On Sunday in Birmingham, the Memphis and UAB basketball teams will meet for the 51st time.

They will do so as members of the same NCAA conference for the first time in more than 10 years, renewing a series that ranks among the Tigers’ most impactful.

It’s not as lengthy as that with Cincinnati, which until leaving the American Athletic Conference for the Big 12 last year had been in the same league as Memphis on and off more than any other program — for 43 seasons on and off dating back to the late 1960s, when both played in the Missouri Valley.

Tony Madlock returns to his ‘roots’ when Memphis hosts Alabama State

And it’s not as intense as that in its heyday with current ACC member Louisville, which before joining the Big East in 2005 overlapped with Memphis for 33 various seasons in the Missouri Valley, the Metro and Conference USA.

But Memphis-UAB has been a doozy.

The series record — 39-11 in favor of the Tigers according to Memphis recordkeeping, including an 18-1 edge in the last 19 meetings – may not suggest ‘rivalry.’ But conference ties and geographic proximity – fewer than 250 miles separate Memphis and Birmingham – are two big reasons it is one.

A man named Gene Bartow is an even bigger one. Larry Finch too.

Both now deceased, the two helped put UAB basketball on the map by tapping into Memphis talent and relocating much of it to Birmingham.

“What made it a rivalry,” said Daryl Braden, a former Memphis high school star recruited by Bartow and Finch to Alabama-Birmingham before UAB even had a team, “was homeboys playing against each other, and familiarity.”

1985: ‘A hard-fought game’

Braden arrived at UAB in 1977, on the tail end of a winding path that took him from Memphis Tech High School to an Oklahoma junior college to TCU and finally to Birmingham.

Along with Larry Spicer and George Jones — two Northside products who transferred in from Baylor — Braden was among three former Memphis-area high school players who spent the ’77-’78 school year at UAB, before the Blazers even played their first season.

Flash-forward a few seasons, and the impact of the Memphis-Birmingham connection was on full display.

The year: 1985. The venue: Hofheinz Pavilion, Houston.

Memphis and UAB were meeting for just the second time in series history. March Madness was in full force.

The Tigers and Blazers were late in overtime of a second-round NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional meeting, and the ball was in the hands of Memphis’ Andre Turner.

More than a game was on the line.

Andre Turner to coach against his alma mater in a game that’s ‘always special’

“Oh, man,” Turner said, recalling the moment.

As he and others proudly remember now, nearly four decades later, there were times that nine different players on the court called Memphis home.

“A hard-fought game, guys who were playing for more than just an opportunity to continue to play in the NCAA,” said Turner, a point guard from Mitchell High affectionately known as the “Little General” during his time with the Tigers.

Rivalry ‘tied back to Memphis’

The matchup in Houston: Memphis guys playing for Memphis vs. Memphis guys playing for UAB. The stakes: sky-high.

“It was almost like, you know, ‘bragging rights,’ and whatnot, to an extent,” said Turner, now head coach at Lane College, an NCAA Division II program in Jackson, Tennessee. “You just wanted to play well against your friends.”

Friends like Steve Mitchell, a product of Memphis’ Whitehaven High who — playing for the Blazers — was guarding Turner late in OT. Friends like Jerome Mincy, a Hamilton High product from Memphis who also played on that 1985 UAB Tournament team.

Turner’s time playing against Mincy went back to their middle school days in Memphis, the former at Havenview, the latter at Airways. Turner and Mitchell were Havenview teammates.

Final Four Memories: The cutting room floor

“We all were friends,” Mitchell said. “We all grew up playing basketball against each other.”

The Memphis-to-Birmingham pipeline kept them playing even after they were teens.

Thank — or playfully blame, depending on your viewpoint — a storied former Tigers coach and one of his trusty assistants for that.

“I credit a lot of this rivalry,” Mitchell said, “to just relationships that all tied back to Memphis.”

Several factors fueled series

Bartow coached Memphis — then known as Memphis State — from 1970-74. He took the Tigers to the ’73 Final Four in St. Louis, where they beat Providence before losing to undefeated UCLA in the national championship game.

After one season at Illinois in 1974-75 and two at UCLA from ’75-77, Bartow moved to Birmingham to create the UAB athletic department and coach its basketball team.

Martin: Billy Richmond III’s recruitment is getting spicy, just like the old days

A few seasons later, it was on between the Tigers and Blazers.

