The RoundHouse | 2/16/2018 3:22:00 PM

By Paul Suellentrop
 
The Shockers began that happiest of post-game rituals – get out of the sweaty uniforms, talk through the game with teammates and dress for the flight home on a chartered DC-3.
 
Then coach Ralph Miller told them the game wasn't over.
 
"We're in the shower celebrating and ready to go home," said former Shocker Dave Leach. "Ralph comes in and says we're going back to the floor. Away we went."
 
No. 19 Wichita State travels to No. 5 Cincinnati on Sunday for the biggest game of the season in the American Athletic Conference. It is the start of the series the conference highlighted when it delayed the first meeting for Sunday and scheduled the rematch on the final day of the regular season on CBS at Koch Arena. As expected, both teams are nationally ranked. Cincinnati, the preseason favorite, leads Wichita State and Houston by two games in the conference standings. 
 
For veteran fans of both sides, it is a resumption of a rivalry that peaked during the 1960s amid the glory days of the Missouri Valley Conference. Cincinnati won six straight MVC titles from 1958-63 and played in five straight Final Fours, winning national titles in 1961 and 1962.
 
"They obviously were the king of the hill," said Leach.
 
The series started in 1958 and the Bearcats won the first eight meetings. Miller pushed the Shockers toward the top of the MVC and had to fight past the Bearcats to win the Valley title in 1964 and make their first NCAA appearance. In 1965, the Shockers advanced to their first Final Four.
 
"They had a great coach (Ed Jucker)," said former Shocker Tommy Newman. "Disciplined. Hard-nosed. They played extremely good basketball."
 
The Shockers lost six straight games in Cincinnati until the 1963-64 season and the game that Leach recounts – a 59-58 Shocker win in overtime. The sixth-ranked Shockers thought they won the game 56-54 in regulation on a corner jumper by Dave Stallworth.
 
They exited the court and prepared for the trip. The timekeeper ruled otherwise and officials forced the Shockers to return to the court at the UC Armory-Field House.
 
Cincinnati assistant coach Tay Baker "discussed the final shot with the official time-keeper, who said an IBM buzzer had sounded before Stallworth got of his shot," wrote Bill Hodge of the Wichita Eagle. "But before the final gun was sounded."
 
Referees Floyd Magnusson and Jim Ryan called the basket good, according to the Eagle. Rules allowed the timekeeper to weigh in and he ruled that Stallworth's shot did not count.
 
"We were determined they weren't going to get that one from us," Leach said. "We thought we had already won. Dave carried us the rest of the way."
 
When the Shockers returned to Wichita, according to the Eagle, a crowd of around 2,000 fans greeted them at the airport. Braniff Airways presented the team with a trophy reading "One Game-Won Twice." Both scores – 56-54 and 59-58 – told the story.
 
By 1964, drama and big games grew into the routine for the series.

Cincinnati star Oscar Robertson scored 50 points in a 1958 victory to set the arena (now Koch Arena) record. 
 
Wichita State's first win in the series came in appropriately thrilling fashion.
 
Lanny Van Eman's jump shot with three seconds play gave the Shockers a 52-51 win over the second-ranked Bearcats in 1961. It also stopped a 27-game win streak by the defending NCAA champions.
 
In 1963, Stallworth produced what is regarded as the greatest game by a Shocker in a 65-64 win over No. 1 Cincinnati. He scored 46 points (then a Shocker record), including the game's final seven to rally from a six-point deficit.
 
That win ended a 37-game win streak for the Bearcats.
 
In 1969, the Shockers trailed the 10^th-ranked Bearcats 54-42 with 11:30 to play. They won 67-66 with reserve guard Greg Rataj scoring eight points in the final minutes.
 
The return of Tulsa as a conference rival excited fans who grew up with that rivalry in the 1980s. The return of Cincinnati evokes similar memories for those who followed the Shockers in the 1960s. At least one of the teams was ranked in the top 20 in 14 of their first 16 meetings – with the Bearcats 3-1 as the nation's top-ranked team.
 
"It was always the game for us," Leach said.
 
Shockers of that era are glad to see the Bearcats back on the schedule. The current Bearcats remind Newman of the Jucker-coached era.
 
"Getting back in the same league with them and knowing it's going to be exactly like it was in the 1960s . . . I've been very impressed," he said. "They're just tough. That's the way they were then."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.