[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thank you very much for listening. Dave Dahl is our guest today. Dave has done color analysis on WSU basketball games since 1980-81, working alongside Mike Kennedy almost every step of the way.
Dave attended Shawnee Mission West High School before coming to Wichita State to play basketball in 1967. He also had a lengthy career as a lawyer, served as Sedgwick County District Court Judge until retiring in 2025.
We are here mainly to talk about Mike Kennedy, who is retiring at the end of the baseball season. On Saturday, WSU plays Temple at 5pm it is Mike Kennedy Night. Mike will be honored at halftime. We'll also hit on some other topics, especially the current Shockers who are playing entering tonight's game at ecu. That's Wednesday, depending on when you are listening to the podcast. Dave, your first regular season game on the radio was November 28, 1980, a 101 to 60 win over Abilene Christian. Give us the backstory about how you got into broadcasting Shocker basketball.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: That's an interesting story and thanks for inviting me, Paul, very much.
I was on the basketball team many, many years ago. Not a star by any stretch of the imagination, but most of my closest friends or old teammates and I would go to the games afterwards.
I did a couple of different jobs before I went to law school. One of them was at the Chamber of Commerce. And at the Chamber of Commerce I was required to give a lot of speeches. So I was out all the time. And I was also teaching a class at Wichita State at that time, which I still do.
So Mike Kennedy was going to be the play by play announcer for the Shockers and he was looking for a color analyst for basketball.
He talked with a couple of guys, Ron Heller being one of them, and I think maybe Steve Sjogren was the other one, and they couldn't do it, but both of them said, you know, you might want to talk with Dave Dahl.
And Mike said, oh, okay. So he called me and he said, would you be interested in that? And I never thought about it, but I love basketball. And I said, yes, with your guidance, I'll certainly give it a try.
So Mike and I did a game that was an exhibition game, scrimmage. I think maybe it was just a scrimmage.
And the chemistry seemed to work and I felt comfortable. Mike felt comfortable.
And that started what has turned into being a 45 year partnership on the air.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Describe working with Mike.
[00:02:58] Speaker B: He is, and you've Heard this expression before. The consummate professional.
He is always very well prepared.
He tries to be neutral, but it's very hard to be neutral.
He has a strong voice.
His recall is incredible.
He can tell you situations about ball games, about plays, about scores off the top of his head that go back decades and decades. And he can bring it into a ball game and make it relevant when he does so. He also knows a lot about sports and other than Wichita State sports and is very engaging in talking with people about those sports as well.
He works so incredibly hard and he is a very modest person.
Candidly, I've never heard him say a negative word about anybody in my life. No backbiting, no derogatory comments. Maybe about some officials occasionally, but other than that, nobody ever is at the receiving end of any negative comments.
He's just a gentleman and a true professional.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Okay, you open the door. Who is the official who has annoyed Mike Kennedy the most?
[00:04:17] Speaker B: That's hard to say. And it depends on the season and it depends on the game. I will just say this.
There will be more than one official that maybe have raised his ire over the years, but not to the point where he doesn't like that official, period.
It's just that in a particular circumstance they might not have done the job that they should have done.
We traveled a lot and traveling commercial. We would interact with the officials because they travel commercial too. So we got to know a lot of them very, very well and felt like they were our friends.
And honestly, Mike has respect for officials because they, the job is the very hardest job that there is.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: It is a very tough job. And I think criticizing the officials a little bit is all part of the entertainment of the, of the sports world. Definitely. Mike has also done baseball, done volleyball, he's MC'd numerous shocker events. I guess there cannot be many important WSU moments in the past 40 plus years that he has not been a part of. What made Mike such an enduring, important figure around WSU athletics?
[00:05:26] Speaker B: I think his recall is just so good and he can bring the history into it.
He can make the athlete and the team the focal point, not try to draw attention to himself.
He can bring in stories and he'll do them succinctly, but they will be relevant to the situation at hand.
