Wanted: 1997 Video Highlights of Final Four Game vs Kentucky

I know it didn't happen officially, but I was just on a youtube hunt trying to find some highlights from the Gophers vs Kentucky game and came up empty.

Does anybody have any links or idea where I can find the video highlights? I was telling a friend about a key charge in the 2nd half when Courtney James had scored and the call went against us, prompting Clem to get T'd up...Anybody know it can be found?

Screw clips. How about the whole game??

Look what I found: http://vault.ncaa.com/

would be great if they had a game we won

...or a game that happened...

Wow, this is the first time I've ever seen this game. I was on a plane back from a Colorado ski trip when this happened. Got home with about 3 minutes to go.

We played pretty sloppy for the first 5 minutes here...

The charge in question happens about 47:45 into the video...

I was in the stands in Indy for this game. Here are a few memories.

- Winners of the ticket lottery were notified by phone. I remember getting the call and the joyus disbelief at scoring tickets. My luck is normally pretty bad with this stuff.

- Just walking into the Hoosier Dome and it hitting home that the Gophers were really in the Final Four. I'd always hoped for it, but never imagined it would happen. Given all that's gone on since, it makes that weekend even more special.

- The Gophers couldn't take everyone. Loge and Sanden, who were redshirting, made the trip and took the layup line, but the Sanford Twins weren't suited up despite playing that year in garbage time.

- Bobby Jackson's swoop shot. The charging call. The rough start. The fight to get back into the game. The sinking realization that the comeback wouldn't make it all the way.

- The seating in the Gopher quadrant put the students in front of the regular season ticket holders to get the kids closer to the floor. Of course they stood the entire game. That meant the older fans that sit on lower deck between the baskets at Williams Arena had to stand if they wanted to see anything. To say there were some unhappy people among that older crowd is a vast understatement, and not just for a few minutes. Some people were shouting "sit down!" and "act like you been there before" the entire game and left more bitter about that than the loss and end to a great season. I was fine with standing on the other hand, being in my mid 20s only a few years out of school.

- Ticket scalping is legal in Indianapolis to the extent that people were very openly soliciting Gopher fans for their Monday night tickets as semi-final came to a close, unconcerned about ushers or security. Most fans sold up and went home. Very few Gopher fans stayed for the Title game.

- The Kentucky fans patronized Minnesota fans in the most condescending manner possible, mocking the #3 team in the country and its fans as if this was a mid February game against Ole Miss or some mid level SEC team at Rupp Arena, completely expecting to roll the Gophers by a huge margin. It was great to see them lose on Monday night, especially considering how cool the Arizona fans largely were.

I have never been able to rewatch that game...it is just too painful. That charge call was just aweful and a deep cut. That call goes the other way and I am confident we win that game.

Just lost myself for the last hour looking at various games throughout the years. Wish they had that for Division II. Let's not forget Winona State represented the great state of Minnesota in the National Championship 2006-2008

Thanks a ton for that! Great site!

I re-watched the 2nd half and yes, the charge was pretty awful...Not only was the defender under the basket, but he was moving into the offensive player and created the contct. That was a huge 5 point swing...There was also a couple of ticky tack calls, one on Quincy, when he blocked a Turner layup that was terrible.

Having said all that, I have to be honest and admit that we didn't handle their press in the 2nd half and had at least 4 turnovers in the final 10 minutes that led to about 8 points for them. We also went 3-8 on 2nd half FT's including 2 terrible 1 and 1 misses by Tarver. Tarver also missed a point blank put-back when the game was tied. Harris missed a wide open layup on one of the few occasions when we beat their press. Quincy was off all night and Sam was a non-factor as well.

We really played a poor game that night AND Kentucky got a majority of the 50/50 calls.

If we had handled their press a little better and gotten 3 or 4 more calls(including that charge) we would won the game.

I think the first three minutes of that game was the hardest to watch. Four possessions and four turnovers. Yuck.

So those games do exist....

