Standing L-R: Jim Fowler
(Athletic Director), Coach
Bill Troesken, Marvin Pryor
(Principal), Steve Harris,
Kermit Pitts, Ron Johnson,
Kent Smith, Garry Townsend,
Gary Pool, Kevin Brown,
Curtis Carroll, John Prater,
Trainer Dennis Gerace.
Kneeling L-R: Terry Walker,
Bruce Cross, John Chapman,
Craig Tucker, Sam Anthony,
Rick Nelson, Glen O’Neal,
Keith Parris.
Two of the teams Flint Northern played in the 1978 Class A state basketball tournament had future NBA players on
their rosters.
The Vikings had nobody of that caliber on their squad, but look who took home the state championship trophy.
Northern beat a Flint Northwestern team led by Trent Tucker in the regional final and smothered future Detroit Piston
Walker D. Russell of Pontiac Central in the state championship final to claim perhaps the most unlikely of the school’s
nine state titles.
“We didn”t have any All-Americans or All-Staters,” said Northern coach Bill Troesken. “We had a bunch of hardworking
little guys. It was a group of kids that when you asked them to do things, they responded.”
One of the things Troesken asked of his team was to slow down Tucker in the regional championship game. The
Northwestern All-Stater and future New York Knicks guard was known for shooting the ball, not passing it, and he
logged a then-Flint Class A career-record 1,294 points from 1975-78.
The Wildcats led the Vikings 28-17 with 6:34 left in the second quarter of the regional championship game, when
Northern switched from a zone defense to a man-to-man set. Behind the defensive efforts of Curtis Carroll and Kent
Smith, the Vikings turned Tucker from a shooter into a passer and came back to post a 71-55 victory in front a sellout
crowd of 4,500 at IMA Auditorium. Tucker made only seven field goals and finished with 18 points, his lowest output of
the state tournament.
“Trent Tucker was the best player in the state that year, and we had to exert so much energy to keep him under
control,” Carroll said. “We got to the point where he was reversing the ball.”
Northern not only stymied the 6-foot-5 Tucker, but its tenacious defense held the Wildcats to a paltry 12-of-35
shooting (34.3 percent) in the final 16 minutes of the game.
The come-from-behind victory turned out to be the turning point for the Vikings, who went on to complete their state
championship run with a 23-3 overall record and were ranked 25th in the nation in Basketball Weekly’s top 30 prep
teams.
“Sometimes you are rolling the dice,” said Troesken. “It was our ability to maintain our defensive pressure in a manto-
man set that we had not done before. You just understand that something good could be happening here.”
While Northern featured a senior-laden team – 12 of the 14 boys on its tournament roster were seniors – it did not
have any All-State players. The Vikings had two players earn first-team All-Saginaw Valley Conference West Division
honors in seniors Craig Tucker, Trent’s cousin, and Gary Pool. Seniors John Chapman and Garry Townsend both
snared second-team All-SVC West accolades.
