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"The Tournament: A History of ACC Men’s Basketball" Premieres Feb. 7 on ACC Network

Complacent Deac said:
He seems oddly overlooked in Deacon lore of guards. I mean 18 and 15 is not shabby.
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scooter84 said:
Maybe because he only played for us for 2 years, which wasn't as common then?
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It wasn't just that. He was on some really bad Wake teams at the beginning of Carl Tacy's tenure as coach. They were of the "somebody has to score some points" variety. He also was sandwiched in between legendary Charlie Davis and the great Skip Brown. CD was the first player of African-American descent to be named ACC Player of the year following the 1970-71 season. Skip was all-ACC for three years. And he played on teams that were much better than those Tony Byers played on.

Jack McCloskey didn't recruit much to follow the Charlie Davis-Gil McGregor class. The fall of 1970 recruiting class at Wake was Bobby Dwyer, who was all region somewhere. NC State had David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Tim Stoddard et al. Maryland had Tom McMillen and Len Elmore... You get the idea. Freshman games were "interesting"
 
Found the early history interesting. Thought they gave Bones a lot of respect. Put him up there as one of the early name coaches.

Never knew Packer was supposed to go to dook until they told him to wait and he told them to pound sand. Goes to Wake so he can play dook twice a year.

The good old days when there was some real hatred and bad blood between teams.
 
Deac83 said:
Found the early history interesting. Thought they gave Bones a lot of respect. Put him up there as one of the early name coaches.

Never knew Packer was supposed to go to dook until they told him to wait and he told them to pound sand. Goes to Wake so he can play dook twice a year.

The good old days when there was some real hatred and bad blood between teams.
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Unlike today when players just stomp on opponents’ logos.
 
bluefish said:
Against American U. 42 I think.
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Byers was from Bessemer City, NC. and Vincennes JC. He scored 40 against Alabama in the championship game of the Twin City Classic, his second game for WF. Byers averaged 21.7 and 18 in his 2 years, first one with Eddie Payne, the second with Skip.
 
Talk about "great watch" basketball.
This Series has been incredible.
 
bluefish said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but did not Wake play Maryland in the semis, and if we had won we would have gone to the NCAA tourney.

The other semifinal had two teams who were both on probation (State and Duke I think) for recruiting Thompson.
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State went 57-1 in those back to back years, but because of the violation, only got one NCAA Title. Sneaky Bill Guthridge turned State in because DT, was playing pickup in Carmichael with a State coach. Dean and Gut turned called a “tryout” outside of the allowed practice dates. Dean and Gut were whiny little bitches. The Carolina Way at it's finest.
 
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HCF3 said:
State went 57-1 in those back to back years, but because of the violation, only got one NCAA Title. Sneaky Bill Guthridge turned State in because DT, was playing pickup in Carmichael with a State coach. Dean and Gut turned called a “tryout” outside of the allowed practice dates. Dean and Gut were whiny little bitches. The Carolina Way at it's finest.
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And almost 50 years later, the State players are still understandably bitter about it.
 
Deaconblue said:
It wasn't just that. He was on some really bad Wake teams at the beginning of Carl Tacy's tenure as coach. They were of the "somebody has to score some points" variety. He also was sandwiched in between legendary Charlie Davis and the great Skip Brown. CD was the first player of African-American descent to be named ACC Player of the year following the 1970-71 season. Skip was all-ACC for three years. And he played on teams that were much better than those Tony Byers played on.

Jack McCloskey didn't recruit much to follow the Charlie Davis-Gil McGregor class. The fall of 1970 recruiting class at Wake was Bobby Dwyer, who was all region somewhere. NC State had David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Tim Stoddard et al. Maryland had Tom McMillen and Len Elmore... You get the idea. Freshman games were "interesting"
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And Monte Towe, a poor-man's version of Muggsy, along with Moe Rivers and Phil Spence; a lot of talent besides DT on that team. Interestingly, given DT's disappointing NBA career due to injury and other self-inflicted issues, you could make an argument that Tim Stoddard's MLB career was among the most successful professional careers amongst that star-laden team.
 
DeacsPop said:
Talk about "great watch" basketball.
This Series has been incredible.
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It is compelling. Had no idea about the Duke/Carolina brawl in the early 60s, involving Larry Brown (yes, that Larry Brown) and Art Heyman, among many others. That fight was legit. Lasted 5 minutes. Duke football players got involved. Fun stuff. Also, Packer recounting why as HS recruit he picked Wake Forest over Duke was classic Billy Packer.

Here is the summary of the brawl from wiki:

On February 4, 1961, the Duke and North Carolina freshman teams had played the first game of the double header. There were multiple fights during the game, and North Carolina had finished the game with only three players on the floor (five North Carolina players had fouled out, and three more had been ejected for fighting). During the varsity game that night, Heyman was involved in two incidents, where he first pushed over a fan who he thought was attacking him, and then in the closing minutes of the game, while trying to protect a slim Duke lead, Heyman committed a hard foul against future Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown who was attempting to drive to the hoop. Brown threw the ball and then a punch at Heyman, touching off a general melee, which saw future basketball executive Donnie Walsh, then a substitute player for North Carolina, also attack Heyman.[13] The melee lasted about ten minutes, and despite Heyman being ejected for fighting, his 36 points had given Duke the victory, 81–77.[11]

Brown, Walsh and Heyman were all suspended for the remainder of the ACC season. Heyman was allowed to play in non-conference games, and the ACC Tournament. However, Duke failed to make the postseason, despite Heyman being voted the tournament's outstanding player, losing the ACC Tournament final to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons and their All American Len Chappell, 96–81.
 
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Speaking of Bob Dwyer, I attended the freshman game when he was our lone scholarship freshman against NCSU with Thompson and Towe. The old coliseum was packed to see DT (freshman game was played immediately prior to the varsity game) and WF stalled and the score was something like 10-6 with 2 minutes left, when we began playing ball because we were behind. Thompson got into a fight with a WF scrub in the first half and was ejected.
 
I watched that fight on live television. Art Heyman definitely had a reputation around the conference as a bad guy. The ACC was like Hollywood's version of the Old West. IIRC, ACC Commissioner Jim Weaver threatened to ban Dave Budd from the tournament if he got in another fight (precedes the Heyman years). Some years later South Carolina and Davidson duked it out in Columbia.
 
Dispatch Deac said:
I watched that fight on live television. Art Heyman definitely had a reputation around the conference as a bad guy. The ACC was like Hollywood's version of the Old West. IIRC, ACC Commissioner Jim Weaver threatened to ban Dave Budd from the tournament if he got in another fight (precedes the Heyman years). Some years later South Carolina and Davidson duked it out in Columbia.
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That was back when McGuire was at SC and Lefty at Davidson. McGuire had brought guys like Riker and Roche down from NYC with that street-fighter attitude, and Lefty had guys like Mike Malloy and bangers Rodney Knowles and Tom Youngblood. That was one heck of a rivalry back in the day.
 
Anything prior to African American players seems like BS.

All white players. All White crowd. While a great conference with fun games everyone knows some of the best players were not on the court due to backwards thinking.
 
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Scoreboard call 🤬🤬🤬 Wish we would go back to those 1975 uniforms.
 
1979 WF team lost to Duke in the final and didn’t even get an NIT bid. Rod’s last game as a Deacon.
 
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