This thread is entitled "favorite all-time moment" and there have already been two games mentioned from the '76-'77 season (5 OT over Oregon and Ray Murray goes off on Furd), which was a fairly nondescript year in terms of W/L. I was a sophomore, so it's no wonder that I became hooked on Cal Basketball.

If the topic could be altered to "most memorable moment", that was also the season in which they announced Joe Roth's passing right before one of the games, a moment which has been recounted on the football board a number of times, but I will tell it again...

Joe Roth, our great quarterback, was diagnosed with a return of his malignant melanoma right around the end of his senior season (1976). You didn't hear much about it in the news, but at one point, early in 1977, the media reported that his condition was worsening. Still, few people were expecting, or prepared for, Athletic Director Dave Maggard taking the mike before one of the basketball games and announcing that he had died. He called for a moment of silence, which seemed to last awhile and was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, followed by the Straw Hat Band singing "Hail to California".

Not a "favorite" moment, to be sure, but very memorable. That was quite a season in Harmon Gym.

Regarding the 1981 ASU loss.
It may have been almost 40 years ago, but I can remember late in regulation/maybe the overtime, we head to call time outs on at least two, maybe three inbounds under the ASU basket. And when we did try to put in play, it got stolen. Maybe by Lister. I was in therapy for five years after that one.
Regarding the Eddie House game.
Brian Weathers was all, I mean ALL alone under the basket with a chance to put the game away, but for some reason he double-pumped it which gave somebody a chance to swat it away.
I do miss the Weathers bank shot, though.

Thanks for posting the fucla Jorge game.

My favorite moment wasn't even a game.

I was probably 13 and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be lining up outside Harmon surrounded by a bunch of college students waiting to get into midnight madness. And then seeing this already legendary player most of us have only heard stories of come out of the tunnel in a cal uniform for the first time. And then completely living up to expectations. Even if it was just a scrimmage, you could just tell this guy was special. And Harmon was just electric that night.

Another favorite moment was the year after. People were lining up for midnight madness before 7pm. And then this short white guy shows up, no one knows who this freshman is, but he's wearing the number 23 and he pulls off this crazy 360 dunk. And the legend of randy duck was born.

ducky23 said:

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My favorite moment wasn't even a game.

I was probably 13 and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be lining up outside Harmon surrounded by a bunch of college students waiting to get into midnight madness. And then seeing this already legendary player most of us have only heard stories of come out of the tunnel in a cal uniform for the first time. And then completely living up to expectations. Even if it was just a scrimmage, you could just tell this guy was special. And Harmon was just electric that night.

Another favorite moment was the year after. People were lining up for midnight madness before 7pm. And then this short white guy shows up, no one knows who this freshman is, but he's wearing the number 23 and he pulls off this crazy 360 dunk. And the legend of randy duck was born.

---

Speaking of the original midnight madness and Jason Kidd...

We were at that game and afterwards were walking back to our car when a group of young athletic dudes came along and one of them jumped clean over the hood of a parked car. As I was trying to fathom what I had just seen another guy walking by said, that was "Hook Mitchell" I've seen him dunk on (IIRC) Ryan Jamison in pick up games at Harmon.

Years later I saw some good articles on the legendary Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell.

socaltownie said:

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One that should be up there is beating ASU to win our first conference title in like FOREVER.

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[MEDIA=youtube]wMWB_dF0G2A[/MEDIA]

I agree with SCT. The celebration after beating ASU to clinch a share of the title is one of my favorite memories as a Cal fan

ducky23 said:

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My favorite moment wasn't even a game.

I was probably 13 and I thought it was the coolest thing ever to be lining up outside Harmon surrounded by a bunch of college students waiting to get into midnight madness. And then seeing this already legendary player most of us have only heard stories of come out of the tunnel in a cal uniform for the first time. And then completely living up to expectations. Even if it was just a scrimmage, you could just tell this guy was special. And Harmon was just electric that night.

Another favorite moment was the year after. People were lining up for midnight madness before 7pm. And then this short white guy shows up, no one knows who this freshman is, but he's wearing the number 23 and he pulls off this crazy 360 dunk. And the legend of randy duck was born.

