This day in history: University of Montana is ‘underdog in Portland’ at NCAA basketball tourney

From 1975: The region’s “little basketball team with the big, loud following” was the Cinderella team of the NCAA basketball tournament – but we aren’t talking about Gonzaga.

It was the University of Montana, which upset Utah State in the first round. When action resumed in Portland, however, it was facing a more fearsome foe: UCLA, the nine-time NCAA champions.

Montana coach Jud Heathcote proclaimed that he was happy to be “the underdog in Portland.”

Underdog is right. Montana was “innocent of a single vote so far in the Associated Press basketball poll.” UCLA, on the other hand, was sitting at No. 2 in the nation.

From 1925: The Gonzaga University sophomores dragged the freshmen through the mud, winning the annual tug-of-war, during what was known as the “Fresh-Soph War.”

This was not even the wildest battle of the war. That occurred the night before when the sophomores snuck out during dinner and “decided to attach their flag to the stadium flagpole.”

“Freshmen discovered this trick, and tearing down the offending colors, hog-tied the sophomores,” the Chronicle reported. “Loading them into cars, they carried them off to the jungles, dropping them off at Liberty Lake, Cheney and other distant points.”

Later, the “sophs came hiking back to down” and turned the tables by “sending the frosh to the country.”