USF’S RETURN TO GRACE : After Hellish First Year, Brovelli Has the Dons Winning

Getting the job was a dream come true. His first season was a nightmare.

The memory of going 7-21 and living through the continual pressure and scrutiny inherent in restoring a fabled basketball program is a blur for University of San Francisco Coach Jim Brovelli.

A bad blur.

“I blocked out all of last year as best I could,” Brovelli said. “Not just basketball. I’m not even sure that year existed.”

Despite his wish for amnesia, Brovelli will probably never forget the 1985-86 season.

“I knew it would be a major challenge,” Brovelli said. “But unexpected paranoia made it more difficult than it should have been. When you went to the cafeteria instead of the bookstore, people would say, ‘Why are you doing that?’ Because I was hungry.”

This season, Brovelli is able to eat in peace.

The Dons are 12-5 (2-2 in the West Coast Athletic Conference), including victories over rival Cal and Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount, the top teams in the WCAC last season.

Basketball is once again a game at USF. It is no longer a crusade.

“Attention, exposure, pressure will always be there,” said Brovelli, who returned to his alma mater after coaching at the University of San Diego for 11 years. “Policemen, firemen, attorneys, judges--they are all USF alums. It goes beyond bouncing a basketball. Expectations from the outside will always be high. But the uniqueness and distractions aren’t there this year.”

When Brovelli left USD, after taking the Toreros to the NCAA tournament in 1984, the former USF point guard knew he was in for a tough homecoming.

“It was a unique challenge,” Brovelli said. “This was the first nationally ranked program to drop basketball and bring it back. That situation made it intriguing, more than anything else.”

After the 1981-82 season, when the Dons went 25-6, USF’s president, the Rev. John LoSchiavo, said he could no longer tolerate the rules violations that had become standard practice at his school.

A school once graced by Bill Russell’s NCAA championship teams in 1955 and ‘56, the Dons had been on probation three times in seven years when LoSchiavo decided to suspend the program.

In the spring of 1984, USF decided to restore its basketball program. Brovelli was signed to a five-year contract.

After Brovelli spent a year recruiting, which was no easy task, the Dons were back on the court in the fall of 1985.

Weeks before his team ran its first laps, the media barrage was on. It wasn’t long before Brovelli felt compelled to close practices to the media.

“The kids had to put up with a lot that wasn’t fair to them--being the saviors of USF basketball,” Brovelli said. “The first day of practice, we had writers from Chicago, New York, USA Today. The players just wanted to play hoops.”

The spirit was there, but unfortunately for Brovelli, most of the players were in over their heads.

“We had intramural players last year,” Brovelli said. “Looking at it realistically, we didn’t have any people. It was tough. You coach to be successful. But it was very, very difficult. We had kids who had never played a Division I basketball game.”

Reserve guard Jimmy Giron was the only member of the team who had played on USF’s last team in 1981-82. Guys who had been playing in Saturday morning recreation leagues were suddenly facing Pepperdine and USD.

USF actually won its first four games last season, but when three starters were sidelined by injuries, the Dons’ lack of depth and experience was too much to overcome.

The Dons lost nine straight games. Later in the season, USF lost to USD by eight points at home and by 33 points (72-39) in San Diego.

Not only was USF struggling, but USD was flourishing with players Brovelli had recruited.

“There are players there who ought to be 35 by now,” Brovelli joked.

In a more serious vein, Brovelli said: “If we had an all-senior team the year we won it (WCAC in 1984), it would have been a lot easier decision to leave. But we knew we had a great recruiting year. It’s difficult to leave young kids you are attached to. I’m happy for them. They’re doing well.”

USD went 19-9 last season. It was the Toreros’ best record at the Division I level. USF went 7-21, which was its worst record since Phil Woolpert’s club went 6-20 in 1959.

“It was frustrating and disappointing to not be able to instill the system we believed in,” said USF assistant coach John Cosentino, a three-sport star at University High and an assistant under Brovelli at USD for six years. “You can X and O all you want, but if you don’t have players . . .”

You lose. You are frustrated. You wait for next season.

“They (the players) got it off the ground last season,” Brovelli said. “We weren’t very good without scholarship players. Our goal was to become competitive.”

Enter four new players: forward Patrick Clardy of Contra Costa College and guard Keith Jackson of Taft College, who were community college All-Americans last season; freshman guard Kevin Ellis (son of former Golden State Warrior Joe Ellis) and center Joe Seager, a transfer from the University of Oklahoma.

Along with returning guard Rodney Tention, who previously attended Grossmont College and the Air Force Academy, the Dons are a very different team. Four starters from last season’s team are on the bench.

“I can see progress,” Brovelli said. “I’ve always felt patience is the most important thing in developing a program. We are a long way off from the continuity of being a consistent winner. We are an erratic team. A roller-coaster type of team.

“But we’ve hung in there. We are competitive. We are competitive enough to be in a position to win at the end.”

Only one of the Dons’ five losses has been by more than nine points, that a 68-56 loss to USD in San Diego Saturday night.

Injuries seem to be catching up with the Dons, who have gone on the road and lost two straight games for the first time this season.

Clardy--the team’s leading scorer with a 15-point average--has missed four games with a sprained left ankle. Seager fractured his left knee in the second game of the season and will be out until the end of the month. Tention has a broken nose and is playing with a mask.

“Last year, we got devastated by injuries,” Cosentino said. “This year, we’ve had our share of injuries, but we’ve had a year’s experience.”

This season, USF has more players, the players have more confidence and the team has played 11 of its first 17 games at home.

A key victory for the Dons was their 65-63 win against Cal in front of a sellout crowd of 5,300 in Memorial Gym on Dec. 6.

“It was really the first sign of college basketball getting back to the city,” Brovelli said. “It was the old USF-Cal rivalry with the intensity level of a college basketball game. It’s good to see that come back.”

Painted faces are back in style at home games. The traditional Christmas tournament returned to Memorial Gym this season. Even though a number of home games have been played during the school break, the Dons are averaging 2,779 fans a game.

Most USF fans don’t have illusions of Brovelli taking the team to the Final Four.

“Fan reaction goes three ways,” Brovelli said. “There are the hard-line guys. There are the people who are realistic and extremely patient. And the bulk of the people go either way (are in the middle).”

The USF administration is happy to again have a basketball team, Brovelli says.

“It was a major void up here,” he said. “They are very, very happy it is back and pleased we can be competitive.”

To be more than competitive will take time and players.

“We’re still one or two recruiting classes away,” Cosentino said. “But kids who weren’t interested in USF two years ago are very interested now. . . .

“Looking back, we’re going to wonder how we won seven games the first year. It’s funny to laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny last year.”