And what it does is it raises the profile a little bit higher of the event that he is taking care of. And you know, he got into volleyball, had never done a volleyball game, and by his third game he was a seasoned pro. He did the same thing with soccer. And he broadcast professional soccer for the Wings for several years, was not a soccer fan necessarily. They asked him to do it. He studied up, and he's just such a natural. He was just superb at that as well.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: I think shocker volleyball may say more about Mike Kennedy than almost anything else. One that he was willing to add to his workload. I mean, he already did baseball, which is a long season. So for him to do volleyball, August, then through basketball and baseball, says a lot. And as you mentioned, the fact he picked it up so quickly speaks really well of him.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: It does. And he makes the players, the athletes, the focal point.
We've been blessed to have people like Chris Lamb on the coaching staff, and that makes it much, much easier. Mike fell in love with the game of volleyball, and what he does is he studies up on it, and he wants to make sure that he gives the absolute best presentation. Because the people that are listening are not just volleyball fans, but their parents and friends, friends of the volleyball players. And he wants to promote them in the absolute best light. And he always seems to be able to do that.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: I think Mike has been really clear. He really enjoyed being around the volleyball team. And Chris Land would just be the perfect guy to learn volleyball with. And they could talk Giants, Dodgers, baseball. So that pairing had a lot going for it. Definitely.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: It sure did. It sure did.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: So that Abilene Christian game in 1980, that starts a season in which the Shockers go 26 and seven go to the Elite Eight.
Let's tell the youngsters about that era of Shocker basketball. How do you describe the vibe in those days?
[00:07:52] Speaker B: We had terrific players.
We had players.
And which year are you talking about?
[00:08:00] Speaker A: That 80, 81 season. The leading.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: We had terrific players.
Antoine Carr, Cliff Levinson, NBA players.
There would be a game of the week that would be played on one of the major networks, maybe two games a week in Wichita State was promoted quite frequently.
When we'd be in the airport and a lot of the NBA teams would travel commercially, not by private jet in the airports. I remember the Boston Celtics, the New York Knicks screaming over at us, hey, Tuan. Hey, Cliff. And they come over and talk to our players because they knew who our players were.
And it was exhilarating. You'd go into an arena and we had such athletic players that almost put on a show before the ball game started. And arenas would be packed during warm ups, and people were cheering for the Shockers and screaming at the Shockers, and they rarely let people down. We had a magnificent, magnificent group of Players.
And Gene did a great job of recruiting.
[00:09:11] Speaker A: Gene Smithson.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Yep. And there were some questionable things we went, which, who knows, I knew the attorneys that represented the university and the types of things that Wichita State seemed to be taking issue with didn't seem to be that relevant.
But in any event, that's me. And I'm a shocker, huge shocker fan.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: From the NCAA perspective. That's right, is what you're talking.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: But we go later the next year, we go into Madison Square Garden to play a game and it's packed and we play Iona. And we had Antoine and Cliff and Aubrey and Greg Dryleen in that group. And Aubrey and Greg Dryling came the next year, of course.
But that 80, 81 group was so talented and they were so possessed, and their desire to win was such at a high level that it may have been the best collection of talent that we've ever had. I remember asking Gene, with the Tulsa game coming up, Gene, what do you have planned for Tulsa? Tulsa is loaded. You have a very good team. What do you have planned for Tulsa? And he said, plan? It's just going to be our hosses against their horses. And that's what oftentimes it turned into great. Believe Randy Smithson was a great player, had a lot of really, really fine athletes.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Tony Martin, Jay Jackson, that 80, 81 team that we're talking about, 26, 7, won the Missouri Valley Conference title, defeated Southern University Iowa and the University of Kansas in the NCAA tournament before losing to lsu. And that kicked off what was a really fun era of a lot of basketball throughout the 80s. Favorite Moments, Favorite calls, things that you will remember about sitting alongside Mike Kennedy.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: At a big game, maybe one of the biggest was the Iowa game that year.
And Lou Dolson brought the Hawkeyes down and we were hosting and Iowa was the favorite and they had superb players, but we did, too.
