50 years ago, The Ernie and Bernie show win over Alabama vaulted Tennessee to SEC top

Doug Ashworth limped out of the showers and into a press scrum somewhere inside Stokely Athletic Center.

The 6-foot-6 Tennessee center was the last one out, visibly tired. A night of going toe-to-toe in the paint with Alabama’s Leon Douglas—all 6-10 and 230-pounds of him—had worn him out.

It was Ashworth’s assignment, and he had held his own. Douglas still finished with 19, but Ashworth made the baskets a little harder to come by. His efforts put the spotlight on the Bernie and Ernie Show, instead and the Vols took top billing in the SEC in an 80-74 triumph seen by a rowdy, standing-room-only crowd on their home floor and an overflow press corps that included Sports Illustrated on Jan. 31, 1976.

“I’ve never been this tired after a game,” Ashworth told reporters. “Leaning on Leon for 40 minutes is some kind of workout. When he’d get in there low with the ball, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop his shot. I tried to move in tight and take away his legs. He didn’t shoot all of them the way he wanted to.”

The victory was Tennessee’s first in its last five tries against the Crimson Tide. The Vols had lost the previous four, leading head coach Ray Mears to stitch red elephants into their practice jerseys and place a red bathmat in the locker room showers with the final score of one of those losses painted on it.

He wanted to remind them. 

“We’ve worked since mid-October for this game,” Tennessee superstar forward Bernard King admitted. “We had a lot of eggs in the basket.”

A week later, King was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, alongside teammate Ernie Grunfeld—the second part of the Vols’ star tandem that had become the main attraction of Mears’ Tennessee hoops spectacular and the talk of college basketball.

The publication’s Barry McDermott had spent a few days in Knoxville, preparing a feature story on King and Grunfeld that centered around how two kids that grew up dominating the blacktop courts on the streets of New York had taken over SEC basketball.

All that was required for the sign-off on the cover for the Feb. 9 issue was for Tennessee to beat No. 11 Alabama in a game that was crucial to the conference title race. King and Grunfeld delivered a masterclass.

“It was a typical performance for the Tennessee twosome, whose contrasting playing styles invariably end up with the same results—plenty of baskets,” McDermott wrote. “King teases opponents with his lightning fast, in-your-face jumper, Grunfeld repeatedly bangs them over the head with his bruising drives.”

Alabama got the full experience. King finished with 37 points while pulling down 18 rebounds. Grunfeld scored 20 with eight boards. 

The only show-stopper was the oranges that periodically splashed on the court from somewhere in the Tennessee student section. C.M. Newton didn’t like that.

The Crimson Tide coach called it “bush-league,” and said the breaks in the action to clean up the floor, especially after Alabama had cut the Vols’ lead to three, hurt their chances at a comeback in a game they trailed wire-to-wire in.

But when it came to King and Grunfeld, Newton fell in line with the rest of the 12,944 spectators that were there that night.

“Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld are as good as you writers say they are,” Newton said.

It was Bernie and Ernie, coupled with a two-way tie for No. 1 in the league standings and two years of pent-up frustration against Alabama in basketball that made the Vols-Tide ticket the most sought after in town.

Tennessee had beaten Duke and Michigan in the non-conference, then beat Kentucky in overtime in Lexington early in SEC play. That win was followed by an 11-point letdown against Vanderbilt at Memorial Gym in Nashville, but the Vols won their next four to draw even with Alabama.

The Crimson Tide’s lone conference loss was by one point to Florida. Both teams stood at 7-1, and the result inside Stokely Athletic Center would give one team a leg up in their SEC Championship bid.

Local scribes rubbed shoulders with sportswriters from New York and Philadelphia in press row, and Tennessee outfitted a whole other section of wooden desks for other members of the sporting press.

“Tennessee vs. Alabama. Big game, big deal,” Marvin West wrote for the Knoxville News-Sentinel two days before tip-off. “Old friends are stopping by the ticket office. So far, they’ve gone 0-for-67. Sports Illustrated is in town with a three-man crew. Banners are flying Gibbs Hall, home of the Vols.”

There was more star power on the court than just King and Grunfeld. Sports Illustrated might have been there to see them, but an Bernie and Ernie Show cover story wasn’t necessarily a guarantee. Douglas could have had them calling their editors for a new story late Saturday night. He certainly had the ability.

Douglas averaged 19 points per game and more than 11 rebounds. His shot-blocking ability made him a terror in the paint. He had a chance to go pro, but opted to remain at Alabama for the 1975-76 season.

“The 13,000 at Stokely tonight will see a different side of the big man from Leighton, Alabama,” West wrote. “He may appear a villain. He may bat down some of Bernard King’s shots. He might mess up Tennessee’s bid for the league title. Leon has the potential to be a big, bad man. If Leon wore orange, he might be the next mayor.”

Mears’ plan was to stick Ashworth on him—a player that Douglas had four inches and about 20 pounds on. In the early-going, it was working.

Tennessee raced out to a 16-6 lead before Alabama stormed back to even the score at 32-all. The Vols led 37-34 at halftime.

Douglas hit shots and scored his average, but he didn’t do the kind of work inside that he was accustomed to. Ashworth was the reason why.

“The guys did a super job on Douglas,” Mears said postgame. “They kept him from getting the real good shots. Ashworth forced him outside just enough so he didn’t score the easy ones.”

The second act of the Bernie and Ernie Show was the most entertaining. King scored 14 in the first half, but rattled off 23 over the last 20 minutes. He kept the Crimson Tide from putting back the second and third shots that sunk so many teams before with on the defensive end of the floor, while dishing out the same on the other.

While he crashed the board, Grunfeld drove furiously at them, setting up more than a few collisions inside with Alabama’s bigs.

There were some tense moments. Both Newton and Mears argued with officials. Fans tossed oranges when one didn’t go Tennessee’s way. The Vols led by 11 with five minutes left, but Alabama made one more push.

The Crimson Tide surge pulled them within five late before Tennessee pulled away for the last time. Mears knew hours before that it was the Vols’ night.

“We had a situation today where everybody was in a super frame of mind,” Mears said. “The intensity before the game was tremendous. But you’ve got to have it when you play a great team.”

Ten days later, newsstands in Tennessee were pilfered as soon as Sports Illustrated hit them.

On the cover, Grunfeld had one hand on his hip and the other arm leaning on Bernard King’s shoulder as both players stood on the court at Stokely Athletic Center under the headline: “Double Trouble from Tennessee.”

Alabama won the rematch in Tuscaloosa nearly a month later in a 93-90 decision in overtime. The Crimson Tide won the SEC crown, too. Narrow losses at Florida and Auburn cost the Vols from staking their own claim.

Still, 50 years later, the Sports Illustrated issue that came from Tennessee’s win over Alabama remains a part of Vols’ basketball lore and a cherished relic still sitting on bookshelves and hanging on walls behind glass frames.

“Run and gun is the Volunteers’ game now,” McDermott wrote. “And it will stay that way at least as long as Grunfeld and King are around to stir up double trouble in the SEC.”