“It’s a big rivalry, and it’s a big game, and that’s for a lot of reasons probably,” said Bartow’s son Murry, a longtime UAB assistant coach under his father and its head coach from 1996-2002. “Proximity. Being in the same league together. Obviously the connection with my father.”

And the one with Finch.

One of the stars on Gene Bartow’s ’73 team, Finch was an assistant on Bartow’s first staff at UAB — after a brief pro playing career, and before he returned to Memphis in 1979 as an assistant to Dana Kirk.

From 1986-97 the Melrose product coached the Tigers, succeeding Kirk.

“What made it a rivalry,” said Braden, now the UAB basketball program’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes director, “was the impact the Memphis guys and Coach Bartow, and Coach Finch, had on initiating and establishing a program in Birmingham.”

“What they did,” added Matt Dillon, a longtime Tigers basketball television/radio broadcaster, “is they talked about it and said, ‘Hey, look, we’ve got connections in Memphis; let’s just go back and get some of these kids that Memphis doesn’t want or can’t get.’”

‘That game ... was a classic’

The Tigers and Blazers actually met for the first time 40 years ago, on Feb. 4, 1984, at Memphis’ now-shuttered Mid-South Coliseum.

Memphis beat UAB, 53-51 in overtime.

“Keith Lee won that game with a couple free throws,” said Dillon, also one of the Tigers’ de facto team historians.

“I thought, ‘Man, this is going to be a good series as it goes along.’ And it turned out to be, really, pretty good.”

Lee was one of Memphis’ all-time greats. He also played in the ’85 NCAA Tournament game against UAB.

Final Four Memories: Meeting expectations, Memphis State made it to St. Louis

But Lee was not on the floor as time wound down and Turner dribbled down the clock for one last Tigers shot late in OT of that one.

“I just wanted to keep the ball in my hand,” Turner said, “because the big fella had fouled out.”

What happened afterward was one of the most memorable finishes in a series filled with wild endings, meaningful meetings and terrific performances.

“That game … was a classic, no question about it,” Dillon said.

There were others.

‘Knock-down, drag-out fights’

On Jan. 16, 1993 — at The Pyramid in Memphis, home of the Tigers after they moved out of Mid-South Coliseum — Bartow enjoyed his only victory over his former team in Memphis, winning 50-47.

Dillon remembers current Tigers coach Penny Hardaway missing a late-game 3-point attempt.

Final Four Memories: Gene Bartow ‘loved being the head coach’

Hardaway avenged the miss two weeks later, scoring 29 points, dishing nine assists and pulling down nine rebounds in the last of his five career games against the Blazers — a 69-53 Memphis win.

“My battles with them back in the day were just knock-down, drag-out fights,” Hardaway said.

“Man, they just scrapped so hard — because any time we came into the building, it was almost like, ‘They don’t respect us; we have to earn their respect.’”

A couple seasons later, in a January 1995 Memphis win over Bartow and the Blazers at The Pyramid, Finch caught Zach Curlin for the Tigers’ all-time coaching victories lead.

“I remember Coach Bartow came in the dressing room and hugged Larry after the game,” Dillon said.

The game that ‘got ugly’

Not all Memphis-UAB games ended so harmoniously.

On March 11, 2006 — after splitting a couple regular-season games, including a Memphis loss nine days earlier that was the team’s only one that season in league play — the Tigers beat the nationally ranked Blazers 57-46 to win the Conference USA Tournament, played on their home court at FedExForum.

Shawne Williams scored 18 for Memphis and Joey Dorsey had a terrific game with 10 points, 12 boards and a couple blocked shots.

Two years later, in February 2008, Memphis ran its regular-season win streak to 44 straight with a 79-78 victory in Birmingham. The Tigers, ranked No. 1 nationally at the time, kept an unbeaten mark against C-USA teams that dated back to a UAB win 715 days earlier. They also remained unbeaten on the season, improving to 25-0.

Buckley: So many in Memphis have a favorite Jack Eaton moment. It’s hard to pick one.

Chris Douglas-Roberts got it done late for Memphis, converting a three-point play with 6.5 seconds remaining. After UAB’s Robert Vaden missed a trey try going the other way, Lawrence Kinnard scored from the paint with a too-late rebound. As officials quickly checked a video replay at the scorer’s table to be certain Kinnard’s basketball had come after time had expired, spectators in Birmingham erupted.

“It was obviously too late to count it,” Dillon said. “Well, the UAB students thought it counted — and they started running out on the floor.”