And the fans were so raucous, so loud that it may have broken decibel levels. And it was the entire second half and our fans just refused to let our players lose that ball game.
That was real highlight.
I liked the, excuse me, the NIT tournament that we went to when Greg Marshall was coaching and we beat Alabama, we beat Washington State, the semifinal game.
Klay Thompson was an all American and all the news media was supporting all of them.
And we held Klay Thompson to like 1 of 10 or 2 of 10 from the field and we beat them by over 30 points in the semifinals and then beat Alabama in the finals.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: That's the 2011 NIT Terra Murray enjoys talking about that Washington State, Washington State game and defending Klay Thompson.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: It was a huge game. And Ture was one of our many terrific players. You know what, though, too, Paul?
Those terrific players were also really, really good people, really fine people. And they cared for one another and they enjoyed being here.
And the team with all of them came first. It came before any individual accomplishments, although we had a number of all Americans, certainly.
So I enjoyed that a great deal.
I liked the teams with Baker and Van Fleet, Van Vliet a lot.
Things were kind of unexpected. They kind of came out of nowhere.
I really enjoyed those teams and that run that they had to the Final Four was something that you just can't explain to people unless they've been there. When Mark Turgeon came in, the question was, after several down years, a multitude of down years, whether the success could ever be restored.
And Mark Turgeon made a believer, and he recruited well.
And those players were wonderful, magnificent players.
Got us to the Sweet 16. I remember playing in the region along the east coast, and we were playing.
Can't remember.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Seton played Seton hall in the first game.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: We played Seton Hall, Tennessee and Tennessee the second game. So we played Seton hall and we had our way with Seton Hall. We were much better than they were.
So we played Tennessee in the second game, and we had seen Tennessee play Winthrop the game before. And both Mike and I said after watching that game, we hope we get Tennessee and not Winthrop. I don't know if we can beat Winthrop, which turned out to be Greg Marshall's team. And Tennessee beats them.
So Tennessee is one of the favorites to go to the Final Four.
And they were. Everybody was following their coach. Their coach was profile, and they would.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Have been the number two seed.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Number two seed.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Chris Lofton would have been one of their star players.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: And they were good, but we had our way with them and we had a lot of good players, led in particular by PJ Cusnard, who had a magnificent outing against that ball club. So those are some of the real highlights that I remember.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Definitely that Tennessee, that was a pivotal weekend in shocker basketball for many reasons. Mike described an instant, or pretty close to instant comfort level chemistry with you on the broadcast. How did that develop?
[00:15:20] Speaker B: I had met Mike one time, did not know him, but knew of him, had respect for him. I was flattered when he asked me to help with the broadcasts.
A guy that is that much of a professional makes you want to be your very best. You don't want to do anything to let down the broadcasts.
Mike talked to me about how to prepare for a ball game. And I love statistics, and I really like to do my homework and my research on virtually everything I'm doing.
So Mike steered me in the right direction. And my philosophy always is the ball game comes first, and we just need to describe what's going on.
But then Mike's role comes second. His role is more important than the color analyst's role he's describing. He's creating the picture in the mind of what's going on so that people can actually read what's happening in the ball game just by listening, listening to Mike, and hopefully by me a little bit. And then the other thing is, I figured out very early on how to get in and out very quickly so that I don't disrupt the flow of the action. And it just seemed to work. And to this day, Mike and I are very, very close friends, very dear friends.
And Debbie, his wife, is wonderful. And my wife Tonya is a very close friend of Debbie's as well.
And to this day, I still have the utmost respect. And candidly, I enjoy listening to him do volleyball matches. I love listening to him do baseball games because I want to support the shockers. I just like to hear his description of what's happening. He's just so very good at it.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: How does he go about preparing? I think that's one of the first things people always mention about Mike Kennedy is his preparation. Take us inside. Mike Kennedy getting ready for a game.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: He gets up very early in the morning, and it's an alarm that gets him up. It's like a professional writer that says, I need to write for six hours a day. And they get up at a certain time, and they sit down, and Mike does that. And he has an office in his house.
