ST. LOUIS — When Sidney Moncrief heard the SEC Tournament was in St. Louis this year, the former Arkansas Razorbacks star couldn’t help but think back to 1978.
“I know the Checkerdome is long since gone,” Moncrief said. “But when I hear ‘Arkansas’ and ‘St. Louis,’ the first thing I think of is the Final Four.
“That’s etched in my spirit. It’s hard for me to separate them. In my mind, it’s all connected.”
Moncrief’s feelings of nostalgia are understandable. When the Razorbacks open SEC Tournament play tonight in Scottrade Center, it will mark the first postseason basketball game in St. Louis for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville since the 1978 Final Four.
The exact 40th anniversary of the game is coming up later this month.
Then a member of the Southwest Conference, the Razorbacks played now SEC rival Kentucky on March 25, 1978, in the national semifinals.
The No. 1 Wildcats beat the No. 5 Razorbacks 64-59, then won the national championship with a 94-88 victory over Duke in the final.
A sellout crowd of 18,721 at the Checkerdome attended the semifinals and championship game.
“Back then you could smoke in arenas,” said Moncrief, a junior guard in 1978. “I’ll never forget walking onto the Checkerdome court and they had such poor ventilation in that place, smoke was everywhere.
“It’s the first arena I ever played in where I felt like I was at a boxing match from the 1930s or ’40s. That’s my visual of the Checkerdome always.”
A lot has changed in college basketball since 1978 besides smoking being banned in arenas.
“Think about how different the NCAA Tournament is now compared to what it was then,” said Jim Counce, a senior forward on Arkansas’ 1978 team. “It was a 32-team tournament then, and now we have 68 teams.
“All the teams were senior-laden. The best players were upperclassmen. Now generally the best players are freshmen and sophomores.”
8:30 p.m. Central today, Scottrade Center, St. Louis (SEC Network)
There was no three-point line or shot clock in college basketball 40 years ago.
“It’s just a different type of basketball now,” Counce said. “The three-point line and shot clock have changed basketball so dramatically.
“You never saw anybody driving to the middle of lane and then jump up and throw it back out 22 feet away from the basket to allow a guy wide open to take a shot. The game now is so three-point driven.”
Eddie Sutton, the Razorbacks’ coach for 11 seasons from 1975-1985, has said many times that if Marvin Delph had played with a three-point line, he would have averaged 30-plus points as a senior in 1978 rather than 16.8.
Moncrief, who averaged 17.3 points in 1978, senior guard Ron Brewer (18.0) and Delph were all 6-4 and from the state of Arkansas.
Al McGuire, who retired from coaching after leading Marquette to the 1977 national championship, was in his first season as a TV analyst for NBC when he came up with the nickname “The Triplets” for Moncrief, Brewer and Delph.
“Al McGuire did us a big favor by naming us ‘The Triplets,’ ” Delph told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2008. “It’s an enduring term, and I think we all like it.
“I wish one of us would have put a trademark on it.”
Another difference in the game today from the 1978 version, Moncrief said, is the physicality of the players.
“With the players overall now, there’s certainly more athleticism,” Moncrief said. “But I remember that my era it was a more physical game, because the players were older and stronger at 21 or 22 years old than players now at 18 or 19.
“It was a power game. Now it’s more of a finesse game with spacing and three-point shooting.”
The Razorbacks advanced to the 1978 Final Four through the West Regional by beating Weber State 73-52, No. 2 UCLA 74-70 and Cal State-Fullerton 61-58.
“Our team was good, and we had three great players that really captured the imagination of the state,” Counce said. “Then once we got into the NCAA Tournament, they captured the imagination of the national media.
“Sidney, Ron and Marvin really cemented themselves in the minds of a generation of Arkansans.”
Reaching the 1978 Final Four made Arkansas a national program.
“I think it was a great catapult for the resurgence of Arkansas basketball,” Brewer said. “Going to the Final Four gave us a lot of exposure and helped recruit a lot of great players to Arkansas.
“It created a lot of history for the Razorbacks.”
The Checkerdome, which opened in 1929, was demolished in 1999.
“It was a humongous arena, and all four teams had a lot of fans there,” Brewer said. “The atmosphere to play basketball was at the highest level, and the players fed off of that.”
Losing to Kentucky in the Final Four wasn’t the end of the season for the Razorbacks.
In 1978 a consolation game at the Final Four was still played — it would end after the 1980-1981 season — and Brewer hit a last-second jump shot to lift the Razorbacks to a 71-69 victory over Notre Dame.
“When I hit the shot, I knew it was in,” Brewer said. “So I kept running straight to the dressing room. But I had to turn around and come back to shake hands with the Notre Dame players.
“The toughest thing was that I was a senior, and I knew it was my last game playing for the Razorbacks.”
Mississippi State Coach Ben Howland, whose Bulldogs open against LSU today in the SEC Tournament, played for Weber State against Arkansas in the 1978 NCAA Tournament.
“That was an incredible backcourt with those three players — Brewer, Moncrief and Delph,” Howland said. “For me, looking back, it was a real honor to have a chance to compete against those guys.”
The 1978 Final Four Razorbacks said they’re excited to see what this year’s Arkansas team can do in St. Louis.
“What better place for Arkansas to launch another deep run in the postseason than St. Louis this year?” Counce said. “There’s not a team in the SEC we can’t beat.”
Arkansas beat SEC regular-season co-champions Auburn and Tennessee at Walton Arena this season.
“I would say we have just as good a chance as anybody in the tournament to win it,” Counce said. “If we get a few shots to fall, and one or two breaks, then I would say we’ll have a good shot at it.
“Then if you win the SEC Tournament, to me that’s a huge springboard into the NCAA Tournament. It probably gets you a better seed, and if you can get past the first weekend, then there’s no telling what happens after that.”
Arkansas Coach Mike Anderson is ready for a long stay in St. Louis this week.
“I’ve got four suits, and hopefully I’ll get to use all four suits,” Anderson said. “The way you do that is you take it one game at a time.
“The beauty of that is it’s been our narrative all year long. Let’s control the things we can control one game at a time.”
Anderson has the Razorbacks (21-10) set for their third NCAA Tournament appearance in the past four years.
“I just think Mike Anderson is so underrated as a coach,” Moncrief said. “I think the team is good and they’ve been coached very well, like they were last year.”
The Razorbacks are led by All-SEC senior guards Daryl Macon and Jaylen Barford.
“I like their games a lot, because they can score in different ways,” Moncrief said. “They can drive. They can shoot the three. They can score in transition.
“Your two best players have to play their best, that’s the bottom line in a postseason tournament. When they defend in addition to scoring, then Arkansas is very, very difficult to beat.”
The Razorbacks have five scholarship seniors on the team.
“To me, they should be ahead of everybody else because of their maturity and understanding how to play,” Brewer said. “Now they’ve just got to go out and do it.”
At a glance
WEDNESDAY’S GAMES
Georgia 78, Vanderbilt 62 South Carolina 85, Mississippi 84
TODAY’S GAMES
All times Central
Texas A&M vs. Alabama, noon Missouri vs. Georgia, 2:30 p.m. Mississippi State vs. LSU, 6 p.m.
Arkansas vs. South Carolina, 8:30 p.m.