College Basketball in the Bay Area Has a Rich Tradition

The San Francisco Bay Area’s rich college basketball tradition, brought into focus by the NCAA Tournament West Regional games at the Oakland Coliseum Arena, is much more than the national championships won by USF, Stanford and Cal.

In addition to prestige, those champs brought to the region historically significant accomplishments that altered coaching strategy and attitudes toward basketball and its players.

Stanford’s 1942 champion, for instance, was the first team to feature quick and agile big men. Despite injuries, it won three NCAA Tournament games by an average of 10.7 points in an era of low scores.

USF’s back-to-back powerhouses of 1955-56 provoked rules changes because of Bill Russell’s intimidating presence. The Dons also served as pioneers in basketball integration, with six black players on the team.

Although Stanford and USF were stocked with highly regarded athletes in their title years, the Golden Bears stunned the sports world in 1959. Without a true star, they epitomized the essence of teamwork.

Stanford has won only three NCAA Tournament games in its history, but they came in succession during World War II. It took the school another 47 years to return to the tournament, only to have the 1989 team upset by Siena.

Had there been an NCAA Tournament before 1939, Stanford might have won two other championships. The 1937-38 teams, featuring jump-shooting pioneer Hank Luisetti, were a combined 46-5 and regarded as the finest in the land.

Coach Everett Dean came to Stanford from Indiana following the Luisetti era and put his stamp on the program with his fourth team.

“I expect this is the best basketball team I have coached,” Dean said of the 1942 champion.

“It was defensively outstanding. For a group of big boys, they were very active, handled themselves well, covered their men and used their arms excellently. Their reactions were really fast for big men.”

No other team in Stanford history has matched the 28-4 record of the 1942 team, one which overcame considerable odds to win the NCAA title at Kansas City, where the Indians (now Cardinal) became the sentimental favorite.

All-American Jim Pollard of Oakland topped tournament scorers that season with 48 points, and he got them all in victories over Rice (53-47) and Colorado (46-35). Pollard had the flu and could not suit up for the title game with Dartmouth.

Stanford suffered another blow when star guard Don Burness suffered a knee injury that significantly reduced his participation in the title game. Reserve Jack Dana replaced Pollard and scored 14 points. Howie Dallmar had 15 points and was the tournament most valuable player.

The team also had an advantage because all five starters played center in high school. The other starters were Ed Voss of Piedmont and Bill Cowden, perhaps the finest defensive guard in the nation that season.

Cal’s winningest team ever, the 1946 squad that finished 30-6 under coach Nibs Price, reached the Final Four behind Andy Wolfe and Merv LaFaille, losing to Ohio State 63-45. The Bay Area would not have another national-level champion until Pete Newell guided USF to the NIT crown in 1949. Newell later made his best-remembered mark as coach of Cal’s 1959 champions.

Phil Woolpert, like Newell a product of Loyola Marymount, succeeded his friend at USF and continued the Dons’ rise to national prominence.

That rise coincided with the arrival of Russell, an awkward youth who grew three inches after leaving McClymonds High of Oakland. Remarkably, the Dons were the only school to offer Russell a scholarship.

Russell developed quickly at USF, where he averaged 19.8 points and 19.2 rebounds as a sophomore. He was 6-foot-9 when the Dons went 28-1 his junior year and won their first national title by jolting La Salle 77-63.

Those 1955 champs lost their third game of the season to UCLA 47-40 and finished the season with 26 consecutive victories. Guard K.C. Jones, who shared top billing with Russell, credited the UCLA game for USF’s turnaround.

“We went to Westwood expecting to be beaten by 20, 25 points,” Jones said. “Playing so well on the road against such a good team really gave us confidence. We started to realize we were pretty good.”

The following week, USF passed another test. Playing in the All-College Tournament at USF, the black players created a stir among the white populace. The Dons unified and won three games by a total of 39 points.

The Dons’ next tough game was when they beat Oregon State, with 7-3 Swede Halbrook, 57-56 in the West Regional. USF crushed Colorado 62-50 in the national semifinal, setting up a championship clash with LaSalle.

Tom Gola, the Lionel Simmons of his day, was regarded by Easterners to be the finest center in the nation. The Dons and Russell had other ideas, but some sage strategy by Woolpert was more significant in a 77-63 Dons’ romp.

Instead of blanketing the 6-7 Gola with Russell, Woolpert assigned the 6-1 Jones to cover the LaSalle standout, who earned tournament MVP honors in 1954 for leading the Explorers to the NCAA title.

Jones came through beyond expectations. He limited Gola to 16 points, holding him scoreless for 21 minutes at one stretch, and contributed a game-high 24 points. With a lesser burden, Russell notched 23 points and 25 rebounds.

Russell averaged 21.4 points and 20.5 rebounds as a junior, and clearly was the main man for the Dons--a team without a home arena--who were on the verge of achieving even greater acclaim one year later.

