IT’S HIM AGAIN : Former USD Coach Is Trying to Patch Together a Program, but This Time It’s in San Francisco

Upon his return to this city of hills, University of San Francisco men’s basketball Coach Jim Brovelli expected some peaks and valleys in restarting what had been a legendary program.

However, USF has spent much of its time of late going downhill, and Brovelli could not have anticipated that the hill would be quite so steep.

His injury-riddled Dons, who lost nine straight games after winning their first four, are 6-9 going into tonight’s 7:30 game against the University of San Diego at Memorial Gym.

“It has been frustrating at times and disappointing at times, but we’ve never been discouraged,” Brovelli said. “It’s been an experience.”

When he left USD and took the USF job in the spring of 1984, Brovelli welcomed the challenge of bringing back a basketball program that had been dropped.

And USF’s is not just any basketball program. Nobody knows that better than Brovelli, who was a point guard for the Dons from 1961-62 through 1963-64. What’s more, he followed USF when he went to St. Ignatius High in San Francisco.

It is the home of the 1955 and 1956 NCAA champions, of a 60-game winning streak from 1955 into 1957 and of Bill Russell and K.C. Jones.

Shock waves spread through the Bay Area when USF dropped its basketball program on July 29, 1982.

USF had been on probation three times in seven years and President Rev. John LoSchiavo said he could no longer tolerate the rules violations that had become standard practice.

USF’s move has since been followed by by Tulane University, which dropped its basketball program this season. After a three-year layoff, USF is back on the court.

Since the fall, San Francisco has been undergoing--or at least attempting--a basketball renaissance.

On Nov. 21, 1985, Russell spoke at a gala dinner celebrating the return of basketball and the 30th anniversary of USF’s second NCAA championship.

The next evening, the dust was wiped off the wood bleachers at Memorial Gym and the Dons were playing basketball again.

“The electricity that night is hard to describe,” Brovelli said. “I know I didn’t coach at all that first game. I was a spectator.”

USF assistant John Cosentino, who teamed with Brovelli for six years at USD, said it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“I had goose bumps,” he said. “My blood pressure was rising. It was electric when we walked on the court. It was like ‘Rocky V.’ There were so many images of things that had happened in the past in that gym.”

Both coaches admitted it was a little strange being back on the bench after a year-and-a-half of just recruiting.

“Kids practice playing,” Cosentino said. “Well, last year I used to practice sitting on the bench.”

After much talk and speculation, USF easily won its opener, 80-60, over St. Mary’s of Minnesota. The Dons weren’t taking any chances of losing that historic game.

A crowd of 4,920 cheered wildly when forward Steve Hill scored on a layup for the first USF basket in the new era. Nobody is quite sure why the game didn’t draw a sellout crowd of 6,000, but the best guess is that most people assumed it would be impossible to get a ticket.

“The basketball Bennies are still everywhere in the city,” Brovelli said. “That’s their lives. I see people in the crowd who have been here for 30 years and they’re still wearing the same hats and clothes.”

The slogan, “The Tradition Continues,” is plastered everywhere from posters to the wrappers of chocolate bars.

“Actually there was so much buildup to the season and so many distractions that at one point I had to close practice,” Brovelli said. “All the national publications and everyone covering the 49er games came by to do a story on us. It was particularly tough for the kids because they had heard about USF’s tradition, but they weren’t part of it.”

In addition to the intense pressure and the mounting losses, three USF starters were forced out of the lineup by injuries.

Point guard Rodney Tention, one of only two players with a considerable amount of Division I basketball experience, is out for the season with a fractured left elbow that occurred when he fell following a dunk.

Tention started his freshman year the Air Force Academy under Coach Hank Egan, who is now the coach at USD. After that, Tention was an all-state guard at Grossmont College.

When Tention got hurt, USF was 4-1 and he was the fourth-leading scorer. Without Tention to provide leadership and run the offense, the other players went into scoring slumps and saw their averages drop. Tention has since become the team’s leading scorer without even stepping on the court.

Junior center Peter Reitz and Hill have been hampered by knee injuries.

“I think we could be around .500 if those three key players were healthy,” Brovelli said.

In many ways USF is like an expansion team, and expansion teams are usually hurt most by poor depth. USF has five freshmen, six junior college transfers, a transfer from the University of Idaho and Jimmy Giron, the only member of the team who was on the last USF team in 1981-82.

“We had to create chemistry instead of build upon it,” Cosentino said.

That’s a problem Brovelli is all too familiar with.

“I was 6-20 and struggled during my first year at USD, but this is a lot more difficult situation,” he said. “We’re bringing players into a program that was non-existent for three years. I’ve had 14 different personalities and there has been a lot of experimentation. Where would guys fit in? I kept making a lot of changes and it was hard to establish consistency.”

The Dons have used nine starting lineups. Their starting backcourt consists of Mike D’Aloisio, a freshman walk-on, and Giron, a senior walk-on who hasn’t played regularly since high school.

“Both made all-intramural teams last year,” Brovelli said.

Obviously, these were not the ingredients for instant success.

“People around here are really loyal alums, and I got a lot of positive comments, letters and phone calls when we were going through the losing streak,” Brovelli said. “But I realize if it happens next year, I’ll probably get a package with something ticking.”

Brovelli knows the pressure to win at USF will become more intense. And soon.

“After the first couple of games, the honeymoon was over,” said Brovelli, who has a five-year contract at USF. “There is intense pressure in this program to win. Fortunately, we lost the Cal game on the road so the alumni couldn’t boo me here.”

USF’s 59-58 loss to the Bears was typical of what might be expected from an “expansion” team.

The Dons led by 12 points four times during the game and held a two-point lead and had the ball with 37 seconds to play. In those final seconds, three USF players missed the front end of one-and-one free throws.

Still, with five seconds to play, USF led 58-55 when Cal’s Chris Washington hit a three-foot bank shot in traffic and was fouled. Washington missed the free throw, but Leonard Taylor grabbed the rebound on the right side of the lane and scored the game winner.

As if that loss wasn’t bad enough, it came on the heels of a 73-71 loss to Nevada Reno on a shot at the buzzer.

The loss to Cal was the ninth straight defeat, which is the longest USF losing streak since the 1970-71 season, the last time the Dons had a losing season. USF snapped the losing streak with a 73-51 win over Fresno Pacific Jan. 11.

“The team and Coach Brovelli had a lot of talks during that losing streak, and he kept telling us that by the end of the season we’d have some wins,” Giron said. “All he asks of us is to work hard. He’ll get on us if he feels we’re not living up to our abilities, but players respond to that and their game picks up.”

Brovelli admits his Italian temper surfaces occasionally, but he believes in being patient and keeping things in perspective.

“I try to get the kids to play on an even keel,” Brovelli said. “Success will come if we continue to improve. You can’t rush things. It’s like working for the open shot. If you don’t force a shot, you have a better chance of making it.”

While his team patiently works out its wrinkles, Brovelli will enjoy his home in Marin County, his jaunts to pasta shops and the challenge of being on the hot seat at his alma mater.

“This is a unique situation and a tremendous opportunity,” Brovelli said. “And if it doesn’t work out here, I’ll apply for the Tulane job.”