Columnist Ron Kantowksi: Gondrezick has watched Final Four evolve into big-time event

Ron Kantowksi

Friday, April 4, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

If he knew that just making it to the Final Four would become such a big deal, Glen Gondrezick said he might have done something different during his One Shining Moment in Atlanta in 1977.

Like maybe take a few photos to prove he was there.

Or better yet, score one more basket against North Carolina.

"It was the first time that had ever happened, not only for myself, but for the university," said Gondrezick, one of the stars of the free-wheeling 1977 Final Four team, UNLV's first, that dropped an 84-83 heartbreaker to the mighty Tar Heels in the national semifinals at The Omni.

"We didn't realize until afterward what we had accomplished. We came back to a parade and everything but at the time, we looked at it as just two more games that we had to win."

That was the year Runnin' was added to the Rebels, as UNLV averaged an astounding 107 points per game en route to a 29-3 record. But despite an enticing schedule that included Oregon, Iowa State, Utah, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Rutgers and Louisville, the Rebels more or less played in a vacuum, as SportsCenter was still an unborn.

Then the NCAA tournament began.

In 1977, I was a sophomore at a small college in New Mexico, and when UNLV drew No. 1-ranked San Francisco in the sub-regional opener in Tucson (actually, the NCAA drew for them), a friend and I drove to Arizona, to check out the Rebels for ourselves.

I had never seen anything like it -- and I'm not just talking about the size of Reggie Theus' afro.

This wasn't basketball, it like an experiment that blew up. We thought this is what might happen if you mixed the Harlem Globetrotters with rocket fuel. The Rebels blew away Bill Cartwright and the Dons, 121-95. Then UNLV beat Utah, avenging one of its regular-season losses, and fellow upstart Idaho State, which had handed UCLA its first regional loss in 11 years, to win the West Region.

Gondrezick said he knew the Final Four was special, when 10,000 fans turned out to watch the Rebels practice. But back then, it was still just four basketball games (remember the consolation game?) and not a pseudo national holiday.

"We didn't have all that," Gondrezick said of the extracurricular activities that will make it hard for Texas, Syracuse, Marquette and Kansas to stay focused on basketball in New Orleans this weekend.

"A lot of people came from Las Vegas and there were parties in the hotel. But nothing was organized like today."

So it was easy for the Rebels to prepare for North Carolina. They led by 10 points before Gondrezick's aggressiveness, for once, worked against him. He caught Larry Moffet, UNLV's starting center, with an inadvertent elbow to the nose, and when Lewis Brown, Moffet's backup, refused to enter the game (he was feuding with coach Jerry Tarkanian), Theus was forced to play inside.

Carolina eventually drew even and took control with its famed Four Corners offense, as Phil Ford fed Mike O'Koren for 31 points. O'Koren is the only freshman to score 30 points in a Final Four game.

I asked Gondrezick if O'Koren was his man.

"Well, yeah," he said. "But Reggie was trying to guard Phil Ford, and I was always switching, to help him out. Ford just kept dropping the ball off to O'Koren for layups."

Gondrezick scored eight points in 27 minutes but what he remembers most is that the Rebels only made one free throw (in five attempts), a Final Four record. North Carolina hit 18 of 28 from the line.

To this day, Gondrezick refuses to speak to Irv Brown, a fellow Denver native, who officiated the game, even though the two often cross paths as basketball analysts, Gondrezick for UNLV and Brown for the SportsWest network.

When I told Gondrezick that Brown often talks him up during Mountain West telecasts, he just sniffed.

"That's because he doesn't do his homework, and I'm just filler (material)," he said.

Marquette went on to beat North Carolina in the 1977 championship game, which still pains Gondrezick. The Rebels downed Cornbread Maxwell and UNC-Charlotte in the third-place game.

"There's no doubt that we had the best team in the tournament that year," he says.

And Al McGuire agreed. Before his death two years ago, McGuire spoke at the UNLV basketball banquet and said the Warriors would have had trouble matching up with the Rebels.

"I think you guys win the game," he said. "You had more athletic ability than we did. If they get out of the gate quickly, we'd be in trouble, and if it comes down to a blacktop game, UNLV wins."

That was the year McGuire cried on the bench, having finally realized the ultimate goal in what would be his final game.

Although Gondrezick is not prone to tears, he, too, still gets a little misty when talking about 1977.

"You know the building they played it in is not even there anymore," he said of The Omni. "Neither is the (Las Vegas) Convention Center (where UNLV played its home games). You can't even go to where I played."

Well, maybe not in a taxi. But in the memories of Rebels fans who saw him and his teammates fly up and down the court, it's still just a short jog to 1977.