Forward Jerry Mullen and guard Stan Buchanan were gone from the starting five for the 1955-56 season, but they were capably replaced by Mike Farmer, Carl Boldt and Gene Brown, who joined holdover stars Russell, Jones and Hal Perry. The Dons actually improved, going 29-0. Their only big scare was during a midseason game at Berkeley.

A 79-50 rout of Fresno State made top-ranked USF 13-0 and tied Seton Hall and Long Island University for the NCAA record of 39 straight victories. Newell and the Golden Bears stood in the path of No. 40.

Woolpert expected the worst, and he got it. Cal bolted to an early 10-point lead before USF’s vaunted press put the Dons ahead. Early in the second half, the Bears went into a lengthy stall, and USF was “held” to a 33-24 victory.

There were no other close calls for the Dons, even in the NCAA Tournament. USF breezed past UCLA, Utah, SMU and Iowa by an average of 14 points, downing the Hawkeyes 83-71 for a second straight championship.

When Iowa took a 15-4 lead, Woolpert put 5-8 guard Warren Baxter in the game. The new lineup placed five blacks on the floor for perhaps the first time in a major-college game, and they helped the Dons overtake Iowa.

Jones, ruled ineligible for the tournament by the NCAA, wasn’t among them, but the Dons had more than enough talent to compensate for the loss.

Boldt and Brown each scored 16 points against Iowa, and Russell was up to his old tricks in big games. The All-America center scored 26 points, grabbed 27 rebounds and blocked several shots.

Russell finished his senior season averaging 20.5 points and 21.0 rebounds and continued his brilliance with the NBA Boston Celtics. His dominance of the college game resulted in a major rules change: making goaltending an infraction.

“This team is the finest I’ve seen,” Woolpert conceded following the unblemished season. “It has done everything asked of it. The difference -- without a doubt -- was Russell.”

The Dons concluded the season with 55 consecutive victories and increased their NCAA record streak to 60 before losing to Illinois the next season. They reached the Final Four again, without Russell and Jones, and were defeated by Kansas 80-56, finishing 22-7.

It was the end of a great era of Bay Area basketball, one that showcased the sport at its finest and also had broader implications. Cal’s NCAA triumph in 1959 was the last by an all-white team.

Newell didn’t take long to achieve success at Cal after replacing Price as coach. His 1957 team, featuring Larry Friend and Earl Robinson, went 21-5 and was eliminated by USF in the West Regionals 50-46.

Cal reached the tournament again in 1958 before striking gold in 1959, despite a so-so 9-4 start. The Bears built a 16-game winning streak thereafter and stunned Cincinnati and West Virginia for the title.

That was a significant feat because Cal was rated fourth best among the Final Four teams, host Louisville being the other. Moreover, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West were the nation’s top two players for Cincinnati and West Virginia.

The Bears were a bunch of no-names, although center Darrall Imhoff was a blossoming junior who would attain All-American status as a senior and play for years in the NBA.

“I don’t want people to think it was a nontalented team that was coached to victory,” Newell said. “On other clubs, my players would have had sectional and national honors, I am certain.”

The 6-10 Imhoff averaged 11.5 points and 11.0 rebounds for the Bears, who were led in scoring by guard Denny Fitzpatrick (13.3). Captain Al Buch was a heady guard who averaged 9.2 points. Bill McClintock and Bob Dalton were the forwards.

Cal beat Utah (71-53) and St. Mary’s (66-46) in the West Regionals, but its nation-leading defense figured to be tested by Cincinnati. With Robertson being held to five field goals and 19 points, the Bears posted a 64-58 upset.

West scored 28 in the championship game, but Fitzpatrick’s 20 points and Dalton’s 15 paced four Bears in double figures during the 71-70 shocker over the Mountaineers.

Imhoff and McClintock returned to power Cal to a 28-2 record in 1960, and the Bears for the second year in a row led the nation in defense. The Bears crushed Idaho State, Santa Clara and Oregon to reach the Final Four once again.

Hopes were high for a second straight title--and the fourth in six years by a Bay Area team--because the Bears virtually were playing at home in the Cow Palace, and they reached the finals by downing Cincinnati 77-69.

But there was no storybook ending that time. Ohio State turned remarkable shooting into a 75-55 victory. That was the last NCAA game in the Bay Area and Cal’s final NCAA appearance until this season’s 22-10 squad beat Indiana and lost to Connecticut last week.

USF’s tradition continued with solid teams in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Pete Peletta, who was recommended to the Dons by Newell after the junior college coach sent McClintock to Cal, took the school to three straight NCAA tournaments.

With players like Joe Ellis, Erwin Mueller and Ollie Johnson, USF came close to keeping John Wooden and UCLA from their first two NCAA titles in 1964-65. The Dons beat the Bruins 76-75 in the 1963 tournament.

At the 1964 West Regional at Corvallis, Ore., USF matched its 18-game winning streak against UCLA’s 27 in a row. The Dons built a 36-28 halftime lead before the Bruins pulled out a 76-72 victory.