ST. LOUIS — Another long week of waiting has ended.
Tonight a quarantined nation will once again gather for the latest episodes of the documentary that would be must-see TV even if we weren’t all confined to our couches.
Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever, and “The Last Dance” has become the best treatment for stay-at-home boredom caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Our new Sunday night ritual has caused some old Jordan stories to stir.
For those who can’t get enough of the documentary, here are a few memorable moments MJ made in The Lou.
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Ron Jones studied the film, but it did not fully prepare Missouri’s forward for the North Carolina star’s signature move.
Jones’ Tigers were beating Jordan and his defending NCAA champion Tar Heels in Mizzou’s season opener in November 1982.
A crowd of 15,228 at the Checkerdome was loving it.
But Tigers coach Norm Stewart, who had assigned Jones to guard Jordan before the game, could tell something was bothering Jones.
“I didn’t know anything about the tongue-wagging,” Jones said by phone Saturday. “I didn’t know that was his trademark. None of us knew. The game started, and of course he started licking his tongue, doing all kinds of crazy stuff. I took it personal, because I thought he was doing it at me.”
Jones tried to keep the ball out of Jordan’s hands. He tried to keep Jordan off the ground. He tried to keep Jordan from beating him with those lethal backdoor cuts.
“He talked a lot of trash,” Jones said. “I mean, a lot! The whole game. ‘You can’t hold me. You can’t check me.’ Things like that. And the wagging of the tongue, that really threw me off. It wasn’t a little tongue. It was a lot! Norm called a timeout and asked me what was going on. I told him he was licking his tongue out at me. Norm looked at me kind of puzzled, and said, ‘Well damn it, Jonesy, just keep playing!’”
Jones did, holding Jordan to 13 points, seven below Jordan’s average that season. Jordan missed six of his 11 shots and committed five turnovers.
The Tigers, thanks to a clutch 18-footer from fifth-year senior Barry Laurie, stunned the Tar Heels 64-60 on national TV.
But it was the newspaper — this newspaper — that got Jones in trouble.
“I set my goal all week to shut him out completely if I could,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch after the big win.
He didn’t know then that the Tigers and Tar Heels would meet again in the championship game of the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu a month later.
“I made a rookie mistake after the first game,” Jones said 37-plus years later. “I was so pumped up, because I knew I did a good job against him. I made a rookie mistake of saying I tried to hold him scoreless. He took that personal. When we played him again in Hawaii, that was the first thing he said. ‘You thought you were going to hold me scoreless?’”
Jordan scored 19 in the rematch to help propel the Tar Heels to a 73-58 win against Mizzou.
Jones limited Jordan to 13 points again in the following season’s meeting between the two teams, but he could not stop Jordan from two big baskets late that sealed top-ranked UNC’s 64-57 win.
“Man, that guy’s tough,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch after that game.
Jones, now a State Farm agent in St. Charles, had graduated from Mizzou and swapped basketball for selling insurance when he last saw Jordan at an NBA exhibition game.
Jordan, seeing a familiar face, approached.
“Jonesy!” Jordan said.
“Man,” Jones said Saturday, “I had a big head for two or three weeks. He remembered.”
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There was never any doubt about broadcaster Mike Claiborne having a Jordan story to share.
The only question was if he had a story that could be shared in print.
Here’s one.
Claiborne, who has mutual friends with Jordan, got a call from Jordan the weekend the Bulls came to St. Louis for the 1988 preseason game against the Suns at The Arena.
The game was on Sunday. That meant Saturday night was open.
Claiborne had the KMOX Halloween party on his schedule. Jordan had a card game — Tonk, at $100 per hand — at the team hotel.
A deal was made. Claiborne would play if Jordan would attend the party.
Details of the card game are off the record. Details of the party are not.
“I don’t have a costume,” Jordan told Claiborne.
“I think you’ll be all right,” Claiborne told Jordan.
“Bob Hyland ran KMOX,” Claiborne said. “His son answered the door. He said, ‘Who’s this guy? This is a pretty good costume he’s got. He looks like — holy.’ He just stopped in mid-sentence.”
Jordan cut loose. Drinks flowed.
“He was just one of the guys,” Claiborne said.
Only one of the guys had a game the next day. No hangover for Jordan. He scored 36 points in 31 minutes in the Bulls’ exhibition win.
“I enjoy going into cities without an NBA team,” Jordan told the Post-Dispatch after thrilling a St. Louis crowd. “It’s fun.”
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One benefit of doing morning radio is that you can be off work in time to accept a surprise invitation to golf with His Airness.
Jay Randolph Jr. got the call in 2004.
Jordan had retired, for good this time. He was in St. Louis for his son’s basketball tournament. That meant he was golfing up to 36 holes per day, recruiting new competition along the way.
Randolph accepted a third-party invitation and rushed to Boone Valley Golf Club, where he found a who’s who of potential partners from which Jordan could pick.
“Charles Oakley, Willard Harrell, Roy Green,” Randolph recalled.
Jordan decided he would go against the new guy, the son of the broadcaster he once met at Augusta National.
“We’re driving down the first hole, and he says, ‘What do you want to play for?’” Randolph recalled. “I told him I didn’t want to lose more than $200. I’ve never met this guy, and by the second or third hole, he’s calling me ‘Fat Boy’ and talking (smack). He’s the greatest guy’s guy I’ve ever been around. He talks smack on every shot. On everybody’s shot. We had a good time. We get done, and he leans over and says, ‘Fat Boy, what are you doing tomorrow? We are playing at Old Warson. Be there at 9:30.’ I was so excited, I drove the wrong way out of Boone Valley.”
Randolph took $120 off Jordan that first day.
Jordan took Randolph for $300 the next before lighting up a victory cigar.
“Jordan was going to find a way to beat your (tail), and he was going to have a hell of a time doing it,” Randolph said. “He had game, and he knew it. Always jabbing. Always. I didn’t have a problem jabbing back. But I looked at Oakley at one point and said, ‘I can’t imagine what it was like on the court.’”
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