---

That's a good one! Jason Kidd was so celebrated as a prep player in the Bay Area and it was huge when he chose Cal. Harmon was fairly packed for Midnight Madness and, as the witching hour approached -- complete with countdown -- every eye in the gym was focused on the northwest corner... and out comes the team, complete with Jason Freaking Kidd in a Cal uniform. Electric.

ncbears said:

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I wasn't at the Streak Stops Here game, alas.
I was at the Casselli game - it was madness!
Sideline on the 5OT game - it was being broadcast on KALX, and when sports events happened, the DJ sat in the studio - with control - and waiting for the event to end and return to playing music. We had four hour shifts - 6-10 and 10-2 - and some DJs were not sports fans and perhaps a little resentful that a sporting event was taking away their onair time. Now, I wasn't at KALX for that game, nor was I listening, so it's purely anecdotal in the KALX studios, but reportedly, I think near the end of the third overtime, a player put up a shot to try and tie the game as time ran down and the DJ switched off the game and said into the microphone "You'll never know" Again, I can't vouch for the accuracy or truth.....

---

The 5 OT game was memorable for me for a strange reason. I went to most of the games back then as a student, but I had a part time job running the phone switchboard in my dorm. Mostly I just had to take phone messages if no one was answering the phone. Pretty easy work and I could get some studying done. I had to work during that game and I was listening on KALX. The game was in the first overtime and one of phones rang. I answered it and it was some guy from outside the area (I seem to recall it was the east coast) calling a random campus number. He asked me if I knew the score of the game and I told him it was in overtime. 10 minutes later, another call. "Who won the game?" It's in the second OT. He called back again 10-15 minutes later. "Who won the game?" I told him it was in the third overtime. At this point, he was getting skeptical, so he asked if I could put the phone next to the radio and let him listen. So, I did. I checked a few times during the 4th and 5th overtimes and he was still there. When the game finally ended, I picked up the phone and he was gone. I've always figured he had a big bet on the game and wanted to know if he won or lost. I have no idea if he wanted Cal to win or Oregon. I don't recall anything about the KALX DJ cutting off the game. Possibly I was listening on KGO or whatever other station was covering the game.

What were the details on the Caselli game? John Caselli lived in the same dorm as me (Bowles Hall) for at least one year, so I was always partial towards him. Good defender but not much of a scorer. I heard about a year or two after he graduated that he was playing professionally in Finland and that he had scored 43 points in a game. I was surprised because he didn't score that much in a month for Cal. He was another one that died way too soon.

Big C said:

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This thread is entitled "favorite all-time moment" and there have already been two games mentioned from the '76-'77 season (5 OT over Oregon and Ray Murray goes off on Furd), which was a fairly nondescript year in terms of W/L. I was a sophomore, so it's no wonder that I became hooked on Cal Basketball.

If the topic could be altered to "most memorable moment", that was also the season in which they announced Joe Roth's passing right before one of the games, a moment which has been recounted on the football board a number of times, but I will tell it again...

Joe Roth, our great quarterback, was diagnosed with a return of his malignant melanoma right around the end of his senior season (1976). You didn't hear much about it in the news, but at one point, early in 1977, the media reported that his condition was worsening. Still, few people were expecting, or prepared for, Athletic Director Dave Maggard taking the mike before one of the basketball games and announcing that he had died. He called for a moment of silence, which seemed to last awhile and was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, followed by the Straw Hat Band singing "Hail to California".

Not a "favorite" moment, to be sure, but very memorable. That was quite a season in Harmon Gym.

---

That was a very memorable moment for me too. I knew Joe wasn't doing well but I don't think I had processed the possibility that he might die. I was stunned. He had a bright future with so much going for him and it ended far too soon. The game didn't seem all that important after that announcement.

No Fair, all y'all who remember stuff, sniff.

peterprescott said:

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During my freshman year in 1974, I swished a half court shot during halftime at the San Jose State game. I was the first time winner of the contest. I won two roundtrip tickets on P.S.A. and tickets for the UCLA and USC basketball games. Funny addition to this memory, just before I was presented with my award during halftime of the Stanford game at the end of the season, I was sitting behind a guy who was telling the two girls next to him that he won the contest by making a half court shot. Needless to say, it was fun to tap his shoulder to ask him to slide over so I could pick up my prize as the first time and only winner.

