Rick Mount: Back from Oblivion, 1972

[College basketball’s senior class of 1970 featured three highly-touted All-American guards: Purdue’s Rick Mount, Niagara’s Calvin Murphy, and LSU’s Pete Maravich. All were considered must-see college stars but highly debatable pro prospects. For Maravich, the critics said he was too flashy and too scrawny. For Murphy, he was considered too small at 5-foot-9. For Mount, the pre-draft conversation meandered in several directions, good and bad. But Mount’s pro prospects seemed to take a promising turn in March 1970 when he signed with the ABA Indiana Pacers. Mount seem destined to be the face of the Pacers in seasons to come, since he ranked as one of the Hoosier State’s favorite basketball folk heroes. Mount also seemed to be a perfect fit for the ABA. He was the college game’s premier long-range bomber in 1970 and presumably would emerge quickly as a master of the ABA’s three-point shot. Presumably it turned out to be. Mount never hit it off with head coach Bob Leonard and struggled…

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