Yeah. Kinda ironic that the NCAA has a non-existent game in its own vault.

I have the whole game on VHS. I've never watched it for fear of the NCAA or Dpdoll knocking on my door.

One thing watching this game underscores for me....This year's team has potential to be better! We may not win the Big Ten, but looking back, the Big Ten was a little down in 96/97. This year's team could finish in 4th or 5th place and still make the final four.

Here are the pros and cons of the 97 team vs the 12/13 team:

97 Pros:
* Bobby Jackson! Basketball IQ off the charts! 150+++ The best point guard to ever play for the Gophers. He handled Kentucky press with aplomb. Most of the turnovers were committed by Harris, Quincy or other forwards coming back. Jackson could score and create and played scrappy defense. Dre Hollins has potential to be Bobby-esque and may be a better pure shooter, but his Basketball IQ pales (105 at this stage) in comparison to Bobby J. Dre sometimes dribbles himself into bad spots on the court, whereas Bobby was usually adept at avoiding uneccessary risks.


* Bench Scoring: Charles Thomas and Quincy Lewis were both capable of scoring in spurts off the bench and both were probably better scorers than anybody we have on the current team.

97 Team Cons:
* FT Shooting - Apart from Bobby and Sam, it was a pretty average to poor FT shooting tream. Tarver must have been under 50% for the season and his misses (2 seperate 1 and 1's) really hurt us. James, Thomas and Quincy were all about 60-65% that season.

* Half Players - We had several players who were incomplete players. Harris was a great defender but couldn't shoot, until his senior season when they won the NIT (or did they?). Tarver a great rebounder but couldn't score at all.

* Academics - Can't mention the 97 team cons and not mention academic. Apparently, they weren't very adept at writing their own papers...


12/13 team Pros:
* FT Shooting. It's a huge luxury to have Dre and Austin Hollins shooting around 90% from the line. Also Rodney has improved a great deal at the stripe. Ahanmisi has also shown improvement. Welch was solid last year as well. I'm convinced that we'll win some close games this year, simply by out-shooting opponents at the FT line.

* Interior defense. With Eliason, Mbakwe and Rodney swatting shots, this teams is even better than the 97 team with Thomas and James. Both were solid and strong, but neither of them were huge shot blockers. Opposing teams (apart from Duke, apparently) will struggle to shoot 40% on us, mostly because we alter so many shots close to the basket.

* Athleticism - The 97 team had some nice athletes in Sam, Courtney and Quincy, but nobody in the class of Rodney or Mbakwe. This year's team can rival any team in America for athleticism, leaping and rebounding.

Current team cons:

* Ball handling - We don't have a go to PG who can beat the press single-handedly and dribble through traffic. Dre may improve, but he's still not a great ball handler.

* In-Game Coaching - I'm concerned that Tubby's Gopher teams have struggled to close out games and execute legitimate end of game and half situations. We got bailed out by Stanford but if you remember the end of the first half, we also called timeout and wound up launching a long three that clanged off...Our end of game situational play has been killing us during the Tubby years and the Stanford game (Despite the lucky foul) didn't do anything to ease my angst on this issue.

When you add it all up, I think this year's team has a chance to be better than the 97 team, especially if Dre can improve on his ball-handling and decision making. The sky is the limit for this team.

Tarver air-balled more layups than anyone in D1 history.

brucekaupa said:

Tarver air-balled more layups than anyone in D1 history.

Click to expand...

Probably because he was still preoccupied about his fight with the Puerto Rican National Team. (Was that '97 ?)

Sports_Realist said:

I was in the stands in Indy for this game. Here are a few memories.

- Winners of the ticket lottery were notified by phone. I remember getting the call and the joyus disbelief at scoring tickets. My luck is normally pretty bad with this stuff.

- Just walking into the Hoosier Dome and it hitting home that the Gophers were really in the Final Four. I'd always hoped for it, but never imagined it would happen. Given all that's gone on since, it makes that weekend even more special.