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Cool story. A few years after that, a guy that lived down the hall from me in Bowles Hall was picked to take the half court shot. He hit nothing but net. As Harmon erupted, about a dozen of us from the dorm stormed the court and did a lap around the court carrying him on our shoulders. I watched a replay of the game of the week that night and they interrupted the half time report to explain the noise and showed us carrying him which was cool. He said later that he had a feeling he would be picked so he'd been practicing half court shots for a few months. He won dinner for two at McDonalds. In Honolulu. He gave it to his parents.

> Years later, it had become fully commercialized

harmon >> haas

Oh hell, one more can't hurt.

The Victoria game. Freaking awesome!

several on this.

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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ncbears said:

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I wasn't at the Streak Stops Here game, alas.
I was at the Casselli game - it was madness!
Sideline on the 5OT game - it was being broadcast on KALX, and when sports events happened, the DJ sat in the studio - with control - and waiting for the event to end and return to playing music. We had four hour shifts - 6-10 and 10-2 - and some DJs were not sports fans and perhaps a little resentful that a sporting event was taking away their onair time. Now, I wasn't at KALX for that game, nor was I listening, so it's purely anecdotal in the KALX studios, but reportedly, I think near the end of the third overtime, a player put up a shot to try and tie the game as time ran down and the DJ switched off the game and said into the microphone "You'll never know" Again, I can't vouch for the accuracy or truth.....

---

The 5 OT game was memorable for me for a strange reason. I went to most of the games back then as a student, but I had a part time job running the phone switchboard in my dorm. Mostly I just had to take phone messages if no one was answering the phone. Pretty easy work and I could get some studying done. I had to work during that game and I was listening on KALX. The game was in the first overtime and one of phones rang. I answered it and it was some guy from outside the area (I seem to recall it was the east coast) calling a random campus number. He asked me if I knew the score of the game and I told him it was in overtime. 10 minutes later, another call. "Who won the game?" It's in the second OT. He called back again 10-15 minutes later. "Who won the game?" I told him it was in the third overtime. At this point, he was getting skeptical, so he asked if I could put the phone next to the radio and let him listen. So, I did. I checked a few times during the 4th and 5th overtimes and he was still there. When the game finally ended, I picked up the phone and he was gone. I've always figured he had a big bet on the game and wanted to know if he won or lost. I have no idea if he wanted Cal to win or Oregon. I don't recall anything about the KALX DJ cutting off the game. Possibly I was listening on KGO or whatever other station was covering the game.

What were the details on the Caselli game? John Caselli lived in the same dorm as me (Bowles Hall) for at least one year, so I was always partial towards him. Good defender but not much of a scorer. I heard about a year or two after he graduated that he was playing professionally in Finland and that he had scored 43 points in a game. I was surprised because he didn't score that much in a month for Cal. He was another one that died way too soon.

---

The "Caselli game" refers to John's brother Tom, who was not on the team. Repeating what I said earlier in this thread"

"And, as I've also said before, my second favorite is the 67-65 victory over George Raveling's WSU team on January 13, 1979. If they took 64 teams to the tourney back then, WSU would have been one of them in 1979, finishing 10-8 in the Pac-10 and 8-1 OOC. The Bears finished solidly in last place in the Pac-10, 4-14 and 6-12 overall, the worst season in my time as a Cal fan until Wyking came along. That night, from the south stands, Tom Caselli, then an owner of the Come Back Inn (beer for all ages!), now dearly departed, willed the crowd to will the Bears to victory. I think you had to be there to really understand how it felt to be part of the crowd that night."

As ncbears said, "It was madness!" The only basketball game in my life I ever saw where I felt the person most responsible for a victory was a fan in the stands. Of all the games I ever saw a crowd influence, it was the biggest influence a crowd ever had, and Tom Caselli was single handedly responsible for getting the crowd incredibly fired up. To this day, I still don't understand how it happened, but it was amazing and "it was madness!"

wifeisafurd said:

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several on this.

