Editor’s Note: Tiger Rag will be continuing to revisit memorable times in the illustrious career of LSU basketball coach Dale Brown, who passed away on Oct. 23, 2026, at age 90. Born on Halloween, 1935, in Minot, North Dakota, Brown would have turned 91 today.
By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
It was a quiet spring night in northern Alabama at the Southeastern Conference Tournament in the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center on March 13, 1992, in Birmingham, Alabama.
LSU 7-foot-1 All-American junior center Shaquille O’Neal was dominating Tennessee and had just put his team up 73-51 with 10:39 to play on a dunk over strugglin 6-7 forward/center Carlus Groves for his 16th point. Shaq already had 16 rebounds too.
“It’ll be LSU and Kentucky in the first game tomorrow,” Jefferson-Pilot play-by-play announcer Tom Hammonds said, already previewing one semifinal of this tournament between LSU coach Dale Brown’s No. 23 Tigers (19-8, 12-4 SEC) and Kentucky coach Rick Pitino’s No. 9 Wildcats (24-6, 12-4 SEC), who had lost 74-53 in the regular season at LSU.
“We ought to be able to get out of here at a decent hour tonight and go to a restaurant,” one writer told another as each of their stories now only needed a top, and it wouldn’t be about Rocky Top. Or would it?
What happened next would be written about through the late hours that night and for the rest of the weekend and for years after.
No SEC Tournament before or since has equaled the SEC Tournament of 1991 – aka “The Brawl In Birmingham.”
“That was fun,” then-and-now LSU basketball sports information director Kent Lowe said last week on the Tiger Rag Radio Show. “I was hiding under the table for most of that.”
O’Neal was about to go up again for another easy dunk when a frustrated Groves grabbed both sides of O’Neal’s waist and held on, similar to a beaten boxer wrapping up an opponent. O’Neal started to fall and swung his left arm back and hit Groves in the face with his elbow, but not that hard. Groves was fine. The two wrestled a bit with O’Neal taking another swipe at him before teammates separated them.
It could have ended right there with an intentional foul on Groves as officials appeared to have everything under control and were about to return to action.
But Dale Brown had already stormed the court in pursuit of Groves. He pushed Groves and took a swing at him, but missed. Groves then slapped at Brown’s face with an open hand as Groves was being pushed away by teammates. A referee and others restrained Brown and pushed him back toward his bench just as Tennessee coach Wade Houston went after Brown and had to be held back.
All hell broke loose after Brown entered the ring.
LSU point guard Jamie Brandon bobbed and weaved near center court and landed a punch to the face of Tennessee guard Jay Price.
“I’ve never done boxing before,” Hammonds said on the air.
Just as the fisticuffs flourished, the Tennessee band broke into John Williams’ classic, “Swing, Swing, Swing.”
LSU forward Vernell Singleton slapped at Groves’ face twice and pushed him away. Tennessee All-SEC guard Allan Houston, the coach’s son, and LSU guard Maurice Williamson squared off amid a mosh pit of players from both teams that pushed toward the scorer’s table across court from Brown’s initial charge.
“Luckily, it all went toward Jim Hawthorne (LSU play-by-play announcer at the time) and Kevin Ford (analyst at the time) at the radio table,” Lowe said. “They almost got taken out. It was pretty wild.”
Finally, order was restored, and game officials began reviewing tape to see who should be ejected.
“You sure they’re not going to cuff anybody?” Hammonds said on the air.
In all, 10 players were ejected. O’Neal and Groves were both ejected and suspended for their next game. Eight other players were ejected but not suspended for the next game – Brandon, Singleton, Williamson and Harold Boudreaux of LSU and Chris Brand, Steve Rivers, Alonzo Johnson and Price of Tennessee.
Brown, whose actions kept the brawl going, was not ejected, and the media would soon be demanding as to why.
After a 20-minute delay, LSU went on to beat the Vols, 99-89, to advance to a tournament semifinal game against Kentucky, but the Tigers would not have O’Neal, the Associated Press Player of the Year in 1991 and SEC Player of the Year and NCAA blocked shots leader in 1992 with 157.
A capacity crowd gathered in the interview area for Brown’s postgame press conference that was delayed as Brown met with SEC officials, including John Guthrie, who was associate commissioner of the league in charge of officials and friendly with Brown for years.
Soon, members of the media who originally planned to cover the next game – No. 17 Alabama vs. Florida – made their way in for the Brown press conference.
Unbeknownst to Brown and Guthrie, several media members watched replays of the fight on the cameras of television crews in the press conference room/work room while waiting for Brown. And replay clearly showed that Brown took a swing at Groves. But Guthrie and Brown didn’t know that the media knew that as they sat at the podium.
“I did not see Dale Brown do anything to warrant ejection,” Guthrie said as people could be heard giggling. “Don’t make Dale Brown the villain in this. I felt like at the time he was trying to get it under control.”
With a haymaker? There was more laughter from the chorus, particulary when Brown said he went out there to restore peace.
