1969-1970 Iowa basketball

https://www.thegazette.com/subject/...-to-unbeaten-big-ten-season-in-69-70-20160124

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The 1969-70 Iowa men's basketball team (front row, from left): Chad Calabria, Glenn Vidnovic, John Johnson, Dick Jensen, Ben McGilmer, Tom Schulze and Jim Hodge, and (back row) Gary Lusk, Joe Miranda, Lynn Rowat, Omar Hazley, Tom Miller, Ken Grabinski, George Conway, Fred Brown.
 
Had season tickets for this classic Hawkeye year. What a memory! Ben McGilmer was often put in the way The Bear was for the Hawks this year. He would show incredible energy, rebound, steal the ball, but could not shoot lick. More than once, I saw him steal the ball, go the length of the court and put up a wild shot that looked like brick in flight. Ralph would immediately pull him out and chew his ass in front of God and everybody, while the fans cheered loudly.
 
Chad Calabria's son Dante was heavily recruited by Iowa and was on Mr. Davis's short list when he settled on North Carolina.

Gary Lusk's nephew Paul did sign with Iowa and was starting by the fourth game of the season, when he promptly broke his leg and was lost. His injury opened the door for Rodell Davis, finally semi healthy after two knee operations of his own. Paul got lost in the shuffle when he came back and transferred to Southern Illinois, but remained good friends with Chris Street and ended up being one of his pallbearers.
 
Tom Schulze got married to the daughter of the people who lived next door to us in DM. While he was all state at Roosevelt he didnt play much. He was later murdered in a burglary at his business in DM. Rowat played for DM East but didnt play much either. He and Tom were good HS players but not really good enough for the B10.
 
Nice to have some connections to the past, keeps us all on the same page. Next year will be 50 years since Iowa has won a Big Ten title outright. Likes to all. Sad story on Schulze.
 
The footage above is quite interesting. About half way through the footage, there is film of the key game against Purdue to open the season in Iowa City. Purdue has the light colored jerseys with the black pants, and was led by the great Rick Mount, perhaps the greatest scorer in Big Ten BB history. Purdue had been national runner-up the previous year. Mount makes several shots in the footage, and scored 53 against Iowa I believe, even though Iowa won the game. Still the most exciting game I ever saw an Iowa BB team play. The Fieldhouse was so loud you could not talk to the person sitting next to you.

A great story from that game: I was 15 and wanted to see Mount shoot in pre-game warmups. He was famous for his accurate, quick release. He took about 10, 25 foot shots and missed them all. He waved over an Iowa maintenance person and pointed at the rim. After about 2 minutes, they adjusted the rim (apparently the rim wasn't exactly 10 feet high from the floor!). Mount made his next 30 shots all in a row and went back into the locker room.

True story.
 
ChosenChildren said:
The footage above is quite interesting. About half way through the footage, there is film of the key game against Purdue to open the season in Iowa City. Purdue has the light colored jerseys with the black pants, and was led by the great Rick Mount, perhaps the greatest scorer in Big Ten BB history. Purdue had been national runner-up the previous year. Mount makes several shots in the footage, and scored 53 against Iowa I believe, even though Iowa won the game. Still the most exciting game I ever saw an Iowa BB team play. The Fieldhouse was so loud you could not talk to the person sitting next to you.

A great story from that game: I was 15 and wanted to see Mount shoot in pre-game warmups. He was famous for his accurate, quick release. He took about 10, 25 foot shots and missed them all. He waved over an Iowa maintenance person and pointed at the rim. After about 2 minutes, they adjusted the rim (apparently the rim wasn't exactly 10 feet high from the floor!). Mount made his next 30 shots all in a row and went back into the locker room.

True story.
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A similar story is told about Ted Williams. Ted, taking batting practice before a spring training game, claimed that home plate was half an inch out of alignment from the pitcher's mound. An engineer came out, did measurements, and said he was correct.
 
I remember after the 53 pt game(we left our seats early) and we yelled at Mount when he was walking down the steps to the visitor locker room. Was awesome.
 
I was a high school senior playing high school basketball for the Mt Ayr Raiders during this season. It was great. I knew I was going to be a freshman at Iowa that coming fall and was already a die hard Hawk fan. One truism this team taught me that has stayed true over the years is, you've got to be able to put the ball in the basket to win games!

That fall the only starter left was Downtown Freddy Brown and while he was great it just wasn't the same.

About 20 or so years later I was in Seattle on a business trip at a bar on the Puget Sound and there was John Johnson sitting at a table. He was retired by then. I couldn't help myself and just had to go up to his table and tell him how great that year was. He was very gracious. I made a reference to him being the star and the team being called 'JJ and the Dealers'. He pointed to one of his friends at the table and said, 'See, I told that's what we were called'. That was pretty special.
 
leiserom said:
I was there for every home game that season. Pounding your feet on the metal of the upper seats in the Fieldhouse was awesome. 100+ pts per game with no shot clock on no 3 point line
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It is really quite amazing because most on the team I don't recall their names like other great Iowa teams, such as the Final Four team. The only guys on that team above that I recall hearing about from history are John Johnson and of course Freddy Brown. I was born in 1971.
 
leiserom said:
Tom Schulze got married to the daughter of the people who lived next door to us in DM. While he was all state at Roosevelt he didnt play much. He was later murdered in a burglary at his business in DM. Rowat played for DM East but didnt play much either. He and Tom were good HS players but not really good enough for the B10.
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Something doesn't make sense to me. Explain how he got all-state without playing a lot on his HS team. Or vise versa, if he was all-state material, why didn't he play that much? I'm confused but intrigued.

Never mind. He didn't play much for Iowa.
 
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I remember the starters off the top of my head - Johnson, Brown, Calabria, Stick Vidnovic, and Dick Jensen from Madrid, Iowa.

Calabria, JJ, and Downtwon Freddy all made the 1000 point club, JJ and Freddy in just two years.
 
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