We had a friend over tonight and we were talking Hog Ball and I told him about a game I went to with my Dad around 1973 - 76. It was in old Barnhill before the renovation. It was before the shot clock and the visiting team’s strategy was to hold the ball and let the clock run. It seems like it was about 2 - 0 almost the whole first half. I think we won the game but he looked up his source for Hog games and the fewest points we ever scored in a half was 8 way back in the 40’s or something. Anyway, I don’t remember the exact half time score but I remember the other team just standing in four corners and holding the ball for like 10 minutes and the refs couldn’t do anything about it. Does anyone remember what my 50 year old memory is thinking of?
That wasn’t really all that unusual during that time.
I remember a game between UNC and Duke that ended something like 18-17.
We played a SWC championship game that we won 39-38.
Eddie Sutton’s teams would go to “The Five Game” with more than ten minutes in the game having a lead.
The “four corners” stall offense. They finally instituted a shot clock sometime in the 80’s.
UNC called it the “four corners”
Sutton called it “the five game”
Everybody had some version of it
I remember the four corner but whoever we were playing literally just stood there holding the ball for like five minutes and then one of our guys would go out and put a little pressure and they would pass it to the other corner and just stand for minute after minute with no action by either team.
Yea, not too exciting for the fans.
15 years ago, I was coaching a 7th grade team in a Catholic league in St. Louis. We lost a game 48-8. Two weeks later we played that team again. I vowed that would not happen again. We went with a weave Offense, that was designed to milk possessions for as long as possible. They got very frustrated with us and started fouling a lot. We knocked down almost all our FT’s and won the game 27-24. Those guys were stunned. Heck I was stunned. I was just trying to lose by less than 25.
I think that SWC tourney game you reference was against Texas in Houston at the Summit before it got converted into a church. Not sure it was the championship game but maybe. I think the half score was 13-9. Texas won the initial jump ball and Abe Lemons instructed his players to not shoot the ball in a dig to Sutton’s deliberate style. They dribbled around for maybe 7-8 minutes before attempting a shot. Luckily the strategy didn’t work for them.
I don’t remember a game at Barnhill that played out like that. I was a student there 74-79 and attended most games.
Smart strategy. You had to be leaping up and down with those kids.
I remember going to a basketball tournament in Harrison in the 50s. I think it was class B. Teams like Bergman, Leadhill, Western Grove, and Mt. Judea played. Some of the games were lucky to reach double digits. The underdog would just hold the ball near midcourt
It was a night that none of us will ever forget. Unfortunately, we didn’t get celebrate for long. The next day we had to play an even better team. Cinderella forgot to dance with the one who brung her!
Yep, that’s it. I was at the SWC swim meet in Austin working for SIO, and I remember listening to that game on the EOE radio network on the press balcony at the Whorns’ pool with their SIO person and going “what the heck are they doing?”
I think Abe took Eddie’s reputation for slowing it down and used it against him that night; both teams slowed it down.
IIRC, the last game played without a shot clock was Villanova’s upset of Georgetown in the NCG. Nova milked the clock and got layups, which Patrick Ewing somehow didn’t block all of them, shot 78% from the floor and won the game. But they only took 28 shots, thanks to 17 turnovers. Basically, Nova either scored or turned it over on every trip. Georgetown milked the clock too, trying to get Nova to come out of its zone.
The game that probably started the drive toward changing the rule, though, involved another SEC team. In 1973, Tennessee beat Temple 11-6. Yes, that was the final score. Neither team tried a shot in the second half; all five points came on free throws from fouling to get the ball back.
Reportedly the Vols played a scrimmage right after the game so the fans in Knoxville would get to see some real basketball.
Thanks everyone for the input. I’ve gone back and looked at scores through that period and a lot of them didn’t have box scores so I couldn’t look at the first half scores. I’m going to conclude that it might have been the first time I saw the four corner at the beginning of a game and the score was probably 2 - 0 for eight or ten minutes and then by half it was a more normal score.
I looked back at HogStats for that period and honestly can’t imagine what game it might have been. First of all, Lanny Van Eman never let the air out of the ball; he hyped the team as the Runnin’ Razorbacks, tried to play up and down without any emphasis on defense. And Eddie would go to the four corners late in the game with the lead, but wouldn’t start out that way.
The famous blowout of Houston in their first SWC game was in fact due to the four corners: Houston tried to trap our guards in the FC and we got layup after layup. A week later, we again took a big lead against UH in Hofheinz, but they went to the full-court press instead of trying to trap, and we blew a 20-point lead and lost (Eddie’s teams had a lot of trouble with the press, notably the NCAA loss to Wake Forest where we got pressed and Sidney kept turning it over).
It was the visitors sitting on the ball not the Hogs. Like I said, it might have only been a few minutes but the scoreboard sat on 2 - 0 for a while and then by half it must have been a more normal score. My Dad did not really like basketball and he remarked something like “We paid $5 to sit here and watch this?” 
Does the name Gayle Kaundart ring any bells?
Did he play a deliberate style at Westark? I didn’t follow that closely. Was he previously at FS Northside or Southside?
Yep. Gayle coached a very deliberate, Iba style of basketball. He’s teams were as fundamenrally sound as you would find, and they really got in your grille defensively. They did not however, exactly play uptempo basketball.
He coached Boot Sr. at Northside and Westark. I think he also may have coached Almer Lee.
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