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Maurice Lucas, the power-forward for the Portland Trailblazers who also earned All-American honors for Marquette University in the early 1970s, died earlier this week from bladder cancer.
Lucas made at least one trip to Anderson Arena during the 1972-73 season. B.G. had a pretty good team, led by Cornelius (June) Cash, who would later be drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks (who then shared the Mecca Arena in Milwaukee with Marquette). A very good Marquette team wound up beating the young Falcon squad handily, 84-58. One of my strongest memories of that game was how good Maurice Lucas was. Cash wound up with 18 points (which was a third of our total) and he must have been credited for at least 4 baskets when Lucas was called for goal tending when he'd sky and knock Cash's shot into the stands at (or just after, according to the refs) the peak of its arc. And at the end of the game, Lucas walked immediately to Cash and shook his hand. Cash was 6-foot-8 or so, and as he and Lucas talked, the crowd milled around them. They looked a bit like two trees, standing above a meadow of waving grass.
Lucas led the Warriors to the NCAA Championship in 1974-75, where they lost to North Carolina State. He was a key member of the 1977 Portland Trailblazers NBA Championship team.
Just one more memorable player who appeared on the hardwood at Anderson Arena.

Don't remember Lucas as a big jumper- he was huge in the NBA but I never saw him in college. I always used him as my starting forward for All-Star games in the old SI NBA basketball game (this was before computers, kids- you played with a deck of cards. Had to keep shooing the dinosaurs away-they really dug the NBA). He could be a rebounding machine and was a reliable scorer.

I met him as a little kid. I was 8 years old. He was at a car dealership in Pittsburgh signing autographs. He signed a napkin I had just used for a hotdog. He was real nice. He said he would mail me an autograph picture, because he ran out. When we left my dad was trying to keep me from getting my hopes up. Later that week in the mail I received an autograph picture of him.

RIP