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Great fun Thanks

oskidunker said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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several on this.

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Great fun Thanks

---

What a special player

Known best for his passing, but as the video shoes, a great scorer, and probably the best guard defender I've seen

Cal8285 said:

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Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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ncbears said:

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I wasn't at the Streak Stops Here game, alas.
I was at the Casselli game - it was madness!
Sideline on the 5OT game - it was being broadcast on KALX, and when sports events happened, the DJ sat in the studio - with control - and waiting for the event to end and return to playing music. We had four hour shifts - 6-10 and 10-2 - and some DJs were not sports fans and perhaps a little resentful that a sporting event was taking away their onair time. Now, I wasn't at KALX for that game, nor was I listening, so it's purely anecdotal in the KALX studios, but reportedly, I think near the end of the third overtime, a player put up a shot to try and tie the game as time ran down and the DJ switched off the game and said into the microphone "You'll never know" Again, I can't vouch for the accuracy or truth.....

---

The 5 OT game was memorable for me for a strange reason. I went to most of the games back then as a student, but I had a part time job running the phone switchboard in my dorm. Mostly I just had to take phone messages if no one was answering the phone. Pretty easy work and I could get some studying done. I had to work during that game and I was listening on KALX. The game was in the first overtime and one of phones rang. I answered it and it was some guy from outside the area (I seem to recall it was the east coast) calling a random campus number. He asked me if I knew the score of the game and I told him it was in overtime. 10 minutes later, another call. "Who won the game?" It's in the second OT. He called back again 10-15 minutes later. "Who won the game?" I told him it was in the third overtime. At this point, he was getting skeptical, so he asked if I could put the phone next to the radio and let him listen. So, I did. I checked a few times during the 4th and 5th overtimes and he was still there. When the game finally ended, I picked up the phone and he was gone. I've always figured he had a big bet on the game and wanted to know if he won or lost. I have no idea if he wanted Cal to win or Oregon. I don't recall anything about the KALX DJ cutting off the game. Possibly I was listening on KGO or whatever other station was covering the game.

What were the details on the Caselli game? John Caselli lived in the same dorm as me (Bowles Hall) for at least one year, so I was always partial towards him. Good defender but not much of a scorer. I heard about a year or two after he graduated that he was playing professionally in Finland and that he had scored 43 points in a game. I was surprised because he didn't score that much in a month for Cal. He was another one that died way too soon.

---

The "Caselli game" refers to John's brother Tom, who was not on the team. Repeating what I said earlier in this thread"

"And, as I've also said before, my second favorite is the 67-65 victory over George Raveling's WSU team on January 13, 1979. If they took 64 teams to the tourney back then, WSU would have been one of them in 1979, finishing 10-8 in the Pac-10 and 8-1 OOC. The Bears finished solidly in last place in the Pac-10, 4-14 and 6-12 overall, the worst season in my time as a Cal fan until Wyking came along. That night, from the south stands, Tom Caselli, then an owner of the Come Back Inn (beer for all ages!), now dearly departed, willed the crowd to will the Bears to victory. I think you had to be there to really understand how it felt to be part of the crowd that night."

As ncbears said, "It was madness!" The only basketball game in my life I ever saw where I felt the person most responsible for a victory was a fan in the stands. Of all the games I ever saw a crowd influence, it was the biggest influence a crowd ever had, and Tom Caselli was single handedly responsible for getting the crowd incredibly fired up. To this day, I still don't understand how it happened, but it was amazing and "it was madness!"

---

Thanks for explaining it for me. I was too dense to comprehend it earlier. That was during my undergrad days and I went to most games. That vaguely rings a bell, so I may have been there.

Regarding the ending of the UCLA streak, I ran into Reggie Miller in an elevator in Atlanta when he was with the Pacers. We talked about this game. Reggie was still pissed and angry at CAL how much they celebrated after the win.....he said we acted like we just won the national championship. He swore to himself that he would never lose to CAL again in his career.

HoopDreams said:

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oskidunker said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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several on this.

