Amazing Aggies: An oral history of the 1970 Final Four season

The Amazing Aggies knew they would eventually meet up with UCLA. 

In 1970, the NCAA Tournament format consisted of 25 teams and match ups were somewhat predetermined by region, but the Aggies landed in the Midwest, avoiding an early-round match up with the Bruins. 

The Aggies played UCLA in the previous two NCAA Tournaments, but Lou Henson's 1970 Aggies were battle tested with three All-Americans and a tournament tested bench. 

What could have been had center Sam Lacey not suffered an ankle injury early in the first half of the National Semifinal against the eventual national champion Bruins? 

That game was played 50 years ago this month. 

What is not left to question is the fact that the 1970 New Mexico State basketball team is the best team in program history and still revered. What makes fans hold this team in such high regard 50 years later is similar to what made that group of players so tight.

An extraordinary group of talented players brought together by Henson, who had a history of integrating college campuses in a racially divided country. Just a year after Don Haskins and Texas Western made history by winning the national championship with an all African American starting five, first year coach Lou Henson brought his core of players from the east coast to Las Cruces, New Mexico. 

What happened next sparked the career of a Hall of Fame basketball coach and a professional playing career for many of the Aggies on the roster while packing the arena on a nightly basis for basketball fans from every small town in the region.

1970 New Mexico State Aggies

• Jimmy Collins, senior guard (6-2): 24.3 points, 4.6 rebounds
• Sam Lacey, senior center (6-10): 17.7 points, 15.9 rebounds
• Charlie Criss, senior guard (5-8): 12.5 points, 2.9 assists
• John Burgess, senior forward (6-5): 4.7 points, 5.5 rebounds
• Rudy Franco, senior forward: 0.2 points, 0.3 rebounds
• Jeff Smith, junior center (6-8): 12.8 points, 8.3 rebounds
• Chito Reyes, junior forward (6-6): 8.2 points, 4.6 rebounds
• Roy Neal, sophomore forward (6-6): 5.5 points, 5.2 rebounds
• Bill Moore, sophomore guard (6-3): 2.0 points, 1.3 rebounds
• Milt Horne, sophomore guard: 4.4 points, 1.8 rebounds
• Lonnie Lefevre, sophomore center (6-8): 1.3 points, 1.9 rebounds
• Tom McCarthy, sophomore guard: 0.3 points, 0.3 rebounds

Head coach: Lou Henson

Assistant coaches: Ed Murphy, Keith Colson and Rob Evans

'He took a chance on me, I took a chance on him'

Pat Hill-Yandell was Lou Henson's assistant throughout his entire tenure as athletic director and head basketball coach. 

But she first knew him in 1956 while she was a student at Las Cruces High School and Henson was the junior varsity basketball coach and geometry teacher. 

"Barbara Hubbard called me in 1967 and she said Coach Henson had been appointed the athletic director and he's going to need a good executive assistant and she wanted me to come out and talk to him," Hill-Yandell said. 

"Our offices were in a small building on University Avenue that was right between Williams Gym and University Avenue."

The Aggies won four games in 1965. 

Henson replaced Jim McGregor in 1966 after winning 67 games in four years at Hardin-Simmons, where he was also credited with integrating athletics. 

"Being a guy from Oklahoma, he was just an ordinary man,' Hill-Yandell said. "He really related to people. I wasn't in the locker rooms before or during or after games. I would see him with conversations with players who may have come to the offices. I never heard the man ever lose his temper. He would speak strongly but never cursed or was angry. 

"He depended on me to sort of anticipate what was needed. He was very dedicated to being congratulatory to his peers and people in the community and the state. He relied on me to keep up with the news so that I could write a letter for him to sign if someone received some award or recognition, especially if it was a peer in the coaching world. I don't think there was ever something that he missed."

The Aggies won 15 games in Henson's first year and qualified for the NCAA Tournament in each of Henson's first five years. Core players from the Final Four team came to Las Cruces after being recruited by assistant Ed Murphy to play for Henson, who had just been a college coach for four seasons. 

Rudy Franco: One thing that Henson instilled in us was that we could beat anybody if we put our minds to it. It involved digging deep and working hard. One thing that stands out is he wanted you to practice perfect. It has stayed with me up until now. I can't play ball, but even on the golf course now. He made a lot of life decisions on the basketball court, that have carried on because they work.

Charlie Criss: I knew he was a good coach and people had been talking about him. I figured being out there with him, we had a chance to win a national championship. That was enough for me.

Jimmy Collins: Coach Henson never saw me play nor did I see him coach. He took a chance on me and I took a chance on him because I had some other offers. Ed Murphy was one heck of a recruiter and he convinced me that the Land of Enchantment was a place that we could come and play and be successful. I'm so glad he convinced me to go there, but it worked out for me.

He demanded perfection but that you play within the context of the game. Look away passes and things like that, he was against that. He demanded that you stay in shape because he wanted to run to a certain degree, but that was on defense. Offensively he gave you a little rope, but if you hung yourself, you were coming out. 