He gets on the computer, he starts to do the research on the numbers. He keeps the logs, so you just have to add the last game.
He types it.
He is curious, which has been one of his greatest attributes.
He finds out a lot of information about opposing teams he'll run down. He'll spend half an hour or 45 minutes running down some obscure statistic, not even knowing if he's going to bring it into the game, because we bring in probably 10% of what we prepare.
And it takes me 10 hours to prepare for a game as well.
But then he types it all out, and I type mine out, too, or I write mine out, and you see mine here. And I color code it so I can get in and out quickly. Each color stands for. One is free throws, one is field goals. One is three point shots, so I can get in and out very quickly. Mike has his all typed out, Paul, in really tiny, tiny type. I don't even know how he sees it.
He never looks at it during the ball game. Just his typing it out commits it to his memory. I've never seen him look down at his sheet during a ball game. It's pretty impressive. He's an incredibly intelligent guy and he has a photographic memory and he just doesn't forget things.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: So for those of you not watching, on our YouTube channel, Dave was holding up a big piece of paper, a lot of handwritten numbers and notes. And we've got yellow highlighter, pink highlighter, orange highlighter, green.
What do all the colors mean?
[00:19:10] Speaker B: The yellow is the field goals. And you see, for example, I will say about one of the players. Let me go to Dylan Batie.
Dylan Batie is 35 for 59 in 11 of his last 12 ballgames. Almost 60% from the field. There are times when you can bring it in. He hits a shot, he hits a second shot, he's 2 for 2, 2 for 3. And I'm able to say as he's going down court, well, this shouldn't be a surprise to us. He's just been red hot the last dozen ball games. Here's what he's done.
Then the orange, and I will pick out Caron Boyd, who went through a little bit of a dry spell. But when he's hot, people say, well, wait a minute, that's not even his strength.
Well, it certainly has been in four of his last five ball games. He's hit almost half of his three point shots. He's 10, 21. So I can bring it in on those cases. Free throws, you can always bring in things because you have more time to talk about free throws or somebody pulls down his eighth rebound. That's pretty fantastic. As a matter of fact, he's been averaging seven and a half rebounds per game in his last six ballgames. So you can give a context to what's going on. How many double figures, scoring games they've had, all of those types of things. And that's the pink, so I'm able to use it a lot.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: So you mentioned the importance of getting in and out early in the relationship. How did he signal that? Does he tap you on the leg? How long did it take you to figure out? All right, I've got 10 seconds to say this or I've got 15.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: He's never had to. I bet over the course of our partnership he's had to tap me on the wrist only maybe two or three times. And that wasn't during a ball game because I.
In listening to him, I know, and in listening to color people on the air, other people, I know you have to get in and out.
But this would be pre game stuff. And when we were coming up against it for a break or a spot, a commercial, if I was going on a little bit too long, which I try not to do, I'd get a tap on the wrist. And that only happened two or three times. But during the game, he's never really had to do that.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: So for Mike, that's a lot of commercial air flights, a lot of bus rides to Carbondale and Cedar Falls, a lot of card games with Gene Stevenson, Jim Thomas, a lot of bus trips. Talking baseball with Chris Lamb. What's kept him at it all these years?
[00:21:40] Speaker B: His love of the sport.
He is so good at it and. And his comfort level is very high about what he does.
He's a workaholic, as is Debbie, his wife.
He feels fortunate to be doing something that he loves to do.
People tell him that he does it well and he accepts their compliments graciously, but he's very modest about it.
But just the sheer joy of sports I think brings him back time and time again. And I'll tell you, if it wasn't for the travel, and of course he had the cancer scare with prostate cancer, if it wasn't for those two things, I think he'd still be doing them and could do them for decades to come, probably.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: The current Shockers are trying to send Mike out with a good season. They are 16 10. They're second in the American, tied with Tulsa with an 85 record. It's mid February and they have a lot to play for. Dave, how do you describe this team?
[00:22:51] Speaker B: I would describe them as resilient.