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Great fun Thanks

---

What a special player

Known best for his passing, but as the video shoes, a great scorer, and probably the best guard defender I've seen

---

As the video shows, Jamison still can't finish. Bless his heart

peterprescott said:

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Regarding the ending of the UCLA streak, I ran into Reggie Miller in an elevator in Atlanta when he was with the Pacers. We talked about this game. Reggie was still pissed and angry at CAL how much they celebrated after the win.....he said we acted like we just won the national championship. He swore to himself that he would never lose to CAL again in his career.

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Unfortunately, Reggie never did lose to Cal again in his career.

But Reggie took it way too hard. The reason Cal was arguably out of line to celebrate that hard was that UCLA wasn't very good. C'mon, they went 9-9 in conference, 15-14 overall, and lost in the first round of the NIT.

But Reggie is an idiot for being so upset, and continuing to be upset years later. If a team has lost 52 in a row to another team, the fans are going to celebrate a win like crazy, and the players are going to get caught up in it. I think pretty much any team that breaks a 52 game losing streak to another team is going to celebrate like it just won a national championship, even if it is only beating a .500 team.

Reggie can be upset that his team sucked, but he can't be upset that Cal celebrated.

I lived in Stebbins Hall co-op my senior year and we were sitting at dinner when somebody mentioned that there were eight guys at our table and no women ("girls" was strictly verboten in those days). The next comment was, "Well, the record for milk-drinking by a table at Cloyne is 8quarts (or something, I don't recall)". Of course the response was, "We can beat that!" and one guy jumped up and went to get a whole case of milk out of the fridge. I went along with it and got down a quart (I'd already almost finished my meal when this started) and other guys drank way more. After that, we went to the basketball game. It was a Thursday night and the 1975-76 team wasn't the best so there was plenty of seating which was good because we learned that even lactose tolerant people become methane factories when their digestive systems are overloaded. The air around us was blue and I'm surprised we didn't cause the varnish on those benches to peel right off. I have no idea who won the game.

HearstMining said:

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I lived in Stebbins Hall co-op my senior year and we were sitting at dinner.. It was a Thursday night and the 1975-76 team wasn't the best so there was plenty of seating.. I have no idea who won the game.

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hey HearstMining. the bb media guide has w/l letter and verse. no surprise Cal din't win that night, just 2/3rds of the way thru the infamous streak [spell check autocorrect suggests Steak].

but that's not important right now, instead lets play trivial pursuit. see, 2 years earlier for just one quarter me and my better half were kitchen managers at stebbins, then moved on. for some time i've been dying to ask whether my padlocked bike was still there, thru the door behind the kitchen? # inquiring minds yada yada

ducky23 said:

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HoopDreams said:

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oskidunker said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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several on this.

---

Great fun Thanks

---

What a special player

Known best for his passing, but as the video shoes, a great scorer, and probably the best guard defender I've seen

---

As the video shows, Jamison still can't finish. Bless his heart

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But Dan Gura could!

smh said:

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HearstMining said:

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I lived in Stebbins Hall co-op my senior year and we were sitting at dinner.. It was a Thursday night and the 1975-76 team wasn't the best so there was plenty of seating.. I have no idea who won the game.

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...see, 2 years earlier for just one quarter me and my better half were kitchen managers at stebbins, then moved on. for some time i've been dying to ask whether my padlocked bike was still there, thru the door behind the kitchen? # inquiring minds yada yada

---

Sorry smh, I recall a few bikes back in some dark area, maybe by the washing machines? I never went back after getting job in Mountain View. Now live in Granite Bay, and when we walk by on the way to a football game, I always look up at my old room - top floor, front left corner as you face the building. Good times . . .Cal co-ops were (and I assume are still) a gem! Except Barrington which was a shytehole.

Big C said:

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This thread is entitled "favorite all-time moment" and there have already been two games mentioned from the '76-'77 season (5 OT over Oregon and Ray Murray goes off on Furd), which was a fairly nondescript year in terms of W/L. I was a sophomore, so it's no wonder that I became hooked on Cal Basketball.

If the topic could be altered to "most memorable moment", that was also the season in which they announced Joe Roth's passing right before one of the games, a moment which has been recounted on the football board a number of times, but I will tell it again...