We didn't think about getting to the Final Four. That was too far down the road, but we did think we could be a winning team. We had experience, we had energy, we had youth and enthusiasm and we have Lou Henson.

A family from different backgrounds

Ed Murphy brought in East Coast players such as Jimmy Collins, Roy Neal, Jeff Smith and Charlie Criss. 

Longtime relationships also helped Henson bring Chito Reyes back to Dona Aña County from Los Angeles, where he played grades 10-12 at John Marshall High School and earned offers from UCLA and USC. The team also included bench players such as Rudy Franco from Las Cruces High and Bill Moore from Deming.

Chito Reyes: They actually had time to come and recruit me. My elementary school principal, Milton Shelton, went to New Mexico State. He always liked me and followed me through junior high. When I moved back to L.A., he would keep in touch with my uncles. He went to Coach Henson and told him there was a local kid from the valley who was out there in California. I'm proud that he got all of those All Americans from back east and he wanted me from the West Coast. 

I took pride in being Hispanic, but I didn't want to be on a team as a token minority. I felt a lot of self imposed pressure because I didn't want to be the minority guy on the bench. I wanted to play and had to work hard and I took pride in doing that. I started against UCLA in the Final Four game, but came off the bench primarily my junior year. They were all older than me, but I took pride and busted my tail to be on the court and rebound and do all of the working man things on the court. 

Charlie Criss: Ed Murphy recruited me while I was in high school because his aunt was my teacher. They sent me to New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs for a year. I already knew some of those guys from playing against them when I was in JUCO and we played against the freshman team. I scored a bunch of points against them. I think I had about 30 against them. 

We were just always teasing each other and the biggest culprit was Sam. He was always teasing people. He would tease them so much they would get mad.

Jeff Smith: It was tough being from different backgrounds and locations, but once we started practicing, it all worked out because we knew we all had an ultimate goal. 

I'm from Camden, New Jersey, but my family was from the Virgin Islands. I wanted to go to school somewhere warm, but in 1967, being a black man, going to play basketball in the south was not a really good opportunity. I wanted to go to the Southwest and I made the correct choice in choosing New Mexico State. 

I saw that UTEP national championship game in 1966 when they were Texas Western and playing against Kentucky. I sat down and watched that game.

Jimmy Collins: Ed Murphy recruited me and his father was a sergeant for the Syracuse Police and a basketball fan. He told his son to come look at one player, who was me, and another player who was Roy Neal. 

Coming from New York to Las Cruces, you felt like you were kind of going back in time. What made it so easy was the people of Las Cruces accepted us like we were born and raised here. 

During those times, there was a lot of racial problems, but we didn't have those. We were all together and our Caucasian players, if there was someone outside of what we were trying to build, they would let the coaches know. Guys like John Burgess wouldn't allow it. They insisted on us being together.

Rudy Franco: It was pretty awesome to be able to stay at home and play ball for (Henson). ... We were the ones the first team beat up on, but we were the ones who made them so good. That is what made us unique, we did everything together. To this day, I still call and talk to these guys. I did Sam Lacey's eulogy when he passed in Kansas City. ... We got to play intermittently throughout the ballgame to give the other guys a rest, but Jimmy and I went toe to toe every day in practice.

The man in the middle

Sam Lacey was drafted with the fifth pick by the Cincinnati Royals in 1970 after a college career where the Aggies went 74-14 in his three years. Freshmen were not allowed to play in games at that time.

The 6-foot-10 Lacey anchored the Aggies on both sides of the floor, averaging 14.2 rebounds per game for a career, which is one of the school records he still owns. 

Jimmy Collins: Everything was built around Sam, but he was such an unselfish player. If you threw the ball to him and he missed a couple shots, he would tell us to go ahead and get your shots and I'll just go get the rebound and that loosened me and Criss up. I think it helped our confidence for both of us. We were both offensive players, but it helps when the best player on the team tells you to go get your shots. 

Jeff Smith: I was trying to learn and try not to make the same mistake twice and do my job in practice. Jimmy and Charlie were very good guards and John was a good forward, but Sam would cover up a lot of the mistakes we made.

Championship aspirations

With a freshman team that included Sam Lacey, Jimmy Collins and John Burgess with Charlie Criss playing at nearby New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs and slated to join them the following year, it's no wonder the Aggies went from 15 wins in Henson's first year in 1966 to 23 wins and the NCAA Tournament as soon as those freshmen were eligible. 

As the group gained experience and with the talent of subsequent freshmen classes, talk of winning a national championship was soon common. 

Jeff Smith: I realized when I came back for my junior year, it dawned on me that we had something special going on and that we could go pretty far.

Chito Reyes: The team created such a great atmosphere and great moments. As you get older, you start realizing what it means to a lot of people. It still gives my mom a great deal of pride. It's a little gift that you give them that she can go around gloating. 