I would also describe them as being very supportive of one another. They're able to bounce back, they're able to win big ball games.
They have a lot of the skill sets covered for the first time in a long time. The shocks can shoot from the outside and they have multiple players that are capable of shooting from the outside.
One of the strengths for Wichita State basketball has always been their ability to rebound. This is a very good rebounding team.
They defend pretty well and pretty consistently.
Their perimeter defense is fine. They are deep enough to cause problems for some people.
And it appears to me that this team has a real sense of destiny. They have a confidence level that says we can be A contender in this conference and they've been able to prove it here recently.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: What's the key for this team to finish strong?
[00:23:54] Speaker B: What they have to do is they have to defend, defend well. They have to keep other teams off the free throw line. They have to do a better job of finishing at the free throw line. That's been one of their nemesis and they've lost a couple games because they haven't shot free throws well. They need to continue to get some good depth.
If Caron Boyd plays well and Dylan Batie plays well, I think, and T.J. williams plays well, we're a much better team when they play well. You expect a lot from Kenyon Giles. He's a tremendous talent and a real joy to watch.
But the big guys, also our contributors, Berg and Okorafor.
But I think it's going to hinge on their defense, their consistent rebounding, their ability to hit free throws and then Batie and.
Williams and Boyd are going to be different makers. They're not necessarily the stars, but they're going to be difference makers.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: I would really agree with Caron Boyd. He's had a really nice season, probably exceeded expectations offensively for them to continue to play well. He's probably got to be in the 12 to 15 point range much more often than the, you know, zero to.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Six point range and seven rebounds. Right. But here's the other deal.
He guards the best player on the other team and I don't care if that's a point guard, which he had to do the other day, or if it is a four, he won't guard a five. But he guards one through four and I thought that was one of the reasons that he didn't do particularly well against South Florida as he was guarding their point guard and that drew him away from the basket and he wasn't able to get his rebounds and it fatigues a person that's not used to it. But his playing well makes all the difference in the world.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah, his defense, rebounding I think definitely is one of the tone setters for this team. He plays hard, very reliable, very solid. No doubt you've seen some shocker scores of small stature over the years. Greg Carney and Cal Bruton come to mind. What do you enjoy about watching Kenyon Giles? And he seems to really resonate with the they enjoy him a lot.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: I played with Greg Carney and Greg was 5, 9 and led the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring, which was the second best conference in the country, and he led them in scoring two years in a Row.
Cal Brewton was a tremendous basketball player, exciting to watch, very self confident, had great range, could take the ball to the basket.
But with Kenyon Giles, I've seen things that I've never seen from anybody at Wichita State before.
The confidence that he has from the perimeter, the range that he has, the strength he has in his legs, the ability to take the ball to the basket when he is pressed on the three point stripe. And I'll tell you this, more so than the other two gentlemen that I discussed, Greg and Cal, everybody sets up their defense to stop Kenyon giles. They put 6 foot 7 inch players on him, they double him up coming off of screens, they get really, really physical with him. And yet he still averages over 18 points a game as one of the best three point shooters in the country.
He's a joy to watch. I've never seen anything quite like him.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Him, he is very entertaining, no doubt. Greg Carney played for the shockers, late 60s, early 70s from Chicago if I'm remembering correctly. And cal Brewton was mid-70s. He was on the 1976 NBC title team, one of the many Shockers from New York in that era. So it's also Champions weekend this weekend at Wichita State. They're going to have members of the 1976, the 2006 and the 2016 MVC championship teams at the game. They'll be honored at halftime on Saturday.
You would have been around for the 1976 team to some degree. You would have been doing radio in 06 and 2016. So let's start with the first group. Cheese Johnson, Robert Gray, Bob Elmore, Cal Bruton. What are your memories of that group in 1976?
[00:28:19] Speaker B: They played so well together as a team.
They were playing in the Missouri Valley Conference which was then one of the top conferences in the country.
Every game was a championship game in that conference. I thought Chief Johnson was one of the most exciting players to watch in the country.
