By FRANK SCHWAB
The (Appleton, Wis.) Post-Crescent

NEW ORLEANS - The campus gym in which Marquette University practices in Milwaukee is remarkably bland, with brown just about the only color. There's one gaudy exception.

A large, bright gold banner hangs at one end of the gym, paying homage to late Marquette coach Al McGuire and the number the school retired in his honor - 77, for the year Marquette won the national title.

If the players ever forget the banner, around the circle at midcourt they'll find the words: "NCAA Champs, 1976-1977."

All around Marquette's men's basketball program, there's something to bring back 1977.

"It's there every day for them," Marquette coach Tom Crean said. "They know."

Even as the Golden Eagles have advanced to the Final Four for the first time since that memorable year, the main story line has been that championship won 26 years, six coaches, one arena and one nickname ago.

When ESPN.com wrote about Marquette's Final Four run earlier this week, the dominant photo on its front page was of McGuire.

Sports Illustrated featured the Golden Eagles in this week's issue, and before one thing was said about this year's team, the first 46 lines of the story were devoted to McGuire and the friendship Crean struck up with him before he died in 2001.

But in many ways, that is how Crean wants it. Unlike the Green Bay Packers of the 1990s who started to chafe a bit at the nonstop mention of the 1960s glory days before winning a Super Bowl at the end of the 1996 season, 1977 has become something for the Golden Eagles players to cherish, even though their oldest player, Robert Jackson, was born in 1978.

"They're great guys," forward Scott Merritt said of the 1977 team members, then known as the Warriors. "They come speak to us and come watch practice and support us. Butch Lee and guys like that are around all the time, and how could you get sick of that?"

It makes it easier when the person with the most to lose from the nostalgia embraces it. No matter how successful he is at Marquette, Crean, in many ways, will have a tough time getting out from the enormous shadow of McGuire, one of the most charismatic and popular coaches in college basketball history.

But he is the one leading the charge to keep the spirit of those glory days alive. After all, his players have "AL" stitched on the front collars of their jerseys.

"That team did a lot for the memories people have of this university," Crean said. "So I've never been sick of (people bringing it up). I didn't have to live here to be proud of it. I know I'm the caretaker of this program now, and I value that a great deal."

The players even seem to enjoy the comparisons to the 1977 team, because they could do a lot worse.

"I think people have a lot of respect for the way we play, and we have guys who are full of great character and unselfish," sophomore guard Travis Diener said. "So I think people will be talking about us for a long time, just the way they do the '77 team. The teams are similar in the character and the unselfishness and the coaching staffs that we have."

The players see the way the names of players like Butch Lee, Bo Ellis, Jim Boylan and Jerome Whitehead still are as fresh in fans' minds today as they were almost three decades ago.

With two more wins, beginning with Saturday's game against Kansas, maybe the names of Diener, Jackson, Dwyane Wade, Crean and everyone else will also be household names when those players edge toward 50 years old.

"It's hard to think that far along," Merritt said. "But I would love to have my name mentioned 25 years from now for being part of a championship team."