Date: 31 Mar. 2010
From: AlumniShockerBlackAndGolds.com
Bare Bones
The fact challenged scribbler Bob Lutz is at it again: “Shockers have hand in KSU’s regional past.” While Lutz is entitled some artistic license in presenting his bent and story of events, he is not entitled to his version of the facts or to recreate history. Facts are facts, and no license exists to allow the changing or manipulation of facts, intellectually dishonestly, in order to plead a case that does not exist. Lutz writes about a WSU - KSU NCAA Midwest Regional finals game in the round house on March 14, 1964, some 46 years ago. I was at the game. Lutz was probably barely out of his dippers, and in high probability not at the game he is writing about.
Lutz cites Dave Leach, a starting forward for WSU, thus:
“Leach had a rare poor shooting game and thinks the Shockers were hurt by the departures of guards Leonard Kelley, who graduated at the winter semester break, and Ernie Moore, who left the team just before the start of the NCAA Tournament.”
Lutz then provides his own facts by contending these were “defections”, asserting:
“Those defections, of course, wouldn’t happen in today’s game.”
I am confident that neither Dave Stallworth or Dave Leach advised Lutz that Ernie Moore defected from the team. The true facts are as follows:
Prior to the season, Ralph Miller, WSU’s Coach, had a choice to make. Leonard Kelley was a Junior College transfer who had one semester of eligibility left and could play either the first semester or could be held out of the first semester and play the second semester. Ernie Moore had been scholastically ineligible the second semester of a previous year, and also had that one semesters eligibility left. Miller’s dilemma was whether to play Kelley first semester and Moore second semester or vice versa . So, Miller contacted the NCAA eligibility committee for a determination of whether Ernie would be eligible for post season play if he played him the second semester, the same semester he had previously been ineligible. It was a five man committee and Tex Winter was one of the 5 members on the committee. The committee informed Miller that he could play Ernie the second semester and that he would be eligible for post season play. Since Miller wanted Ernie available for post season play, should we make the NCAA Tournament, and upon the advice of the NCAA committee that Ernie would be eligible for post season play, he relied upon the NCAA eligibility determination and held Ernie out the first semester, and played Leonard Kelley the first semester, his last semester of eligibility. Had the NCAA advised that Ernie would not be eligible for post season play, Miller would have played Moore the first semester, and held out Leonard Kelley for the second semester, who would have been unquestionably eligible for post season play.
Shortly before the NCAA Tournament, when it was obvious K-State would in probability have to play WSU to get to the final four, Tex Winter, the K-State coach and one of five members of the NCAA eligibility committee who had advised Ernie Moore would be eligible for post season play, filed a protest to Ernie’s eligibility for the Tournament, alleging that a case involving K.C. Jones who played with Bill Russell for San Francisco, was precedent, and that Ernie shouldn’t be eligible. Tex Winter then, as a member of the committee, was part of the majority vote holding that while the cases were not the same, there was some similarity and in the better part of discretion, Ernie would be ineligible. Had the committee so advised Miller in the first instance that Ernie would be ineligible, instead of laying the trap, Miller would have played Ernie first semester, and had Leonard Kelley available for second semester and post season play.
So, K-State’s coach Tex Winter two games before he had to play WSU in the Tournament, got Ernie Moore declared ineligible for post season play, and in the process not only denied Ernie’s playing, but by the process denied the availability of Leonard Kelley also. Leonard Kelley was an All American Junior College guard and an outstanding guard for WSU, and Ernie Moore is still the best point guard that has ever played for WSU in my considered opinion. With either Ernie Moore or Leonard Kelley to go along with Dave Stallworth, Nate Bowman, Dave Leach, Jamie Thompson, etc., I do not believe K-State had a chance to beat WSU, even with Willie Murrell. Shortly put, K-State stole the Midwest Regional and a trip to the Final Four in Kansas City in 1964 that rightfully belonged to WSU.
And, in 1981, two games prior to having to meet WSU in the New Orleans Regional, KU undergrad and KU law school grad, Steve Morgan, then working as an in-house attorney for the NCAA, who should have recrused himself, nevertheless with his KU interests in mind,
determined for the NCAA that WSU’s 6'11" center Ozell Jones was ineligible for post season play and had to transfer or lose a years eligible, for the unpardonable sin of his high school Long Beach California Polly Tech. having counted his gym class grades that put him over the 2.0 requirement, just like all the players at KU and 95 percent of all the other high schools in the U.S., because it didn’t count the gym class grades for the rest of its students who couldn’t walk straight but were candidates for Cal Tech. and MIT. In the end, justice was done, and WSU beat KU and went to the final 8 anyway, but without our center Ozell Jones and only Antoine Carr and Cliff Livingston on the front line, were unable to beat LSU on what was essentially their home court advantage in New Orleans.
Why is it do you suspect, that when K-State and KU are faced with potentially having to play a quality WSU team in the NCAA Tournament, they resort to using their coach and alumni NCAA officers connections, to have key WSU players declared ineligible just before the NCAA Tournament games, instead of letting the teams fight it out on the court and let the best team win?
So, as exhibited above, the real story of the March 14, 1964 NCAA Midwest Regional game between WSU and K-State, was missed by Lutz selective presentation of facts. Ernie Moore did not “defect” from WSU just before the start of the NCAA Tournament, as alleged by Lutz, he was unmeritoriously kicked off the WSU team by the K-State coach Tex Winter on the NCAA eligibility committee. I would highly suspect that neither Dave Stallworth or Dave Leach would have advised Lutz that Ernie Moore “defected” from the team just before the start of the NCAA Tournament, but more probably would have advised of the above story, and Lutz simply didn’t have the intellectually honesty to advise of the true facts. Even if Lutz didn’t want to deal with the true facts, he had no license to manufacture a false assertion that Ernie Moore “defected” from the team just before the start of the NCAA Tournament. In honesty and professionally, if Lutz didn’t want to deal with the issue, he should have just said Kelley had graduated and Moore was ineligible.
As to the game itself, Roger Suttner, K-State’s 7-foot center was in fact up-and-down, mostly down. But in the game with WSU I saw him throw the ball over his head backwards without looking at the goal, and the ball went in. It was an absolute fluke. Willie Murrell had a quality game, but Stallworth outscored him 37 to 28 and out rebounded him 16 to 10 as Lutz reports. But the real key to the game, setting the Ernie Moore issue above aside, was in my opinion the fact that the 6'6" 6th man on K-State’s team, I vaguely think his name was something like Morrow or Morret etc., came off the bench to hit 5 or 6 key hole jumpers in a row on the fast break Without his input, I think we would have still beat K-State notwithstanding Tex Winter’s unmeritorious disqualification of Ernie Moore. WSU deserved better treatment from Tex Winter and K-State, as well as did Ernie Moore.
Respectfully submitted,
Shocker Black & Golds,
By:
Fred Marrs
cc: Bruce Haertl & Bob Lutz
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