- The Gophers couldn't take everyone. Loge and Sanden, who were redshirting, made the trip and took the layup line, but the Sanford Twins weren't suited up despite playing that year in garbage time.

- Bobby Jackson's swoop shot. The charging call. The rough start. The fight to get back into the game. The sinking realization that the comeback wouldn't make it all the way.

- The seating in the Gopher quadrant put the students in front of the regular season ticket holders to get the kids closer to the floor. Of course they stood the entire game. That meant the older fans that sit on lower deck between the baskets at Williams Arena had to stand if they wanted to see anything. To say there were some unhappy people among that older crowd is a vast understatement, and not just for a few minutes. Some people were shouting "sit down!" and "act like you been there before" the entire game and left more bitter about that than the loss and end to a great season. I was fine with standing on the other hand, being in my mid 20s only a few years out of school.

- Ticket scalping is legal in Indianapolis to the extent that people were very openly soliciting Gopher fans for their Monday night tickets as semi-final came to a close, unconcerned about ushers or security. Most fans sold up and went home. Very few Gopher fans stayed for the Title game.

- The Kentucky fans patronized Minnesota fans in the most condescending manner possible, mocking the #3 team in the country and its fans as if this was a mid February game against Ole Miss or some mid level SEC team at Rupp Arena, completely expecting to roll the Gophers by a huge margin. It was great to see them lose on Monday night, especially considering how cool the Arizona fans largely were.

Click to expand...

Nice memories to share there, Realist. I was in Indy for that Final Four too, but didn't make it into the game - decided $300 was too steep for me to scalp in for some nosebleeders. Watched in a bar by the RCA Dome with my Dad. It wasn't just UK fans in the game that were condescending either, they were brutal outside it as well.

I was at the Final Four in 2009 in Detroit, made a killing on selling my tix (in the Ford Field stands) as MSU closed out UCONN, doubled my $$. The losing teams never want to stick for that Monday night Final, but Michigan State being in the Championship game inflated that value big time.

brucekaupa said:

Tarver air-balled more layups than anyone in D1 history.

Click to expand...

Tarver was fine as long as he didn't dribble or shoot.

There was also a terrible charge on Archambault at the end of the first half that negated a Tarver dunk. Maglore was moving into him and drew the call.

Between the 50/50 calls that all went UK's way and Harris's blown layup and Tarver's 1 and 1 misses, we lost about 12 points on 5 possessions. Also, James blew 2 dunks when he was fouled...4 more points that somehow didn't go down.

I really think Kentucky was fortunate to win by 9 or win at all...I think the Gophers were a slightly better team. They had better ball handling and shooting on that night. We had far superior inside presence.

Very cool site. Thanks for that nugget. I just watched the first few minutes.... wow... we had a really poor start. Not good at all...Yikes.

No charge = no loss = no phonebook slapdown = no sanctions.

I have now re-watched that charge 5 times for the first time in 15 years.

I could go ten rounds with Apollo Creed I'm so angry.

The Loyola-Marymount vs Michigan game from 1990 is the most incredible thing ever.

I'm not sure I can watch it, but I do remember it well. What made that charge call more galling is that, earlier in the game, James got mauled in the open court by Kentucky's press. The Wildcat player jumped over Courtney's back and hammered him in the head with his elbow as he was about to catch a pass, forcing a turnover.

Ever since that day, I've maintained that those Gophers would win 6 of 10 games with that Kentucky team, even with Harris injured; 7 with Harris at full strength. This just happened to be one of the four.

I can remember when Jackson hit that three to take the lead. At that time I thought "here we go!" and was absolutely sure the Gophers would win. The charge call was a killer. There was also a play where Harris missed an easy layup and it was clear (to me anyway) that it was due to his injury. Lots of 'what ifs' from that game.

I was at the first/second rounds in KC and the Final Four. Some of my favorite moments of that run:

- The Welcome Home celebration at The Barn after we beat UCLA. That place was PACKED for hours before the team arrived. There were a few thousand fans who couldn't get inside The Barn that greeted the bus and the team thought that that was the celebration, then they walked into the locker room and it was out of control loud. The "BEAT KENTUCKY" chant was deafening.

