Dale Brown, Louisiana State coach and former assistant Aggie coach under Ladell Andersen, made a hard-to-swallow prediction on Dec. 28, 1984, after his team steamrolled the Aggies by more than 30 points. In five days, he said, this Aggie team will beat the Empire, Jerry Tarkanian's University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

Tarkanian, the coach we mocked with Tark the Shark masks and soaked with hidden water bombs during home games, that's how intense the rivalry was between the Aggies and the Rebels. How could any self-respecting Big Blue Aggie not envy UNLV, ranked in the top tier nationally and a virtual manufacturing plant of first-round NBA draftees?

Who knows why Brown made what seemed like an outrageous prediction at the time, says Utah Public Radio's Craig Hislop '72, then a play-by-play announcer for the Aggies. "He must have seen something special in that Aggie team." Perhaps it was the religious zeal of all those returned Mormon missionaries who dominated the Aggie lineup.

Jan. 2, 1985, conference opening game: Before an over-capacity, high-decibel crowd, the Rebels and the Aggies pile on the points, and by half-time the Aggies are up by 10. As the crowd chants along with the clock's final countdown, an unguarded Freddy Banks drains a three-pointer to tie the game and drive it into overtime.

Greg Grant '88, all-time leading-scorer for the Aggies, fouls out in the first overtime. He is one of many starters on both teams forced to "ride the pine." "The game boiled down to bench players," Scott Harris '86 '95MS recalls.

Hislop remembers what happened next as if it were yesterday. "It was back and forth, and up and down, both exciting and disappointing." It took three overtimes, the most overtimes in Aggie basketball history, to determine the winner. And the game was the highest-scoring in NCAA history for that era. By game's end, the Aggies had racked up 140 points. In the final seconds, UNLV pulled ahead by two.

Aggie Coach Rod Tueller told a Herald Journal reporter afterwards, "Tonight was just salt in the wound because we won and lost it so many times."

Harris was in the stands. "When the game was over, I was physically drained. The crowd stood up through all three overtimes. It was so intense for so long, I was worn out. I can't even imagine how the players must have felt."

"Usually after a loss, you walk out of the stadium feeling down," says season ticket holder Tom Singleton. "But not that game. It was such a dang good game."

Greg Grant was disappointed, but not overly so. He got to dunk on leaping legend Richie Adams.

Even Tarkanian was in awe. "My God, nobody shoots like Utah State, not even the Lakers," he told reporters after the game. more