I am lucky enough to call him a friend and he just did everything, whatever it took to win a basketball game. Robert Gray went on to play in the NBA.
He was a talented offensive player, a very self assured player. Robert Elmore was not a very good basketball player when he came to Wichita State and the coaching staff worked with him and they had some tall people on the coaching staff and Robert turned into an all conference player. Bob Trogel, one of the smartest players ever to play out here, was one of the guards that started, always did a fine job, settled the team down, kind of directed the team and Cal Bruton, who went on to have a professional career in Australia, did such a good job from the perimeter that he prevented teams from dropping down inside and double teaming the big players. So he kept the floor balanced. That was a tremendous team, an exciting team.
Harry Miller coached them and they got beat by Michigan. Shouldn't have been beaten by Michigan.
Ricky Green scores a two point basket with six seconds left and they beat the Shockers by one point. That was Wichita State's game and I thought Wichita State was the better team. They had a really wonderful season that year.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: That 76 team went 18, 10 10, 2 in the Missouri Valley Conference before losing to Michigan and Denton, Texas in the first place round of the NCAA tournament.
2006 Shockers. They erased a lot of frustration around Wichita by winning the program's first MVC regular season title since 1983. They returned to the NCAA tournament under coach Mark Turgeon. Paul Miller, Kyle Wilson, Sean O' Geary mentioned P.J. cuznard, Kayron Bradley. Matt Breyer hit the memorable shot to beat Creighton on Valentine's Day and kind of set everything in motion that season.
What stands out about the 2006 Shockers?
[00:30:41] Speaker B: They were versatile.
They pulled together as a team, which oftentimes it takes.
They were good inside. Paul Miller was the player of the year in the conference. He was tremendous, but with any of those guys not being in the mix, Wichita State wouldn't have won. PJ Kuznard gave them that weapon from the perimeter who could take it to the basket and he could also guard their big players. When Kyle Wilson came to Wichita State and he was a major recruit, I think he had played at Illinois possibly before that.
Kyle turned into a real star for this ball club.
Sean o' Garry gave them the depth from the outside.
He was a real marksman.
One of the first three point stars that Wichita started State had and Matt Breyer along with the other small man, Cal Bruton. Matt Breyer is a small man. And then we'll talk a little bit about the 16 team. They all had a small player that was very, very good and a ball of fire and a high energy player.
And we went on the road. We beat Tennessee as we had talked about.
We go up against George Mason the next game and George Mason, we thought, we can beat George Mason. They're good, but they're not special.
It was their magical year. They beat Wichita State and they go to the championship game, the NCAA tournament. They beat a UConn team that had five players that went to the NBA.
But so that was an exciting run also.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: That really was that George Mason team. Of course, they came here in the Bracket Busters game and beat Wichita State in 06.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: They weren't even going to go to the tournament if they lose that game.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah, that was such a pivotal game for them. They came to Koch arena and beat the shocker 70, 67. And then they met up again in the Sweet 16 game and George Mason won that in Washington, D.C. quite a scene. The crowd was just raucous. They won that game. 63, 55. Okay, so we fast forward to 2016 and by that time Wichita State is expecting to win MVC titles under coach Greg Marshall. That team won a third straight Valley title before knocking off Vanderbilt in Arizona in the NCAA Tournament. Senior season for a lot of familiar names. Evan Wessel, Fred Van Vliet, Kadeem Kolbe and Ron Baker.
Refresh our memories on that bunch.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: They were as talented of a group maybe as we had had.
They had players that were able to shoot from the outside. They had players that were capable of taking the ball to the basket. They were extremely self assured.
They thought they could take on the world. And honestly they did.
They played an Arizona team down there that was highly favored in the tournament and we were significantly better than they were. Greg Marshall was a great coach.
He did a super job of assembling the talent and he did a terrific job of coaching them.
And Wichita State played very, very well. So that whole season was just an exhilarating season because of all the talent that we had. And we had some runs that caused us some problems, some negative runs that caused us some problems. We lost three in a row at a tournament against Southern Cal in Alabama and Iowa.
