'Gold and Black LIVE' Replay: Purdue's NIT team and BTN's Rapheal Davis
Former Purdue basketball standouts Rapheal Davis and key members of the 1974 NIT team Mike Steele and Jerry Nichols join us for the first show in 2024. GoldandBlack.com football beat writer Tom Dienhart joins us to talk transfer portal, Purdue’s early enrollees and much more .
Special thanks to our sponsor Triple XXX Family Restaurants and State Farm Trent Johnson for their long-term support of our show which is now in its 15th season.
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More on Purdue’s 1974 NIT Champs
The 1973-74 Boilermakers were one of the highest-scoring teams in college basketball. And they came within an eyelash of being a contender for not only the NCAA Tournament, but a team capable of a deep run. Purdue had some quality wins: over No. 9 Providence in the Rainbow Classic in Hawaii, The also came from way behind to beat Michigan in Mackey.
But it was also a team that suffered some very heartbreaking losses. Purdue had eventual national champion North Carolina State and its legendary player David Thompson on the ropes. Purdue led by 10 at the half in a January non-conference battle. Nichols held Thompson scoreless for the first 16 minutes but got into foul trouble in the second half. During the period when Nichols was dealing with foul difficulty, Thompson exploded for 18 of his 26 points.
A week later, Purdue lost at Michigan State on a buzzer-beater and later lost a triple-overtime clash at Iowa (112-111). Purdue still had a chance to gain a share of the ’74 conference title and force a one-game playoff with Michigan in its season finale at IU. Schaus’ crew appeared to be on its way to the season finale at IU, in front of the largest crowd in state history. Purdue led by 10 in the half and went ahead on a Parkinson field goal with 32 seconds left. But with eight seconds left, official Art White whistled Bruce Rose for a highly disputed foul and IU’s John Laskowski sank the game-winning free throws.
Hours later Purdue accepted a bid to play in the NIT. IU lost the playoff to Michigan and the Wolverines represented the Big Ten in the NCAA. Purdue faced North Carolina, the only ranked team in the NIT, in a made-for-national-television matchup. It overcame an 11-point first half deficit to win 82-71.
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“To show you how confident we were, we only packed for the weekend,” recalled Parkinson in the Monday Night Memories interview. “It was quite an upset.”
Purdue ended up staying for 10 days on Manhattan (all the NIT games were played in Madison Square Garden in those days), and got revenge for two early season losses to Hawaii and Utah en route to the NIT title.
Nichols, who had blown out his knee in the quarterfinal win over Hawaii, was the emotional part of the celebration that ensued in Mackey Arena when the Boilermakers returned to town after beating the UTES later that Sunday evening. Nichols was rolled onto the court in front of thousands of Purdue fans who were cheering on the tourney champs.
For Schaus, it would be the highlight of his six-year run as Purdue’s head coach. In ’74, Kendrick was named first-team All-Big Ten, while Garrett (second) and Parkinson (third) were also recognized by the league.
