Brothers Top 20 for last week 1971:

    1. Done Too Soon, Neil Diamond
    2. James Brown - Get Up, Get Into It, Get Involved 1971
    3. I Am, I Said, Neil Diamond
    4. Dolly Parton "Joshua" on The Ronnie Prophet Show
    5. Lay, Lady, Lay, James Last
    6. Kentucky, February 27, 1971, Tom T. Hall
    7. Holly Holy, Neil Diamond
    8. Todd Rundgren, We Gotta Get You A Woman (circa 1970)
    9. He Called Me Baby, Candi Staton
    10. Everything’s Alright, Percy Faith Orchestra
    11. Solitary Man, Neil Diamond
    12. Help Me Make It Through The Night , Sammi Smith , 1970 Vinyl
    13. Neil Diamond - Brooklyn Roads (Live 1971)
    14. Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show, Neil Diamond
    15. It’s Too Late, Carole King
    16. Johnny Cash - Ballad of Little Fauss and Big Halsy
    17. Gladys Knight & The Pips "If I Were Your Woman" (1970)
    18. MERCY - "LOVE CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY"
    19. RAY CHARLES - IF YOU WERE MINE
    20. Brenda Lee - Johnny One Time (Live in 1970)

    Check out the Dolly Parton performance in the playlist. She so deftly works both the in-studio audience and the TV camera, all while singing a song with a lot of words and basically no breaks for breath. I'll bet she was simultaneously knitting a shawl with her toes where we couldn't see below the camera shot.

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  2. Both teams are headed to the region, but, for the (Bob Mays) record, Paducah Tilghman beat Paducah Saint Mary, 74-62, in the Second District championship.

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  3. It's kind of odd how the Mideast Regional is bracketed. In the most recent polls, Western, Kentucky and Jacksonville are ranked Nos. 7, 8 and 9. Marquette is ranked second. And yet Kentucky and the Big Ten champ (probably Ohio State) get first-round byes. WKU and Jacksonville play one another, even though they faced off in the same pairing in the 1970 tournament (and played each other early in the 1970-71 regular season).

    I guess, though, how it worked was that the NC2A hard-wired the big-conference champs for byes and then basically paired middle-middle and high-low in the two first-round games. And because Marquette is ranked the best team of the bunch, it's mapped to play the lesser of the two big-leaguers (nobody from the Big 10 is ranked ahead of Kentucky).

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    1. Tom Patterson noted in the College Heights Herald that Marquette was offered a spot in the Midwest Regional last season (rather than its home Mideast) and opted instead to snub the NC2A and accept an invitation from the NIT. He wondered if the seedings this season weren't worked out with the teams to head off such a fiasco this year.

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  4. Sandy Treadwell's rankings in this week's Sports Illustrated ...

    -- East: 1, Penn (24-0); 2, Fordham (21-2)
    -- Midwest: 1, Marquette (23-0); 2, Kansas (22-1)
    -- South: 1, South Carolina (19-4); 2, Jacksonville (21-3)
    -- West: 1, UCLA (21-1); 2, USC (21-1)

    "Adolph Rupp left his bed in a Lexington hospital and flew to Nashville to watch Kentucky overwhelm Vanderbilt 119-90. It was the most points ever scored against the Commodores. 'This is just the sort of tonic I needed,' said Rupp, 'although it may not be applicable in my present situation. Also, I just wanted people to know that I'm still very much alive.'"

    UK assistant Joe B. Hall has been leading the Wildcats while Rupp has been hospitalized because of a diabetes-related foot infection.

    Fordham, by the way, is coached by Digger Phelps; Army, by Bobby Knight.

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