Bob Elliott could shoot from all over the floor, here playing against Wyoming at McKale Center in January 1976.

Lew Elliott, Tucson Citizen 1976

Others helped build that history, of course. Their names are still prominently in the UA record book: Coniel Norman, Al Fleming, Eric Money, Russell Brown, among them. But Elliott remains the program’s No. 2 career scorer (2,131) and rebounder (1,083), behind only Sean Elliott (2,555 points) and Fleming (1,190 rebounds).

Together, those guys helped Snowden take a team that went 6-20 in 1971-72 before he arrived into a program that won 60.7% of his games over a 10-year run. Under Snowden, UA made two NCAA tournaments and, more significantly, ignited a fan base that soon filled the new McKale Center when it opened in February 1973.

Elliott said he remembers hearing about three-figure crowds at Bear Down Gym before Snowden arrived, before everything changed.

“I remember them saying you could just walk in after halftime and nobody cared,” Elliott said. “Coach Snowden sold out Bear Down Gym and then moved across the street to a 14,000-seat arena and sold it out.”

The ground had been broken. Even during three straight losing seasons toward the end of the Snowden era, and a 4-24 campaign under coach Ben Lindsey in 1982-83, the potential was still obvious to some. Maybe no more so than to Lute Olson, who left Iowa to take over the UA program in 1984 and led the Wildcats to four Final Fours and the 1997 national championship.

“As a person who’s part of the program, you want to see that development, you want to see where in ‘76 we went to Elite Eight and that was something new,” Elliott said. “We put more asphalt on the road for Arizona basketball.”

After Elliott’s four-year UA career from 1973-74 to 1976-77 ended, having spent his senior-year playing with an almost-secret knee injury, Elliott became a second-round NBA pick in 1997, and went on to an injury shortened six-year pro career. He then returned to Tucson to dig into his other passion, accounting, starting his own firm in February 1983 while also becoming a regular UA basketball television analyst.