This article is one in a series of features produced in partnership with the Southwestern Athletic Conference, exploring the history of the SWAC from its founding in 1920 to the present day. The series will run during the months of April and May.
When the Prairie View A&M men’s basketball team won its NCAA Division I tournament game last month, it had joined an exclusive club of SWAC programs that had won an NCAA Division I tournament game. But the first SWAC team to break that barrier didn’t walk through an open door; they had to kick it down.
An Alcorn State team built for greatness
Nothing was going to stop the Alcorn State Braves from their appointed destiny in the 1979-80 season.
Alcorn had a coach who preached an up-tempo style in Davey “The Wiz” Whitney, a strong power forward who went on to play more than a decade in the NBA in Larry “Mr. Mean” Smith, and most important of all, a chip on their collective shoulders.
As good as that 1980 Alcorn State team was, the 1978-79 edition might have been better. The Braves went 25-0 in the regular season, then held off Mississippi Valley State 88-84 in the SWAC semifinals before dominating Southern 108-89 in the conference championship game.
One would think that an NCAA tournament appearance was on the horizon. Unfortunately, it was not.
The SWAC was in the middle of a probationary period after moving from Division II to Division I prior to the 1977-78 athletic and academic year. 27-0 Alcorn State was excluded from the NCAA tournament.
Taking It out on the NIT
The Braves took that disappointment out on Mississippi State in the opening round of the NIT. The Bulldogs featured future NBA players Rickey Brown and Wiley Peck, but the Braves were victorious 80-78.
Alcorn State then went on the road to Bloomington, Indiana, to face Bob Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers.
After playing a team with two future NBA players, the Braves now faced a team with four such players – Butch Carter, Mike Woodson, Ray Tolbert and Randy Wittman.
The Braves stayed close, only to fall short to the eventual NIT champs 73-69.
As the 70s faded out and the 80s began, Alcorn State was ready to make that leap.
The Braves started the 1979-80 campaign with a win against Southern Mississippi and an 83-80 loss to Mississippi State. That would be their last defeat of the regular season.
Led by the senior trio of Smith (who spent 13 years in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs), Clinton Wyatt and E.J. Bell, Alcorn State went unbeaten in SWAC play at 8-0.
They also had little trouble with MEAC opponents, defeating eventual conference champion Howard 95-48 at Burr Gymnasium on December 10.
Winning the SWAC Title
The 1980 SWAC men’s basketball tournament was held at the F.G. Clark Center on the campus of Southern University, where a month earlier, the Jaguars had given Alcorn their toughest test of the season before the Braves earned an 88-85 victory.
The rematch was not nearly as close this time around as the Braves won 116-92, setting a championship game showdown with Grambling.
The Tigers, led by legendary coach Frederick Hobdy, made it tough on the Braves, staying with single digits deep into the second half. Smith spurred an 18-3 second-half run for Alcorn, helping them come away with the SWAC title by an 83-61 count.
Following the success of the 1979 tournament, which ended with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird facing off in the championship game, the NCAA expanded the tournament from 40 teams to 48. The SWAC’s probationary period was now over, so the Braves were granted a bid to the newly expanded tournament.
The top four seeds in each region earned a first-round bye, while the other eight faced off in the first round.
Outsmarting South Alabama
The Braves, seeded eighth in the Midwest region, faced off against No. 9 South Alabama at the Super Pit on the campus of the University of North Texas.
The nervousness on both sides was apparent, even as Alcorn and SAU already played each other that season, an 82-77 Braves win on Dec. 28th.
In the pre-shot clock era, the Sun Belt champion Jaguars decided the best way to slow down Alcorn’s 91 points per game offense was to keep the ball out of their hands.
South Alabama went into a stall, but instead of panicking, Davey Whitney had a plan.
“We needed to change the tempo,” Whitney told the Clarion-Ledger’s Roscoe Nance of going from a man defense to a 2-3 zone. “We wanted to cause some mistakes. They had no outside shooting. We just packed everything in.”
The gamble paid off as Alcorn ended the first half on a 12-2 run to take a 27-18 lead into the break.
South Alabama’s shooting woes continued in the second half, shooting just 38.9 percent for the game.
That was all the room the Braves needed to open up a 41-26 lead less than five minutes into the second half. Future NBA player Ed Rains tried valiantly to pull South Alabama back into the game, but Alcorn State had always had an answer.
And as the buzzer sounded, they had the final say; a 70-62 win for the first NCAA tournament win at the D-I level for themselves and the SWAC.
“This is the best team we’ve played all year, and that includes (eventual NCAA champion) Louisville,” South Alabama coach Cliff Ellis said afterward.
A bridge too far: Facing No. 1 LSU
The Braves’ next challenge was No. 1 seed LSU, led by forwards Rudy Macklin and DeWayne Scales. Alcorn State caught a break with Scales in foul trouble and trailed by just two points (51-49) at the half.
The first five minutes of the second half would be the first time in months that Alcorn State didn’t look like itself. Turnovers and missed shots piled up, and the Tigers pounced on the ASU errors, opening up a 57-47 lead and winning by a 98-88 count.
“We took advantage of their mistakes,” said Macklin, who scored a game-high 31 points. “They came out wild and didn’t play under control, which surprised me after the way they played in the first half.”
LSU coach Dale Brown complimented the Braves, saying, “We needed a great game to beat a great team. I think they [Alcorn] destroyed the myth that a Black team can’t play.”
A legacy that endures
The Braves went on to win three more SWAC championships under Whitney in the 80s, and when he returned for several more years in the late 90s and early 2000s, he took Alcorn State back to the NCAA tournament in 1999 and 2002.
The Physical Education Complex was renamed the Davey Whitney Complex in 1993, fitting for a man who not only turned a football school into a basketball power, but also showed future SWAC champions the way to compete with the Big Boys in the NCAA tournament.