[00:34:26] Speaker A: And that was when Fred Van Vliet was out.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:34:29] Speaker A: Recovering from. I think he had a strained hamstring.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: He did. And it made all the difference in the world.
We lost to Northern Iowa in overtime in the conference tournament, but we still get a bid. And we played extremely well in the NCAA tournament. It was an exhilarating season.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: Greg Marshall had a lot of excellent defensive teams. This may have been his best. They held Vanderbilt to 50 points, won that game by 20. They held Arizona to 55 points and just really disrupted everything the Wildcats were trying to do. Opponents shot the 38.7% from the field against the Shockers that season. Just really a great defensive bunch. Okay, you were a teammate of Warren Armstrong's at Wichita State. He was a senior in 67, 68 when you were a freshman. Warren later changed his name to Jabali. And he's back on my mind because of a documentary on the ABA on Prime called Soul Power. So the first episode highlights Jabali and the Oakland Oaks. They won the ABA title in 1969. He was named playoff MVP.
Describe Warren Jabali as a basketball player.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: He is maybe the most talented basketball player that I've ever seen at Wichita State.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: So even with Xavier McDaniel, Antoine Carr.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: And I don't mean, and let me qualify that by saying the best all around basketball player that we've had at Wichita State, it's hard to be better than X or Tuan or any of those guys. But let me tell you why I believe that. Warren Armstrong comes in at 6:2.
He is really well developed, naturally muscular, huge legs, strong legs, can jump the proverbial out of the gym.
Led the team in assists for at least a couple of years.
Averaged double figure rebounding in the Missouri Valley Conference, which was one of the top two conferences in the country.
Averaged double figure rebounding at six two for his career. And he was a scorer. He could score inside, he could score outside.
He did everything that one needed to do to win. I have never seen anybody able to jump like he can jump.
When we played Wes Unsulled and Louisville, he wanted to guard Unsulled. When we played Cincinnati, he wanted to guard Cincinnati's big players. So he'd go into the post and guard and still come away with double figure rebounds. It was a very, very difficult time across the country because of the blacks desiring equality and fair treatment, which was long overdue. And a lot of our ball players were thrust into the forefront of that movement and it was hard on them.
They weren't trained or educated in how to handle that. They were called to be speakers at a lot of events because they were prominent on campus. That's exactly right. We go on the road and they would go out and go to gatherings in the city that we went to and talk about the movement, the civil rights movement.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: Let's get back to that because I want to ask about that. That was part of the documentary. But I want to get back to the basketball and then we'll come back to kind of the off the court. Let's give people an idea about Warren Armstrong, his versatility. He averaged 16.7 points over his career. He still ranks third on Wichita State's all time list for career list for assists. And that was not broken until Fred Van Vliet and Terry Murray. So pretty recent shockers. And then rebounding. He ranks looks like he's in the top eight of career rebound leaders. So he, as you described, certainly did it all. And I've never seen any highlights of Warren. I wake up every morning and come in here and check the mail, hoping that some old timer will say, hey, I discovered this reel to reel film of Warren Armstrong.
Here it is. But they did have some video of him in the aba and it was just really special to watch and see what kind of an athlete that he was.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: He was tremendous. We went to see him play. I think he was playing for the Dallas Chaparrals, and at that time, and we went to see him play because we were playing in North Texas.
And he got the ball on the perimeter twice and took the ball to the basket and dunked over professional basketball players that were 72 and 7 3, 6 2. He's able to do. His hands were immense. They were gigantic hands. So he palms a basketball with either hand with equal ease.
And he just. It was like the ball was on a string for him. He just never lost control of the ball. But he was so powerful. I saw him throw a pass and fortunately it hit the guardrail before the first set of seats and it went 40ft up in the air.
Nobody could have caught it. And if that would have hit a fan, it would have been the last game that that fan ever would have been seen.
