The NCAA was coming after the Gophers basketball program and coach Bill Musselman headed for the American Basketball Association late in the summer of 1975. Jim Dutcher, a Michigan assistant, was hired on Aug. 21, five weeks before the start of fall quarter.

Dutcher flew to Nassau, Bahamas, to firm up with Mychal Thompson and Osborne Lockhart that they would be back as sophomores. He flew to Phoenix and tried (unsuccessfully) to convince Mark Landsberger not to go through with his plan to transfer to Arizona State.

He went from there to New York to see Ray Williams in Mount Vernon. "Sugar Ray" had signed with Musselman out of San Jacinto Junior College in Texas.

"Ray and his family lived across the street from the Fourth Street Park courts," Dutcher said. "The McCrays [Scooter and Rodney] lived down the block. Dozens of tremendous players grew up there.

"What I remember is everyone's front door was open and kids were going in and out. It was a great neighborhood."

Williams joined junior Flip Saunders and sophomores Thompson, Lockhart and Dave Winey in the starting lineup. The Gophers went 16-10 overall and 8-10 in the Big Ten.

University of Minnesota
Ray Williams was a star guard for the Gophers under Jim Dutcher in the 1970s.

Two of the losses were to Indiana, the last team to go unbeaten on its way to a national championship. The Gophers led those Hoosiers 45-40 at halftime at Williams Arena.

Sugar Ray had 22 points and Indiana switched from Scott May to Bobby Wilkerson as his defender. Williams had 12 in the second half and the Hoosiers rallied for an 85-76 victory.

"The defensive change didn't surprise me," Dutcher said. "They had to have quickness on Ray."

A year later, Kevin McHale came in from Hibbing as a freshman. That gave the Gophers a pair of 6-10 starters, to go with the 6-3 Williams on a wing, and Saunders and Lockhart in the backcourt.

"We had a guy who would be the No. 1 overall pick [Thompson] in the NBA, the No. 3 overall [McHale] and the No. 10 [Williams]," Dutcher said.

The Gophers had received the NCAA punishment from the Musselman era that October. Included was a ban for the postseason. The athletes weren't deterred. They went 24-3, losing twice to a Michigan team that finished No. 1 in the national polls, and in overtime at Purdue.

The Gophers went to Marquette that December to play a team that would win Al McGuire's one national championship.

"We were up something like 15 at halftime, and we won by six or seven [66-59]," Dutcher said. "Sugar was so mad in the locker room you would think we had lost. He was yelling, 'How could we let that team come back on us?'

"We finally figured it out. [Marquette's] Earl Tatum was from the neighborhood in Mount Vernon, and Sugar wanted to beat them bad for bragging rights."

Williams was drafted by the Knicks and would join Micheal Ray Richardson in a backcourt that made them the kings of Madison Square Garden for a couple of years. After the 1980-81 season, he became a traveling man -- New Jersey, Kansas City, back to the Knicks, Boston, back to the Nets, Atlanta, San Antonio and finally the Nets in 1987.

McHale was a star and Williams was a backup guard on the 1985 Celtics team that lost in the NBA Finals to the Los Angeles Lakers. "I haven't seen Ray in 10, 12 years," McHale said Wednesday.

Dutcher said his last encounter with Williams was in 2001, when Sugar was in town to be inducted into the M Club Hall of Fame. "He came to the house and I could tell things weren't going too well for him," Dutcher said.

Neither McHale nor Dutcher knew how poorly things were going for Williams until a few days ago, when they were made aware of an article by Bob Hohler in the Boston Globe.

Hohler had interviewed Williams in Pompano Beach, Fla., where the 10-season NBA veteran has been living in a "broken-down 1992 Buick." Williams told Hohler that he has no money, no transportation if he were able to get a job, and that he had been subsisting on bread and water.

Dutcher was sent the Globe story by an acquaintance. "It's a very sad deal," he said. "Anyone who met Sugar, spent any time with him, liked him."

McHale endorsed that, saying: "I really enjoyed Ray as a person, as a teammate. It's heartbreaking. I've talked to a couple of guys. We'd like to see what can be done."

Patrick Reusse can be heard noon-4 weekdays on AM-1500 KSTP. • preusse@startribune.com