Duke Basketball wasn’t much fun in 1975 but the Vols visit really livened things up.
Before Rick Barnes arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee basketball had long been an afterthought. The Vols had been mostly irrelevant for a really long time. That wasn’t always the case though.
Ray Mears coached Tennessee from 1962 to 1977 and he was a unique coach. We’re not quite sure how he did it, but Mears managed to persuade New York natives Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld to come to Tennessee. Duke and Tennessee scheduled a home-and-home series in 1975-76 and 1976-77. The first game was in Cameron, and let’s just say Tennessee made an impression from the time they took the court.
The Volunteers had a warmup that won the Cameron faithful over. In fact, it brought oohs, ahs and ultimately cheers from the crowd.
Unfortunately the warm up was better than the game because Tennessee won, 86-80. This was Jim Spanarkel’s freshman year. The following year, Mike Gminski would arrive and two years later, Kenny Dennard and Gene Banks. Duke’s fortunes were about to change after a steep dive following Vic Bubas’s retirement after the 1969 season and Cameron would start to become a very difficult place to play again.
For one night in 1975, the Ernie and Bernie Show briefly turned it into something very different.