- The pre-game rally at The Union in Indy. It was crazy loud and the Gopher band led thousands of Gopher fans into the Dome. The huge sign of "The Road Ends Here" was a thing of beauty.

- And I think the best moment of all was in the Under 4 minute timeout between UNC and Arizona (they played before us) all you could hear during that time out was "LET'S GO GOPHERS" and we weren't even playing.

- Oh, and who could forget Ted Danson aka "Sam Malone" grabbing a Gopher pom-pom and leading the Gopher student section in a "LET'S GO GOPHERS" chant.

Some day...some day...we'll be there again and it will make the many years of pain and agony worthwhile.

Go Gophers!!

I know beggars can't be choosers but I really hope when we go to the Final Four again it's with a truly outstanding team. I don't want to have the feeling that we just got hot or lucky for a two weekends like VCU, UCONN (2011), or Wisconsin.

Thanks Bleed and to others for sharing those memories. It is a fun read. For me, I was watching at home as my wife and I had just received the bad news our first attempt at a kid had ended in an early miscarriage. I was so pumped about the Gophers but it was all overshadowed by the personal issue, and trying to console my wife. Three healthy kids later I guess it is a bit of a footnote now, but it is hard to separate the two memories because they will always be intertwined for me. The way William's arena filled up for the welcome home is always what I think of when I daydream how quickly this fan base will rebound if basketball or football ever catches fire.

Being able to watch this Kentucky game really brings back memories of that special run. I am greedy though... I would sure love to see a similar vault option for the Clemson or UCLA games.

Having to vacate that special season also stings, and always will sting.

BleedGopher said:

I was at the first/second rounds in KC and the Final Four. Some of my favorite moments of that run:

- The Welcome Home celebration at The Barn after we beat UCLA. That place was PACKED for hours before the team arrived. There were a few thousand fans who couldn't get inside The Barn that greeted the bus and the team thought that that was the celebration, then they walked into the locker room and it was out of control loud. The "BEAT KENTUCKY" chant was deafening.

- The pre-game rally at The Union in Indy. It was crazy loud and the Gopher band led thousands of Gopher fans into the Dome. The huge sign of "The Road Ends Here" was a thing of beauty.

- And I think the best moment of all was in the Under 4 minute timeout between UNC and Arizona (they played before us) all you could hear during that time out was "LET'S GO GOPHERS" and we weren't even playing.

- Oh, and who could forget Ted Danson aka "Sam Malone" grabbing a Gopher pom-pom and leading the Gopher student section in a "LET'S GO GOPHERS" chant.

Some day...some day...we'll be there again and it will make the many years of pain and agony worthwhile.

Go Gophers!!

Click to expand...

I was fortunate enough to be in San Antonio and Indy, though it's San Antonio where I have my fondest memories.

One thing I've always kicked myself for? In a quaint San Antonio restaurant prior to the Sweet 16 games, the restaurant had special home-made menus where all the food selections were named after players from the various teams (Gophers, Clemson, UCLA, Iowa State). They had things like the Slammin' Sammy, the BJT (instead of BLT), the Dedric (named after ISU's Dedric Willoughby), things of that nature. The menu would have been cool to have as a keepsake. To this day I regret I didn't sneak it out of the restaurant.

BleedGopher said:

- Oh, and who could forget Ted Danson aka "Sam Malone" grabbing a Gopher pom-pom and leading the Gopher student section in a "LET'S GO GOPHERS" chant.

Click to expand...

Is there a backstory to that or did he just happen to be walking by?

I was in high school at the time. Some of my classmates were pissed because they had a band trip scheduled for the same time. I believe they had just traveled through Indianapolis earlier that day.

The UCLA game was so much fun. Didn't Courtney James or John Thomas have a big dunk towards the end of that game?