The ensuing scene was mayhem.

“I’ll be honest with you: That’s the only time I’ve been to a game where I felt uncomfortable as it was over,” Dillon said. “I mean, it almost got away from them. It was a very volatile situation. … They had to push players back into the dressing room.

“Our players were out there, and it got really ugly — quick. Joey Dorsey almost went up in the stands. It got really, really crazy.”

Burly Memphis big man Pierre Henderson-Niles, according to multiple reports, was accused of slapping a taunting UAB fan.

Final Four Memories: With Larry Kenon in place, Memphis State made magic

“Cups, water bottles and pompoms were thrown by fans in the UAB student section as the Tigers were being escorted off the court toward their dressing room,” read an ESPN.com/Associated Press story at the time.

The outcome coupled with a victory at Tulane preserved a 1-2 meeting one week later between Memphis and Tennessee, which the Volunteers won to end the Tigers’ season-long win streak at 26.

“That game (against UAB) was one of the most emotional games I have ever been around,” Dillon said. “They really want to beat us, bad.

“Honestly,” Dillon added, “after that the series kind of waned.”

1985 revisited

What happened before then, however, won’t soon be forgotten in Memphis.

In 1985, the Tigers returned to the Final Four for the first time since Bartow took them in ’73. They beat Boston College in the Sweet 16 and Oklahoma in the Elite Eight before finally falling to Villanova.

But first Memphis had to get past UAB.

Final Four Memories: The Tigers experienced March Madness before it was a thing

Turner took that final Tigers shot, hitting a jumper — with Mitchell guarding — from the circle area. Only afterward did its meaning, considering everything that ties Memphis and UAB, sink in.

“In the moment, man, you were playing hard, because you knew that you wanted to continue to play,” Turner said. “You weren’t ready to go home. And we were fighting.

“Then, with that added extra — playing against a lot of guys you grew up playing against in junior high school, and high school …”

Turner did not end the thought. He didn’t have to.

Memphis talent filled UAB’s early years

For four seasons from 1991-95, Memphis and UAB both were members of the Great Midwest Conference. The two went to Conference USA together later in 1995, and it stayed that way until Memphis left for the American Athletic Conference in 2013.

Now, for the first basketball season since then, UAB is in the AAC too, attached again to the Tigers program because of a city — Memphis — so instrumental in its growth since inception.

Final Four Memories: Black. White. Memphis was whole, for at least a moment.

In UAB’s first season, 1978-79, the Blazers somehow went 15-11. The next season, they went to the NIT. The season after that, the Sweet 16. And in just their fourth season, they were an Elite Eight team.

For seven straight seasons starting in ’81, UAB made seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

“This program blasted out of the gates rather early in its existence,” said Mitchell, now the athletic director at Birmingham’s The Altamont School and the color analyst on UAB basketball radio broadcasts.

“A lot of those years,” Murry Bartow added, “were filled with big-time Memphis talent.”

Especially in the early-to-mid 1980s.

“Here comes Jerome Mincy, McKinley Singleton, Steve Mitchell, Big Jack Gordon,” Murry Bartow said. “And the list goes on and on and on.”

‘Coach Bartow was the common denominator’

However, today — even with former Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy in charge — UAB has no one on its roster from Memphis.

That the case, can the series, which has been dormant since 2019, ever be what it once was?

The Tigers’ success over the years, especially in the more-recent meetings, makes that challenging. UAB’s only win in the series since 2007 came in a 2017 non-conference game.

“Well, to do it we’ll have to beat them a couple times,” Braden said, laughing heartily.

Geography at least helps.

“I-22 has made them even closer together,” Mitchell said of the two cities.

Being in the same league again should help too.

Final Four Memories: Lee Hunt left his mark on the 1972-73 Tigers

Only seven other programs — Cincinnati, Tulane, Louisville, Southern Miss, Saint Louis, Houston and Tulsa — have been in the same conference as Memphis for more seasons over the years than UAB’s 22.

The Blazers have played more games than their 50 with Memphis against only three other programs: South Florida, Southern Miss and Charlotte. Memphis has played more against only eight others. League play boosts the count.

But nothing helped link Memphis and UAB more than the man who coached both programs, and those who followed him — starting with Finch’s help — to Birmingham.

“So it does make a lot of sense,” Mitchell said of the Tigers and Blazers being in the same conference again, “because in a lot of ways these two programs were married 40 years ago when Coach (Gene) Bartow was the common denominator.”