MU great Dean "The Dream" Meminger dies

[nickthedribbler]

I have visited this site almost daily for the last 3-4 months and it is becoming one of my favorites. Lot of information here---lots of good posters.

For my Marquette friends who maybe haven't heard, and for anyone else who may be interested, one of MU's all-time greats, Dean Meminger, died Friday at age 65, under what appear to be unfortunate circumstances. George Thompson was Al McGuire's first star, but Dean came along 2 years later and really elevated things to the stratosphere.

In 1968-69, he was the starting point guard on the Marquette team that lost the Elite 8 game to Purdue on a buzzerbeating jump shot in overtime by Rick Mount. This cost MU an opportunity to probably face UCLA and Lew Alcindor in the Final Four.

In 1969-70, when the NCAA wanted to send 22-3 Marquette to a first round site far removed from Milwaukee, McGuire told the NCAA to buzz off, that he would go to New York and win the NIT instead (those were different times). And he did, winning 4 straight games at Madison Square Garden beating UMASS (Julius Erving) and LSU (Pete Maravich) in the process. Dean Meminger was the Tourney MVP.

In 1970-71, Marquette started the season 26-0 only to lose in the 2nd round of the NCAA to Ohio State on another buzzerbeater. This was arguably McGuire's best team. Meminger was a consensus 1st team all-American.

He was then drafted by the Knicks and played 7 years in the NBA, including starring on the 1973 Knicks Champioship team.

Kind of a sad day to be a Warrior. Godspeed Dean.

[Bill Marsh]

Thanks for the post. Sorry to hear the news. Meminger certainly was one of college basketball's great players and the only 6-foot point guard I ever saw who could post people up. He played the point with his back to the basket like Mark Jackson later did, but he was much smaller than Jackson. The greatest scorer with that same style was Earl the Pearl Monroe. Amazingly Meminger thrived in the NBA as well despite not being a great outside shooter. I'll remember him as a scrappy player who just knew how to play the game and who worked hard at it.

The1970 Marquette team is a perfect example of why "Final Four" doesn't mean the same thing in the pre-open era of the tournaments as it does today. Winning an NIT championship was often as big an accomplishment as winning a spot in the Final Four - or bigger.

[HoosierPal]

Great quote by Coach McGuire on Dean Meminger: "Meminger was “quicker than 11:15 mass at a seaside resort.”

Also, he NCAA site that McGuire rejected was Ft. Worth. He thought his team should go to the Dayton OH site. I'm not pulling a map out, but travel distance would not have been the issue.

[marquette]

RIP Dean, probably the best point guard we ever had.

[MUSeashells&Balloons]

Sad Day.

[Bill Marsh]

Great quote by Coach McGuire on Dean Meminger: "Meminger was “quicker than 11:15 mass at a seaside resort.”

Also, he NCAA site that McGuire rejected was Ft. Worth. He thought his team should go to the Dayton OH site. I'm not pulling a map out, but travel distance would not have been the issue.

Distance from Milwaukee to Forth Worth = 1,068 miles
Distance from Milwaukee to Dayton, OH = 388 miles

Having some feel for the way that Al viewed things, I think that he didn't like being treated like a pawn. In those days, conferences were locked into certain regions. the only flexibility that the tournament committee had was with independents and even in their case, it was expected that they would be placed within the geographic region in which they were located. Marquette was in Big Ten territory, so it was expected that they would play in the Mideast region.

The Midwest was notoriously the weakest of the 4 regions annually. There were only 3 conferences in that region (at least as I recall) - Big 8, Southwest, and Missouri Valley. There were also a limited number of independents. Because the Missouri Valley Conference had expanded east of the Mississippi, I think that the NCAA felt that it had the flexibility to move an independent like Marquette into the Midwest. In there thinking, if a school like Cincinnati from Ohio could play in a region west of the Mississippi, why not a school like Marquette from Wisconsin. I think that Al got his back up and said in effect that you're not going to move me from a site less than 400 miles from home to one over 1000 miles away. I think that for him it was a matter of respect. He wanted #8 Marquette to be treated just like the big powers from the Big Ten and the SEC. Wily old Al may also have felt that strategically it was better for the up and coming Marquette program to walk away with an NIT championship than to be an also-ran in the NCAA tournament. That gave them something to build on. His strategy paid off as they went to the Final Four just 4 years later - from the Mideast region.

Frankly, the NCAA was doing Marquette a favor. Had they been placed in the Mideast that year, their competition would have included:

#1 Kentucky
#4 Jacksonville
#7 Iowa
#9 Notre Dame
#19 Western Kentucky

Had they accepted the invitation to play in the Midwest, their competition would have included these ranked teams:

#5 New Mexico State
#12 Houston
#14 Drake

Eventually Jacksonville won the Mideast by upsetting Kentucky in the regional finals while New Mexico State won theMidwest by beating Drake. That Marquette team could have beaten either of those two. Stangely enough the team that replaced Marquette was Dayton, moved from its home town for the regionals to Fort Worth! The NCAA made their point. In those days teams were allowed to play on their home court in the tournament and often did - something which helped the big powers pf the day like UCLA.