Joe Roth, our great quarterback, was diagnosed with a return of his malignant melanoma right around the end of his senior season (1976). You didn't hear much about it in the news, but at one point, early in 1977, the media reported that his condition was worsening. Still, few people were expecting, or prepared for, Athletic Director Dave Maggard taking the mike before one of the basketball games and announcing that he had died. He called for a moment of silence, which seemed to last awhile and was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, followed by the Straw Hat Band singing "Hail to California".

Not a "favorite" moment, to be sure, but very memorable. That was quite a season in Harmon Gym.

---

It most certainly was. Thank you.

The reaction of Washington center James Edwards, who broke into tears, is something I will always recall. Here was an opponent, who I assume never met Roth, who was emotionally impacted as I was. I had met Roth on several occasions (pick-up basketball in Harmon mostly). His death was shocking and to hear about Joe dying at a basketball game, a break from studying and the intensity of being a Cal student, was for me an emotional moment I will never forget.

ncbears said:

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My favorite memory was the Villanova game...And I don't think I ever experienced such heat and noise at any other Cal game...

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I completely agree. That's the loudest sporting event I have ever attended and it was the day Cal "arrived" under Campanelli as a national program after years of mediocrity.

That game felt like Cal vs Washington in football '91 (even though we lost) with just a super special energy leading up to the event and then an epic battle that meet with the hype.

Especially the way Cal won the game at the end. Epic.

I didn't go to any Cal games before 1990 when I was a freshman, but two games that year were epic and have competed with any I have seen since. How relatively unheralded Cal was in comparison to the opponents made them stand out to me to this day.

They were the wins over UCLA and Arizona. The bigger win was probably against 28-7 Arizona who was in the Top 10 all year and finished in the Top 10. That Arizona team had Chris Mills, Brian Williams (Bison Dele), Sean Rooks, and a freshman Khalid Reeves. They came into the game 16-2 and winners of 6 straight. Later in the season they beat the Laettner/Hill/Hill/Hurley Duke team. When the buzzer sounded we all rushed the court like we had won the NCAA Title!

Good memories of Fisher, Hendrick, and Dreher!

One of my friends growing up played for OSU, while I was working security at Harmon, wearing a gold Cal Security jacket. At the end of the game we met oncourt to exchange greetings and the TV cameras picked up on it and broadcast it in the background of the wrap up score & stats (pretty sure it was ESPN). Friends from around the country let us know we were on TV!!!

HearstMining said:

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smh said:

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HearstMining said:

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I lived in Stebbins Hall co-op my senior year and we were sitting at dinner.. It was a Thursday night and the 1975-76 team wasn't the best so there was plenty of seating.. I have no idea who won the game.

---

...see, 2 years earlier for just one quarter me and my better half were kitchen managers at stebbins, then moved on. for some time i've been dying to ask whether my padlocked bike was still there, thru the door behind the kitchen? # inquiring minds yada yada

---

Sorry smh, I recall a few bikes back in some dark area, maybe by the washing machines? I never went back after getting job in Mountain View. Now live in Granite Bay, and when we walk by on the way to a football game, I always look up at my old room - top floor, front left corner as you face the building. Good times . . .Cal co-ops were (and I assume are still) a gem! Except Barrington which was a shytehole.

---

Ha! I lived in Barrington for two quarters and it was every bit as bad as its reputation. Pink Cloud the "Crasher Emeritus" and renowned street person and drug dealer would sleep in the TV room after wandering through the cafeteria after dinner and eating leftover food on peoples plates. And let me tell you the food on the plates was barely edible as Barrington decided not to use Central Kitchen food and cook there own onsite. This was back in the days before most college kids knew anything about cooking.

One memorable evening they served this ghastly watery, stinky fish dish. When the food arrived at our table my buddies and I all took one look and without saying a word left the table and went to Giant Hamburger for some edible food. We did have an epic food fight one night and it was risky given the brick hard, baked potatoes being thrown.

Looking back I am very glad for my time at Barrington and there were some really interesting and accomplished folks I met there. In fact the son of a U.C. Regent lived there along with many folks who went on to accomplish much. We also had the Cal Chapter leaders of the S.D.S. and I always wondered what happened to them. They were a couple very similar in retrospect to Bill and Hillary....