Dale was just being a peace keeper. What a memory. Think @SportBeatTweet closed down the media hospitality room that night at the Sheraton Civic Center across the street, he and the late Phillip Marshall. I think Larry Woody and Stan Olson might have been part of that group too.
— Chris Low (@Clowfb) October 23, 2026
“Dale, did you try to hit Groves? It looked like you took a swing at him,” Brown was asked by then-Alexandria Town Talk writer Glenn Guilbeau.
“I cannot believe that you would ask me that, Glenn,” Brown said incredulously. “I saw that it was going to be a potential fight, so I grabbed the guy that I thought was the instigator of the whole thing (Groves). But it’s my legacy in the league. I guess I’ll be the fall guy. It all started from an intentional, flagrant foul. The league should be embarrassed for kicking Shaquille out of the game.”
Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi, who was covering the Gators at the time, famously wrote that Brown “lied, cried and denied.”
Brown was reprimanded for charging the court by then-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer the next day. Kramer said Brown “clearly violated the SEC Code of Ethics, and any further violation of these policies will result in more severe action, including the suspension of all coaching duties for one or more games, which may extend into next season.”
Apparently, it went on Brown’s “permanent record,” but he was not suspended or fined.
The Florida and Alabama writers covering the LSU-Tennessee post-bout presser missed a great game. Alabama guard James “Hollywood” Robinson hit a jumper with seven seconds left for a 62-60 win over the Gators.
Alabama coach Wimp Sanderson, a good friend of Brown’s, was asked what he thought of Brown going after Groves in his postgame press conference.
“I don’t know,” Sanderson said. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
And the place roared in laughter.
SEC coaches at this time had stage presence. The press conferences with legends Sanderson, Brown and Georgia’s Hugh Durham were often pure theater. But there was also new blood as Pitino was in his third year at Kentucky, which was fresh off probation after missing the previous two years of the SEC Tournament because of NCAA sanctions stemming from the Eddie Sutton era.
“There were so many personalities in the SEC at the time with Dale and Wimp and Hugh Durham,” Lowe said.
Brown still got his LSU team to play valiantly as usual even without O’Neal in the semifinal against Kentucky with Geert Hammink moving in at center. The Tigers even led 50-46 in the second half before succumbing by 80-74 in front of 17,689 – the largest crowd ever to see a basketball game in the state of Alabama at the time.
With Shaq, LSU had dispatched Kentucky easily in the regular season, 74-53, in Baton Rouge on Feb. 2 as O’Neal scored 20 points with 20 rebounds and six blocked shots. The Tigers also had a rare sweep over Alabama that season with O’Neal – 89-81 in Tuscaloosa and 73-65 at home. Had O’Neal not been ejected, Brown could have won his second SEC Tournament and only the school’s second in history after the Tigers took the 1980 league tournament title in the same arena.
With Shaq, it is not a reach to say LSU would have won the 1992 SEC Tournament and received a better NCAA Tournament seed and shorter trip than its No. 7 in Boise, Idaho. That would have also likely meant a better bracket. Instead, after a 94-83 win over Brigham Young in the first round, the Tigers had to play No. 2 seed and fifth-ranked Indiana with coach Bobby Knight and fell, 89-79. As a better seed, LSU would have played a lesser team than the Hoosiers, and who knows how far LSU, O’Neal and Brown gone?
Instead, Shaq’s LSU college career was over and so was the magical time of Shaq & Dale.
O’Neal was the first player picked in the 1992 NBA Draft by Orlando and went on to a spectacular career, winning four NBA titles – three with the Lakers and one with the Miami Heat.
Brown went on to reach one more NCAA Tournament the next season for his 10th straight – unprecedented at LSU and rare in college basketball overall – despite the loss of O’Neal as Hammink became a strong force at center and also a first round pick in the NBA Draft in 1993. Within four years, Brown would be retired after the 1996-97 season.
Criticized heavily nationally after igniting “The Brawl In Birmingham,” what Brown was doing in his mind was protecting O’Neal. Sure he overdid it, but as usual, his heart was in the right place.
Brown handled the criticism, particularly over a hot week after the SEC Tournament and before the NCAA Tournament, especially from one of his regular beat writers for several years – myself at the Alexandria Town Talk. I called his charge on Groves a “zenith of idiocy” in a column.
While awaiting Brown’s NCAA Tournament press conference the day before he played BYU in Boise, a couple of people close to Brown told me to be prepared because he was angry with me about the column.
As the Tigers and Brown arrived for the press conference, I braced myself. This had happened before, though. And Brown always handled himself professionally and never held a grudge for long.
He walked right up to me and shook my hand.
“Glenn, I accept your apology,” he said.
Before I had a chance to say that I hadn’t apologized, which Brown knew, he was off toward the podium.
But he did look back with a slight smile.
I’ve since used that tactic. If you feel someone owes you an apology, but haven’t gotten it, just tell him or her that you accept their apology.
And walk away and smile.
Only, Daddy Dale Brown.
Happy Birthday, Dale, up there in the ultimate Final Four.
And Happy Halloween.
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