Without knowing too much about the university and program, my grandmother was there and everything fell in place. I lucked out that I was landing with a group of great guys and an excellent coach. Everything that he would say or the things he implemented, we all followed him because it was working out fine for us. Next thing you know, we were hard to beat.

As we were advancing that year, we were really beating up on the other people. You don't realize what you are accomplishing and the next thing you know, we made it to the Final Four. We went about taking care of business. Now we look back and every year the greater it becomes because we realize what a special thing we did because not many people can say that. 

Jimmy Collins: I never lost to UTEP so that was a big game. We knew they were recently removed from a national championship. But no question our biggest games were against (the) Lobos. We knew we had to give it our all because they looked on us as the little sisters. We were having the success, but they were in the big city in the state. 

We felt good about the reception we got from the fans and people of Las Cruces and the people in New Mexico, period. We didn't feel good about losing (in the Final Four) because we really felt like we should have won it all.

UCLA had become a familiar foe

The Aggies championship hopes ended against UCLA for three straight years in the NCAA Tournament. The Bruins won 58-49 in the 1968 regional semifinal in Albuquerque; UCLA won 53-38 in the first round in Los Angeles in 1969 before the 93-77 national semifinal loss in 1970 in College Park, Maryland. 

Sam Lacey left the game in the first half with an ankle injury, leaving many to wonder what could have been had Lacey not been injured. Lacey did play in the third-place game, as the Aggies beat St. Bonaventure 79-73.

Pat Hill-Yandell: The second game we played them was on their home court, which was very intimidating because they have all of their championship blankets hanging in the arena. 

At the beginning of every season, Coach Henson always had the staff write on a piece of paper what you thought the outcome was going to be, how many wins and how many losses. ... At the end of the season, he would open it up and congratulate. I had predicted we would be 26-2 at the end of the regular season. Because I picked it correctly, I was able to go to the Midwest Regional at the University of Kansas with the staff and the team and some of the big boosters.

The only time that I have (seen) Coach Henson get emotional was when Sam hurt his ankle. It was like the ship was sinking and he became just crazed on the sideline. He was running up and down the sideline trying to decide who he was going to put in the game and what he was going to do. He grabbed (assistant coach) Ed Murphy by the shoulder and was going to try to put Ed in the game for a minute. He just kind of lost focus. That's the only time I really ever saw him get rattled.

Jimmy Collins: I remember the first time we played against UCLA in Albuquerque. Before the game during practice, we had a guy, Wesley Morehead. He had a broom and he stood on a chair and anytime you would come near the basket, they would take that broom and knock your shots down. I thought nobody could be that good. I thought when I go to the hoop, nobody is going to go up and block my shot. I remember I tried an intermediate floater during the game and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) went up and grabbed it out of the sky. As he came down, he put it under his arm and looked at me like, 'Are you a fool?' We didn't have much tournament experience for that game against the eventual national champions.

My junior year, they pulled away at the end of the game. 

I felt like we had the opportunity to beat them my senior year. On the third or fourth play of the game, Sam came down and sprained his ankle and he was out for most of the first half. The scoring was left up to Charlie and myself. Jeff was a heck of a defensive player and Burges was a really good all around player. We had a good nucleus left, but it centered around Sam Lacey playing. 

Dunking was a no-no then, but Sidney Wicks dunked on us in that game and the refs never called it. He would have never been able to do that if Sam in there. That hurt our momentum when Sam went out.

Charlie Criss: We knew what we were up against because we always had to play them. It was usually in the first round or something like that. We were always in the west against them. We knew what it was going to be like, we just had to be ready. 

It was more like us sizing up to them and being just as tough and gritty as we were. I think if anyone was going to beat them, it was going to have to be our team. We were big, we had some size and we had a good bench.

We didn't think Sam's injury was too much. We knew that he hurt it pretty bad, but we didn't know how bad until halftime when we went to the locker room. He was our big rebounder and he could score. It hurt because he was our leader too.

Jeff Smith: It was an experience to go against one of the best teams in college basketball. We knew we had to play our best just to stay in the game, but we weren't in awe of them. We knew they were good, but we weren't in awe of anybody.

Chito Reyes: Whether you wanted to admit it or not, you knew who was on the other side of the court. You don't want to give them all the credit, but you really know you have your work cut out for you. They had all the fame and we were supposed to try to break through that stuff. Coach Henson prepared us, but they were that good. 

We had a shot at it, but take one of your weapons away and we had a disadvantage to overcome losing someone like Sam. I remember coach called timeout and everyone was looking at Sam limping. You hoped he could come back in but unfortunately he could not come back in. 

We wished we had another shot at them and lets do this right.I wish things would have been different. You never know because we were that close from playing for the national championship.

Sports Editor Jason Groves can be reached at 575-541-5459 or jgroves@lcsun-news.com. Follow him on Twitter @jpgroves.