Ruben Report: George Raveling’s USC Starting Five
This is the third in a series that names the best five players under each USC head coach since the late 1960’s and any players who deserve honorable mention. Bob Boyd’s and Stan Morrison’s players have been covered and we now come to George Raveling.
Raveling coached the Trojans from 1987 – 1994. When he arrived, the freshman stars from Morrison’s last team (Tom Lewis, Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers) left; Kimble and Gathers demanded that Morrison’s assistants be retained but Raveling had already promised the positions to his Iowa assistants. Unlike Morrison, Raveling was a “big name” coach after successful stints at Washington State and Iowa. He was an assistant coach on the last US Olympic team to play only college players and famously was asked to deliver head coach Bob Knight’s decision to cut Charles Barkley.
Raveling’s first teams struggled without the freshmen who had left but his fortunes changed when he was able to successfully recruit Harold Miner to USC. Raveling was forced to step down after he was involved in a serious car accident that was described as “near fatal”. He was in the hospital for seven weeks. Raveling later worked for Nike in a senior position and Phil Knight gives Raveling a lot of the credit for expanding Nike’s basketball shoe business.
Raveling, a burly 6’6” former Villanova forward, is perhaps most famous for being asked by Martin Luther King to be on the podium as part of a show of security for the “I Have A Dream Speech”. After the speech, Raveling asked MLK if he could have the written speech, which he still has and has refused all offers to sell.
Team Raveling’s starting five are guards Harold Miner, Robert Pack and Duane Cooper, and forwards Ronnie Coleman and Lorenzo Orr. Phil Glenn is an honorable mention member of the team.
Team Raveling Guards
Raveling’s USC tenure is defined by his successful recruitment of Harold Miner who in my opinion is the best USC college player ever. He played for the Trojans for three seasons before leaving for the NBA. Miner, nicknamed “Baby Jordan” in high school, is USC’s all time leading scorer with 2048 points. In his junior (and final) year he averaged 26.3 points, a Trojan single season record, and was named by Sports Illustrated as its national Player of the Year and was a first team All American. Miner was selected over stars such as Shaq, Alonzo Mourning and Christian Laettner. He was also Honorable Mention All American as a freshman and sophomore, and was All Pac 10 every season.
His Trojan career scoring average is a Trojan record 23.5 ppg and he also grabbed 5.4 boards per game over his career. For all of his scoring he didn’t take many threes, instead relying on his extraordinary leaping ability to score on a variety of dunks, layups and jump shots. Listed at 6’5” at USC he was really closer to 6’3” but was easily able to out leap players many inches taller. His Trojan career shooting percentages are 45.3% from the floor, 36.7% from three and 81.4% from the line. He scored 30 or more nineteen times, far and away the USC leader in that stat. The next highest total is nine.
Miner carried USC during his three years. He was surrounded by other good guards including Cooper, Glenn and Rodney Chapman. That group led USC to a number 2 seed in the 1992 NCAA Tournament. Miner didn’t play particularly well in his tournament games that year or the year before. In the second round in ’92, Rodney Chapman made a driving shot with 2 seconds left to give the Trojans a one point lead over Georgia Tech with just over two seconds left. The Georgia Tech inbound pass was deflected out of bounds near mid court with under a second left. The next pass came to a freshman forward who had never taken a three; his heave swished through and USC and Miner were eliminated on a shot that is still sometimes shown as one of the great tournament buzzer-beaters.
Miner was the twelfth pick in the draft by Miami. In his first two seasons, he averaged ten plus points but he clashed with the Heat coaching staff. He played one more season with Miami and only one more season in the league, suffering a career-ending injury. Miner’s leaping ability was legendary even in the NBA; he won the slam dunk contest as a rookie at the All-Star game.
Duane Cooper was a 6’1”, 185-pound guard who averaged only 6.2 points over his Trojan career but had a big senior season, his only season as a full-time starter. That season he averaged 12.2 ppg and shot 49.6% from the field. He also averaged 5.4 assists that season. Over his career he averaged 3.4 assists pg and made a very high 40.3% of his threes.
Cooper was an excellent defender and a team leader. His all around game led the Lakers to draft him with the 36th pick in the second round. He was a little used reserve in 1992-1993 for the Lakers and in 1993 -1994 for the Suns. In an interesting side note, the Lakers obtained the pick which resulted in drafting Cooper as part of a deal in which the Milwaukee Bucks were allowed to sign former Laker coach Mike Dunleavy as head coach.