He was so strong and so athletic. Just. It's hard to describe it unless you see it.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: And you mentioned the times, the 1960s, certainly a tumultuous time. And the documentary gets into that. So I'll let people watch it and they can make their own determination about Warren and the times. What was he like as a teammate off the basketball court?
[00:40:18] Speaker B: He was fine. He was a little.
He stuck to himself a little bit.
There were a couple of other guys on the team that were very aggressive in the movement.
Warren wasn't to that point.
Some of the other guys were a little bit more affable than he was.
Most of us got along together really well. But there were some issues between white and black. And on some teams, I didn't feel we had that issue, that problem. Got along together with them very well, but they had so much pressure put on them to be at the forefront of the movement that it caused them, I thought, some.
A little bit of personal issues in terms of how they conducted themselves. And I don't mean negative, I don't mean illegal, but I mean more introspective and sticking to themselves a little bit more.
[00:41:15] Speaker A: Okay, you've been very gracious with your time, Dave. Let's wrap it up. I've got some Dave Dahl trivia here that I've prepared.
In December of 1970, coach Gary Thompson is quoted in the Wichita Eagles saying Dahl is an asset to this ball club, whether he's on the floor or on the bench after a Shocker victory. After what game did Gary Thompson toss you that compliment?
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Nebraska.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Close.
You're on the right, Alphabet. Nevada.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Shockers defeated Nevada 9769 on December 16, 1970, and Dave Dahl played well. All right, my second Dave Dahl trivia.
Your senior year, Wichita Eagle credits you with taping a sign on your suitcase. You were on a road trip and the sign read president of the insert name here fan club. For further details, call Phone number for the sophomore sensation. Do you remember who that sign referenced or do you remember your phone number from 1970?
[00:42:17] Speaker B: I don't remember the phone number, but it had to have been Terry Benton, Vince Smith. Oh, Vinnie.
[00:42:22] Speaker A: He was having a great sophomore season. And so the Eagles chronicled a little bit of hijinks on the road with the Shockers.
[00:42:29] Speaker B: Oh, that's funny.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: On Saturday, Wichita State place Temple at 5pm it is Mike Kennedy night. Dave Dahl will be next to Mike as he has been so many nights previously, describing the action for Shocker fans all over the globe. Dave, thank you very much for your time.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Thank you, Paul.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] Boudreau Cross the timeline.
[00:43:17] Speaker C: Double teamed out front. Fires for three and misses off the heel. Rebound Henry Carr was hammered. Loose ball. Grayer with with the rebound. They'll have to foul him.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: And they do.
[00:43:26] Speaker C: Three seconds left. This is it. Wichita State is on its way back to the big dance. The Shockers cannot lose this one unless they get a silly technical foul or something. Three seconds to go. Even if Graham misses here, the Shockers can just get out of the way. Tulsa would have to make a three pointer and then try to get a timeout called. And even at that Wichita State, they probably would not have time to do both. If prayer makes any of these, it's all over. Well, where are all these people going?
[00:43:55] Speaker B: For heaven's sake?
[00:43:56] Speaker C: You must be right, Michael, because everybody's leaving. Steve Greyer with a career high in rebounds.
[00:44:01] Speaker B: 12.
[00:44:02] Speaker C: And the last two have been huge ones for Wichita State.
Steve Finn shoot good.
Steve Grayer three for two. For two from the line. 14 points.
Wichita State is on the way to the NCAA tournament.
An ecstatic shocker. Bench Gray are ready again. Three seconds to go. Five point lead in overtime.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: People are throwing trash. Very nice sportsmanship. People are throwing trash onto the floor.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: And you know something?
[00:44:33] Speaker B: That's insulting to the Tulsa team also. They have played a marvelous game. And then to mar the ending with.
[00:44:39] Speaker C: Something like that, what a great college basketball game this has been.
Grayer ready, pushes it up short. This Steve just kind of gets out of the way. Lloyd fires at the length of the floor, hits the backboard. It's over. Wichita State on the way to the NCAA tournament. Final score in overtime. Wichita State 79, Tulsa 70.
