PISCATAWAY – On March 6, 1976, Rutgers’ basketball team boarded a bus for a crucial game against St. John’s at Madison Square Garden. This was for the ECAC title – an automatic bid to the 32-team NCAA Tournament was on the line.
There was one problem: Starting forward Hollis Copeland was nowhere to be found. Head coach Tom Young was ready to leave him behind.
Copeland’s roommate, senior guard Mike Dabney, asked Young to have the bus driver circle the block around the College Avenue Gym to look for Copeland. Young agreed to do it, but just once.
As they did, “we’re looking outside the bus and there’s Hollis, running behind us,” Copeland recalled. “So we stopped the bus, Hollis got on and had a hell of a game – he was MVP of the ECAC at Madison Square Garden.”
Copeland scored 22 points and Rutgers prevailed 70-67, earning a coveted seed in the East Region on their road to the Final Four (St. John’s got shipped to the Midwest and lost to eventual national champion Indiana in the first round).
Dabney and Copeland told the story to a crowd of 250 Rutgers supporters, plus members of the Scarlet Knights’ current team, Thursday at the annual Meet the Team banquet. This year, the fundraising event doubled as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1975-76 campaign – “the unforgettable season,” as it has become known in Rutgers lore.
Most members of that squad attended the event and were presented with commemorative varsity jackets as they took the stage to a standing ovation. Three empty chairs were set aside for Young, beloved assistant coach Joe Boylan and first-team All-American forward Phil Sellers, all of whom passed away within the last five years.
“I’ve been blessed because I’ve gotten to know these guys through the years,” said Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell, who served as emcee. “You are a symbol of all that is good with Rutgers – you’re loyal to Rutgers, you guys have stuck together through adversity, you’ve helped each other through life. You guys are a shining example.”
Rutgers took a 31-0 record into that Final Four.
“A team that went undefeated,” Pikiell said, pausing before adding, “I’m just trying to win one game.”
Steve Pikiell, comedian
Throughout the night Pikiell gave a performance worthy of Comedy Central, introducing his players with some playful jabs, zinging members of his staff and the athletic department, even lamenting that his wife’s favorite college basketball coach was Villanova’s Jay Wright. When it came to the 1976 squad, he vacillated between the heartfelt and humorous.
“I’ve heard the stories and I see the friendships and I see the lessons – and then holy cow, I see the size,” he said. “What the heck were they feeding you guys back then?”
He presented a trophy to the team and quipped that they’d have to share it because “we don’t have enough for everybody – the rest went to NIL.”
Proceeds from Meet the Team night benefit the Joe Boylan Endowed Scholarship, which was launched by former Rutgers player and longtime program supporter Mike MacDonald in honor of Boylan, who was the program’s radio analyst at the time of his death in 2021. (MacDonald, a 1975 grad who played with most of the guys on the Final Four squad, announced a donation of $150,000 to the men’s basketball program.)
“Joe Boylan was about Rutgers, and he was about bringing people together,” Pikiell said. “Coach Boylan would love this night.”
Three of the four living starters from 1976 were on hand, including former point guard and head coach Eddie Jordan. Center James Bailey, who lives in Texas, could not make it.
“James Bailey wanted to say thank you to everybody and tell his teammates he misses them and also tell them, they should have passed me the ball more,” Pikiell joked.
Then he added: “With the generosity in this room, we’ve raised after tonight over $500,000 in Coach Boylan’s name. Now that gets me a backup center, just so you guys know.”
Newly arrived athletics director Keli Zinn spoke as well.
“New York City isn’t too far away, so we’re going to find a spot on Broadway and turn coach loose for comedy hour, sell some tickets for that, and our NIL expectations will all be met,” she said.
On a serious note, Zinn added: “We have to put this program in a place where they have the resources that their competitors do around the country.”
She implored those in attendance to refer anyone they know who owns or runs a business to contact her about partnering up.
“I need you to leave here tonight and tap on anybody you can think of who has the ability to support us in name, image and likeness,” she said.
‘Don’t let them disrespect you’
Dabney, who averaged 19 points per game during the Final Four season, offered a message for the current squad, which is picked to finish 17th in the 18-team Big Ten.
“The key ingredient on our team was that we cared about each other, we had chemistry, and we had one singular focus – to win as many games as we could and make the state of New Jersey proud,” he said. “I think we accomplished that. However, we’d be more than happy to give up our cherished season for this team to be successful.”
He added, “I don’t want you guys to think because they didn’t put you high in the rankings, that’s where you have to stay. Don’t let them disrespect you.”
The gathering served as a reminder of the staying power that once was a big part of the charm of college athletics. These 1976ers became Rutgers men for life, and more than a few of the folks who rooted them on in the Barn that winter were back in the crowd on Thursday. Those bonds are shakier in today’s game thanks to the onset of full-fledged free agency. Will any of the current Scarlet Knights experience this kind of connection later in life?
It’s a fair question. Zinn, in her exhortation about resources, alluded to player retention as a core goal.
For one night, at least, the old loyalties were front and center yet again. The 1976 team has been honored at Rutgers throughout the decades, but the absence of Sellers, who died in 2023, loomed large this time around.
Copeland – who, by the way, said the reason he was late for that bus to the ECAC title game was because he was in class (in his defense, there were no academic advisors back then to sort these things out) – tied it all together with a story about Phil The Thrill.
“When I first got to Rutgers, first practice that we had, we were jostling, playing hard, beating each other up, and Phil and I got into a little scrap,” Copeland said. “Coach threw us both out of practice. Phil and I were walking down the steps, back then it was the Barn, and Phil looks at me and says, what do you want to do?”
Copeland was bracing for fisticuffs.
“Let’s get something to eat,” Sellers said.
“That sealed the relationship he and I had from then on,” said Copeland, who years later would serve as best man at Sellers’ wedding. “We ended up being family.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.