The eternal champion BOB MORSE

Bob

Morse

The legend of Varese I n modern European basketball, there are few cases of foreign players who stay with the same team for more than two or three seasons. However, 30 or 40 years ago, it wasn’t that unusual to see play ers wearing the same jersey for five or even more years. One of the cases that stood out most was that of Robert “Bob” Morse, the great American scor er who rejected an NBA career – he was drafted by the Buffalo Braves – to chase glory in Europe. Morse was born on January 4, 1951, near Philadelphia and, after standing out in high school, the next logical step for him was entering the University of Pennsylvania. With a height of 2.03 meters, Morse was a power forward with the shooting touch of a small forward and the rebounding skills of a classic center. He was a natural scorer, with a steady hand from all distances. His last three years in college with the Penn Quakers, from 1969 to 1972, are still considered the best in the long history of the school, which dates back to its first game against Yale on March 20, 1897. It is a fact that the only time that Penn reached the NCAA Final Four was in 1979 in Salt Lake City, where they were stopped by the Michigan State squad led by the legendary Magic Johnson. But the longest period of steady quality coin cided with the Morse’s time on the team. There were also good players like Dave Wohl, Steve Bilsky and Corky Calhoun, but the leader was Bob Morse. He fin ished his college days with 1,381 points after being the team’s top scorer for three seasons. The team’s record in those years was 25-2 (1969-70), 28-1 (1970-71) and 25-3 (1971-72).

While everyone expected a good NBA career out of Morse, he surprised many with the decision to play in Europe. He was going to Varese, a place most of his teammates would have a hard time locating on a map of Italy. But this small town had a great basketball team, which was already a double European champ (1970, 1972) and had a great coach, Aleksandar Nikolic, who insisted on his signing. As a result, Morse became the key man on the team in his new European adventure. Aca Nikolic’s influence On the occasion of the celebration of 50 Years of European Competitions at the 2008 EuroLeague Final Four in Madrid, Morse, who was elected by a board of experts among the 35 best players during that period, had this to say about coach Nikolic in a EuroLeague.net interview: “I got to know the city of Varese, the team members and our coach, Aleksandar Nikolic, especially. He was impressed enough to sign me to a two-year contract. My real education came when I first arrived for training camp. We didn’t go to Varese, but instead to a bunch of exhibition tournament games, which were mostly outdoors at the time, 10 or 11 on the road at differ ent resorts around Italy. I was impressed by Nikolic’s coaching. He was really strong on physical conditioning and had a special coach for that, which at the time was unusual. I think that was the key for me that first sea son, in which we won the EuroLeague, the International Cup in Brazil, as well as the Italian League and Italian Cup, and I won the Italian League scoring title.”

Morse continued: Nikolic was also big on shooting, which was my forte already. But he did some things that I had never experienced in the U.S. He was big on funda

101 greats of european basketball Bob Morse

mentals, both individual defense and team defense, help and recover. He had us get up on Sunday morning before games for exhaustive team meetings, more than an hour, with scouting reports for each opposing player, telling us their tendencies, what to expect, their weak points and strong points, how to shut them down. He was an amaz ing tactician, too, and just really understood the game of basketball. He was very adamant that we had to play the way he wanted. If we ran a play, we had to run it the way it was drawn. He wasn’t big on individual improvising. He was certainly a great coach who deserves his place in the Hall of Fame. I had good coaches in college, one of which was Chuck Daly, a great people manager and motivator. But in terms of tactics and the technical side of the game, I don’t think anyone surpassed Nikolic, in my opinion.”

The start was not easy at all. Morse arrived in a city that already had a foreign idol, Manuel Raga, the “Flying Mexi can”. The two could play together in the EuroLeague, but not in the Italian League, which only allowed one foreigner. So Nikolic chose Morse over Raga. In the first game, ac cording to Morse himself, he felt pressure and missed the first 6 shots he attempted. The fans in the stands started chanting Raga’s name. Things changed when he made the next 10 shots he took. A new star was born. Real Madrid, the eternal rival His first season featured a great finale. First, Varese’s third European crown arrived after a victory over CSKA Moscow in the final, played on March 22 in Liege, Belgium. Raga scored 25 points, Morse 16 and the team held on to win 71-66 despite 34 points from the great Sergei Belov. After that, Varese won the Italian Cup and Italian League titles, too. It would become not only a triple-crown season, but the year of four titles because

Varese also won the Intercontinental Cup in Brazil by defeating the local team of Sirio.