The third guard on Team Raveling, Robert Pack, had by far the best NBA career of the players on this team and a long post-playing career as an NBA assistant coach. A 6’2”, 180-pound guard, Pack played only two seasons at USC but played over 30 minutes pg. He averaged 12.1 ppg as a junior and 14.7 as a senior
Pack also dished out 319 assists in his two years. His assist total is still in the top ten for Trojan career assists. He made 52% of his two-point shots but only 29% from three, and was a good 74% from the line. Pack totaled 165 assists as a senior and ranked in the top ten in the conference for steals both seasons at USC.
Pack was an undrafted free agent who wound up having a 13-year NBA career. He averaged in double figures in five seasons. When he retired he had a long run as an assistant coach in the league. Recently he was head coach of a team in a relatively new African league.
Team Raveling Forwards
Lorenzo Orr was a 6’7” high flyer who played for the Trojans from 1992-1995. He completed his career with 1341 points and 694 boards, both high on the career Trojan lists.. He averaged 11.8 ppg as a junior and 16.9 as a senior along with 7.5 boards. He also scored in double figures as as a sophomore. He made 49.6% of his shots over his career and averaged 6.1 rebounds. He knew his limits and didn’t take a three in his four seasons.
Orr is in the top twenty in career rebounds and points. He was All Pac 10 as a senior and honorable mention as a junior. After he left USC he played one season in the CBA and 12 seasons in Europe.
The other forward on Team Raveling is the player who got the most out of physical gifts of any Trojan I can recall. Ronnie Coleman was a burly 6’6”, 205 pound forward who was not an exceptional leaper and never took a three point shot yet is second on the all time USC scoring list with 1727 points. He had a career average of 14.9 ppg. Only the most rabid Trojan fan can correctly answer the question of which Trojan had the second most career points after Harold Miner.
Coleman is remembered by some because of his sister, who may have been the most vocal Trojan fan ever. At home games in the Sports Arena she ran up and down the sideline following the ball and always yelling as loud as she could at the refs, opposing players or coaches, or cheering on Ronnie and his teammates.
Coleman averaged over 15 points as a sophomore, over 16 as a junior and over 17 as a senior. He had an uncanny ability to find the ball after a missed shot on both ends, accumulating 821 career rebounds and a 7.1 career average. He averaged 8.6 boards as senior and is in the Trojan top ten in career rebounds.
After his senior season he was named All Pac 10 along with Harold Miner in 1991 and was the Trojan team MVP all four seasons, an honor which reflects how hard he played. He is in the top twenty for career scoring average and the top ten for career field goal percentage.
Coleman was not drafted; he played one season for the Sioux Falls Skyforce in the CBA and acreage 13.9 points.
Phil Glenn – Honorable Mention
Glenn was a 6’1” sharpshooter who rarely played in his first two seasons but then started every game as a junior and senior. He was a career 38.2% shooter from three and made 42% as a senior. Raveling recruited him from North Carolina where he starred in high school. Raveling compared Glenn to BJ Armstrong, then a Chicago Bull, who Raveling coached at Iowa.
He scored only 6.1 ppg over his career but 12.3 as a senior. In his first three years he and the other Trojan guards often deferred to Harold Miner and he was not expected to score a lot. After Miner left, Glenn became a big part of the Trojan offense,
After he left USC, Glenn coached youth travel ball team for many years.
And One
It’s easy to conclude that Harold Miner made Raveling’s USC career and to some extent that’s true. But USC never had a more respected coach in basketball circles and one who had a bigger influence on the game.
In looking back, Team Boyd starters were Paul Westphal, Dennis “Mo” Layton, Gus Williams, Ron Riley and Cliff Robinson. Honorable mention players include Mack Calvin, Dan Anderson, Joe Mackey and Clint Chapman.
Team Morrison starters were Dwight Anderson, Wayne Carlander, Derrick Dowell, Maurice Williams and Tom Lewis. Jacque Hill was honorable mention.
In my opinion team Boyd is easily the strongest of the three teams so far, though for perspective Boyd had a longer tenure than Morrison or Raveling. Next up will be Team Henry Bibby.
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