Published: May 31, 2008 01:03 am      

Moore’s tale worth telling once again

MORGANTOWN — It won’t only be the players who are tall when West Virginia University’s basketball program hosts what is becoming an annual “Fantasy Camp” next week, bringing 32 or so fans from around the country with $3,000 to spend on rubbing — and taking — elbows from legendary Mountaineer players like Jerry West, Hot Rod Hundley, Kevin Pittsnogle and Lowes Moore.

The tales figure to be even taller than the players, especially from Hundley, who turned from “The Clown Prince” of college basketball into one of the most beloved and endearing sports announcers in NBA history.

There is, however, one tale that will be retold this week that can not be classified as tall at all, for as incredible as it may seem, it is as true as a Pittsnogle 3-pointer.

It comes from the lips of Lowes Moore, the last Mountaineer to play in the NBA, finishing his career in 1983, and it is the story of how he became the last West Virginia player to score 40 points in a game.

It is difficult to imagine that 30 years have passed since that Jan. 25 night in 1978 when the brash sophomore from Mount Vernon, N.Y., lit up a Notre Dame team that would reach the Final Four that season with 40 points in South Bend, Ind.

Others had accomplished the feat before Moore, but none since.

“We had a snowstorm in West Virginia,” Moore explained when asked about the factors that all came together to turn that game into one of the most memorable individual performances in WVU history. “I got there late. The truth is, I wasn’t going to go at all.”

As the snow fell, Moore found himself looking out the window thinking, “This is dangerous.” He figured, no one would mind if he missed practice, but as he sat there he saw teammates trudging through the snow and decided he’d better go.

“When I got there they were warming up. Coach (Joedy) Gardner said, ‘Give me 20 laps around the Coliseum.’ I said OK,” Moore remembers.

Just after Moore finished his running, Maurice Robinson showed up. He was a senior, the second leading scorer, a crucial part of Gardner’s team.

But he was late.

“Give me 20 laps around the gym,” Gardner instructed Robinson.

The problem was that Robinson knew Moore was late, hadn’t seen him run and now saw him out on the floor practicing.

He told Gardner he wouldn’t run the laps.

“Well, you’re off the team,” Gardner said.

“I quit,” Robinson countered and left the gym.

Just like that.

The way Robinson remembers it, the event happened before the Mountaineers played a pair of consecutive road games — at Duquesne and at Notre Dame — but the box scores on WVUstats.com shows that Robinson missed only the Notre Dame game.

In fact, against Duquesne, he scored 16 points while Moore was warming up with 37 points, including 13 for 13 from the free throw line.

But the team took off for Notre Dame, having to face a Notre Dame team that included Orlando Woolridge, Kelly Tripucka, Dave Batton and Bill Hanzlik without Robinson.

The coaching staff obviously knew they were in trouble.

“You know coaches,” Moore said, “they’ll do anything to make you play better.”

At the time, checking one’s biorhythms was the rage, a cycle that is supposed to be able to predict what kind of day you will have.

“Early in the day they said something about my biorhythms and said this would be my worst day of the year,” Moore recalled.

Later, at the arena, assistant coach Jim Amick, who had recruited Moore, called Moore aside.

“We need 40 or 50 points from you,” Amick said.

“What?” said Moore.

“Well, you average 20 points. Maurice is gone, and he averages 20 or so points. We need you to make up for it,” said Amick.

“But you tell me it’s my worst day of the year,” said Moore.

Amick shrugged and walked away.

“Well, for whatever reason — the game was on TV, my Mom was watching, maybe because Red Auerbach was there — I got caught up in the game,” Moore said.

Oh, it was the mismatch everyone thought it would be. West Virginia trailed 52-33 at the half.

But Moore was on fire.

“They tried everyone, and no one could guard me,” Moore said.

That, of course, included Hanzlik, who went on to become one of the best defensive players in the NBA in the 1980s.

Moore hit from all over, going 12 for 25 in field goals, 16 for 17 in free throws — giving him 29 of 30 in his last two games — but the Mountaineers lost, 103-82.

But no one remembers the score of that game, only what Moore did. It seemed to be the start of one of the great careers in WVU history, but he never could repeat it, in part because Gale Catlett became the Mountaineers coach in 1979 and he used a system that worked against an individual becoming a star, as evidenced by the fact that he never sent a player to NBA after Moore.

Moore’s average, 21.3 as a sophomore, dropped to 17.3 as a junior and 16.4 as a senior. In his senior season, he scored 30 points only once while scoring fewer than 10 points seven times.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.