While CSKA Moscow was Varese’s main opponent in the early 1970s, starting in 1974 the number one enemy for the Italian team would be Real Madrid. In the 1974 European final, played on April 3 in Nantes, France, Madrid won 84-82. Wayne Brabender led the Whites with 22 points in a good team effort, while on the Varese side Dino Meneghin had 25 points, Morse 24 and Raga 17. The following year, Madrid and Varese met again for the title in Antwerp, Belgium, on April 10. Real Madrid entered the game as the favorite, espe cially because of the absence of Meneghin with a hand injury. However, Varese won 79-66 with a huge effort by Morse, who played 40 minutes, scored 29 points on 12 of 19 two-point shooting and 5 of 6 free throws, and pulled 14 rebounds. What’s more, on defense he played as a center!

On April 1, 1976, in Geneva, Switzerland, Varese and Madrid played their third straight European final and the Italians won again, 81-74, behind 28 points from Morse (13 of 19 two-point shooting in 40 minutes) and 23 by Meneghin. Varese was also in the 1977 final, but this time the rival was Maccabi Tel Aviv. In a final full of drama, which I witnessed live at Pionir Arena in Bel grade, Maccabi won its first European crown 78-77. The duo of Morse (20 points) and Meneghin (21) didn’t let anyone down, but the Israeli team had an unstoppable Jim Boatwright (26) and a star in the making, Miki Ber kowitz (21). Varese and Real Madrid squared off once more in the 1978 final, on April 6 at the Olympiahalle in Munich. Madrid won 75-67 thanks to the great duo of Walter Szczerbiak (26) and Brabender (16), while Morse and Meneghin had 12 and 23 points, respectively.

On April 5, 1979, Varese set a record that will be diffi

cult to top by playing in its 10th straight European final. The great novelty this time was the rival. It was not the usual Real Madrid, CSKA Moscow or even Maccabi Tel Aviv, but rather a young and ambitious Bosna Sarajevo. Led by the great Mirza Delibasic on the court and young coach Bogdan Tanjevic on the bench, the team had gone from the Yugoslav second division to the continental final in just seven years. Bosna took the title 96-93 in an offen sive festival. Zarko Varajic scored 45 points – an individual final-game record still standing to this day – while Deliba sic had 30 and Ratko Radovanovic scored 18. A guard on that team who didn’t play much due to injury was a young Svetislav Pesic. Morse had his usual numbers, with 28 points, and Charlie Yelverton had 27, but the 75 points scored by the duo of Delibasic and Varajic was too much. Eleven years later, I met Morse at the 1990 World Cup in Buenos Aires, where he was working with an or ganization for players shorter than 2.00 meters. During our talk in Luna Park, Varajic, who was then a member of the Yugoslav national team, walked by at a distance. I asked Morse whether he knew who that “tall man” was. He was not sure. I told him: “That is Zarko Varajic, the guy who scored 43 points against you in the final.”

“No, he scored 45,” Morse corrected me, proving that he had not forgotten that day.

Morse’s stint in Varese ended like it had started, with a triumph. In the 1980 Saporta Cup final in Milan, an Italian duel between Varese and Cantu – two teams with a collection of European and national trophies over the previous decade – took place. Varese won 90-88 in overtime. Bruce Seals scored 26 points and Morse 22. From Italy to France and back During nine seasons in Varese, Morse won four Italian Leagues titles (1973, 1974, 1977 and 1978), one Italian Cup (1973), three EuroLeague titles (1973, 1975 and 1976), an Intercontinental Cup (1973) and a Saporta Cup (1980). He was the best scorer in Italy for six years with a total average of 26.5 points over 259 games. His personal record of 62 points took place in a 108-86 win over Napoli. With 9,785 points, he ranks fourth in Ital ian League history, though his 302 games played are far fewer than the players above him – Antonello Riva, Oscar Schmidt and Carlton Myers.

For the 1980-81 season, Morse decided to not on ly switch teams, but also switch countries. He joined Olympic Antibes of France. Curiously, in a league theo retically inferior to the Italian one, Morse never won the award as the top scorer despite similar numbers from his Italian days. With 23.0 points in the first year, he was the seventh-best scorer. The following year he im proved to 24.7 and was fourth. In his last season there, 1983-84, he averaged 26.9 points but was third as Ed Murphy (32.3 ppg.) of Limoges won the scoring title.

After that season, Morse decided to travel back to Italy and signed for Pallacanestro Reggiana. He was just in time to score the first three-pointer ever in the Italian League following the regulation change established by FIBA that season. At the end of that season, he became the first three-point shooting leader ever in Italy with im pressive numbers – 46 of 77 (59.7%)! He was also great on free throws – 100 of 108 (92.6%). Can you imagine Morse’s numbers with three-pointers from 1979, when they were introduced by the NBA, instead of 1984? His main weapon was his shot from anywhere and he was a nightmare to guard, but a joy for basketball lovers to watch. Today he is an Italian teacher, a language he learned, one could say, in Varese’s locker room. Bob Morse, the Varese legend.

101 greats of european basketball Bob Morse