No one could’ve known there would be a historic meaning to the Arizona-Iowa game at the 1975 Rainbow Classic. Fred Snowden’s Wildcats were 7-4 and Lute Olson’s unranked Hawkeyes were 6-0 on that late December evening in Honolulu.
It would be the only Olson-vs.-Snowden meeting in history. The game drew 7,813 fans at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, but most had gathered to watch the second game of the night’s doubleheader, Hawaii vs. USC.
It didn’t take Olson long to take command. Iowa burst to a 35-7 lead, which is still believed to be the largest first-half deficit in modern Arizona basketball history. Yet, somehow, Arizona rallied to tie the game at 80 before a controversial foul with no time remaining led to a face-to-face shouting match between Olson and Snowden.
“There was no time left on the clock,” Snowden said.
“That’s bunk,” said Olson.
Officials ruled in Olson’s favor. Iowa made two foul shots with no time on the clock and the Hawkeyes won 82-80.
Arizona thereafter went 17-3 and stunned Jerry Tarkanian’s No. 3-ranked UNLV Rebels in the Sweet 16. Olson finished his second Iowa season 19-10.
The Wildcats saved their best for last, winning their only outright WAC championship and reaching the Elite Eight in what was probably the top men’s basketball season at Arizona until Olson arrived a decade later to recruit Steve Kerr and Sean Elliott and rise to No. 1 in the national rankings.
Arizona opened the 1975-76 season ranked No. 11 in the AP poll, but encountered several unexpected difficulties. Starting point guard Jim Rappis missed the first four games with an injury; the Wildcats stumbled to a 4-4 start, losing to Idaho State at McKale Center and falling to Tark’s then-No. 10 UNLV in Las Vegas in a wild 98-94 finish.
After that loss to Idaho State, the Wildcats did what most teams in a tailspin do. They called a team meeting, aired their grievances and came together.
UA head coach Fred Snowden surrounded by players during the Wildcats' March 6, 1976 game against Arizona State. The Wildcats won their regular-season finale, 77-72.
The core of Arizona’s team was potent. Center Bob Elliott averaged 18 points and 10 rebounds a game. Future NBA forward Al Fleming also averaged a double-double, with 16 points and 10 rebounds per game. Junior shooting guard Herman Harris averaged 11 per game, but that might’ve been 15 had there been a 3-point shot in 1976. Rappis, a glue guy, averaged 12 pwe fmW.
The Wildcats were so good that future NBA lottery pick, power forward Larry Demic, couldn’t make the playing rotation.
The UA-UNLV game at the Sweet 16 was surely the most high-profile basketball game in school history to that point. At 24-1, the Rebels were ranked No. 3 nationally. Their only loss had been to No. 20 Pepperdine by two points. The winner would play — gulp — UCLA in the Elite Eight. And at the Bruins’ Pauley Pavilion, of all places.
Arizona beat UNLV 114-109 in overtime that night at Pauley, with Harris scoring a career-high 31 points. It set up the Arizona-UCLA game two days later, the first of what would become dozens of memorable UA-UCLA games over the next 45 years.
The Wildcats tied the game at 58, but UCLA pulled away in the final five minutes to win 82-66. The Bruins were led by future NBA lottery picks Richard Washington and Marques Johnson.
UCLA's Rick Washington goes as high as necessary to block a shot by Arizona's Bob Elliott in the 1976 NCAA West Regional in Los Angeles. Washington scored 22 points to lead his team to an 82-66 victory.
“That overtime game against UNLV the other night took a lot out of Arizona,” said UCLA coach Gene Bartow, in his first season as John Wooden’s successor. “I think they ran out of gas a little at the end.”
Said Rappis, who had played his final college game: “We went 81-33 in my four years. That’s not too bad.”
Either way, Arizona finished No. 15 in the AP poll, which would be its highest modern finish until Olson’s 1988 Wildcats reached the Final Four.
It was also the unexpected peak of Snowden’s Arizona coaching career. In his first four Arizona seasons, Snowden had improved year by year, from 16-10 to 19-7 to 22-7 to 24-9.
But after a first-round NCAA loss the following season, Snowden lost his touch. Arizona went 65-69 and he was forced from office after going 9-18 in the 1981-82 season. He would become a vice president of Baskin-Robbins.
Arizona hired Olson away from Iowa a year later.
