Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="CTFIRERETIRED, post: 4554359, member: 1282"] Fred Shabel rescued UC basketball after the 60's point shaving scandal, and the death of coach Hugh Greer. After taking over for George Wigton, Shabel turned the program into one of the best in New England. The list of the players of his program were memorable for those of us of that era. Toby Kimball, Wes, Holowaty, Penders, PJ Curran, Dan "Spider" Hesford, the Ritters, etc. Some ask WHY Fred left UC, after the playoff loss to URI in the late middle to late 60's. The story went that after UC lost the game, there were rep's from the NIT, which was still a huge post season tournament. Remember the NCAA was still only 32 teams, back then. UC was tendered an invitation to the NIT, but, then AD, J.O. Christian rejected it, remarking that it was either the NCAA's or nothing. It was rumored that Fred remarked that the UC program would never be national power, until this kind of thinking was gone. He headed for Penn as AD, and UC languished in the Eastern basketball backwater, for years until the late 70's, and the advent of the Big East. One can speculate that if Fred had stayed what would the basketball program have looked like. Think of the prime Connecticut talent that might have stayed, instead of heading to other programs. The list is impressive. Not saying that ALL of them would have stayed, but if Shabel continued to build the program, the possibilities are interesting to ponder. Names like Calvin Murphy, "Super" John Williamson, Soup Campbell, "Rocket" Rod Foster, Mike Gminski, Tom Roy, John Bagley, Sly Williams, Phil Luckett, John Pinone, and others. Yeah, what if. RIP Fred. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach