Mike DeCourcy remembers John Thompson, Cliff Robinson, Pitt's Demetreus Gore, Big East glory days
If you like college basketball as much as I do — especially memories of the Big East’s early days — then you know how bad of a week it has been.
• Former Pitt standout Demetreus Gore died of an apparent heart attack over the weekend. He was 54. Gore was a four-year starter at Pitt from 1984-88, finishing 16th on the Panthers’ all-time scoring list. In 122 games (112 starts), he averaged 12.7 points per game with 394 rebounds.
• Legendary Georgetown coach John Thompson passed away Sunday at the age of 78. A basketball Hall of Fame inductee, he led the Hoyas for 27 years. Under his coaching, Georgetown went to 14 straight NCAA tournaments (1979-92), three Final Fours (1982, 1984, 1985), and won six Big East tournament championships. They won the national title in 1984.
• UConn great Cliff Robinson died of lymphoma on Saturday. Before embarking on an 18-year NBA career, Robinson was one of the first standout players under Jim Calhoun at Connecticut. The Huskies began their ascent toward the top of the Big East standings in the mid-80s, and the 6-foot-10 big man was one of the pioneers of the program. His No. 00 is retired in Storrs. Robinson totaled 1,664 points at UConn, fourth on the school’s all-time scoring list when he left in 1989.
• On Thursday, Lute Olson — also a Hall of Famer — died at the age of 85. He suffered a stroke last year and had been in hospice care. Olson won a national championship with Arizona in 1997 and had been to three other Final Fours with the Wildcats. He also coached the Iowa Hawkeyes to one in 1980.
Mike DeCourcy covered college basketball in Western Pa. with the Pittsburgh Press. He has since gone onto a national career with the Sporting News and the Big Ten Network. So I turned to DeCourcy for Tuesday’s “Breakfast With Benz” podcast to get his perspective on all four men.
Of Gore, DeCourcy recalls a player who “was a delight to watch” and an “overpowering, scoring wing.” The three-point line wasn’t established in college basketball until Gore’s junior year. And while Gore didn’t rely on the three, DeCourcy suspects his legacy could’ve been even greater if it was implemented at the start of his time in Oakland.
In 1986, Gore led his team in scoring as a sophomore but then allowed himself to take a reduced offensive role with the emergence of Jerome Lane and Charles Smith. “He didn’t force a lot of action. He wasn’t a ‘me’ guy,” DeCourcy said. “As Charles becomes an All-American, as Jerome becomes a star, (Gore) willingly takes a half step back, takes fewer shots, does not control the ball as much. But still produces.”
Some of those excellent Panther teams, featuring Lane, Smith, and Gore, regularly battled Thompson’s Hoyas and Robinson’s Huskies at the height of the Big East’s success in the mid to late 80s.
“As a coach, he was a towering figure,” DeCourcy said of the 6-foot-10 Thompson. “His stature did have an impact on the game. You couldn’t not see him. That baritone he spoke in. You couldn’t not hear him.”
DeCourcy and I also talked about how Thompson was great at generating a reaction out of all the other fan bases in the Big East just by his presence alone.
“You don’t have rivalries with guys who aren’t great. If John was mediocre, he wouldn’t be that to you. He was great. So you wanted to beat him. Because it meant something to beat him,” DeCourcy recalled.
Of Robinson’s contributions to the Huskies, DeCourcy says, “Cliff got them moving forward. He was, other than Calhoun, the foundational figure of the UConn powerhouse.”
Also in the podcast, DeCourcy recalls how he built a long-lasting relationship with Olson, his exciting Arizona teams, how Duquesne was part of that history, and Olson’s Final Four run with Iowa.
Plus more on the evolution of Gore’s Pitt clubs, Thompson’s contributions to Allen Iverson’s development, and how Robinson helped Calhoun build his Huskies into a force that lasted for 26 years in the Big East.
Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via X. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
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