1955-56

Defending national champion San Francisco staked its claim as the best college basketball team ever in 1955–56. The Dons entered the season on a 26–game winning streak and exited with a record 55 in a row by becoming the first undefeated team (29–0) ever to win the NCAA title.

All four of USF's tourney opponents were ranked—No.8 UCLA, No.18 Utah, No.7 SMU and No.4 Iowa—and the Dons beat them all by at least 11 points. Iowa, the Big Ten champ for the second straight year, came into the NCAA final on a 17–game win streak of its own before losing, 83–71.

USF center Bill Russell might have cinched his second tournament Most Outstanding Player award if Temple's 5-11 Hal Lear hadn't scored 160 point in five games. But the defensive-minded Russell was everybody's Player of the year and established such an intimidating court presence that following the season, the NCAA passed the so-called “Russell-Rule,” extending the foul lane from six to 12 feet.

Second-ranked N.C. State (24–3) was expected to challenge USF for the NCAA title, until unranked Canisius upset them in the opening round in four overtimes.

Finally, Kansas coach Phog Allen retired with a 48–year record of 746–264

Final AP Top 20 (Writers' poll taken before major tournaments).

Note: San Francisco won the NCAAs and Louisville won the NIT.

Consensus All-America (In alphabetical order)

  First Team

·         Robin Freeman, Ohio St.

·         Si Green, Duquesne

·         Tom Heinsohn, Holy Cross

·         Bill Russell, San Francisco

·         Ron Shavik, N.C. State

  Second Team

·         Bob Burrow, Kentucky

·         Darrell Floyd, Furman

·         Rod Hundley, West Virginia

·         K.C. Jones, San Francisco

·         Willie Naulls, UCLA

·         Bill Uhl, Dayton

AP POLL

1. San Francisco
2. N.C. State
3. Dayton
4. Iowa
5. Alabama
6. Louisville
7. SMU
8. UCLA
9. Kentucky
10. Illinois

UPI COACHES POLL

NCAA Results

First Round
Connecticut 84, Manhattan 75
Temple 74, Holy Cross 72
Dartmouth 61, West Virginia 59
Canisius 79, N.C. State 78 (4 OT)
Wayne State (Mich.) 72, DePaul 63
Morehead State 107, Marshall 92
Seattle 68, Idaho State 66
SMU 68, Texas Tech 67
Oklahoma City 97, Memphis State 81
Regional Semifinals
Canisius 66, Dartmouth 58
Temple 65, Connecticut 59
Iowa 97, Morehead State 83
Kentucky 84, Wayne State (Mich.) 64
Southern Methodist 89, Houston 84
Oklahoma City 97, Kansas State 93
San Francisco 72, UCLA 61
Utah 81, Seattle 72
Regional Third Place
East:
Dartmouth 85, Connecticut 64
Midwest:
Morehead State 95, Wayne State 84
West:
Kansas State 89, Houston 70
Far West:
UCLA 94, Seattle 70
Regional Finals
East:
Temple 60, Canisius 58
Midwest:
Iowa 89, Kentucky 77
West:
SMU 84, Oklahoma City 63
Far West:
San Francisco 92, Utah 77
National Semifinals
Iowa 83, Temple 76
San Francisco 86, SMU 68
National Third Place
Temple 90, SMU 81
Championship Game
San Francisco 83, Iowa 71
San Francisco leaders: C Bill Russell, Sr.; G K.C. Jones, Sr.; G Hall Perry, Sr.; F Carl Boldt, Jr.; F Mike Farmer, So.

All-NCAA Tournament Team

Top 10

All-America Team

All-America Team

Leaders
Team

Offense: Morehead State, 95.9
Defense: San Francisco, 52.2

Individual Scoring

Rebounding

• Alabama was ranked 5th but did not participate in NCAA because of a rules technicality involving freshman players.

• Louisville defeated Dayton 93-80 to win the NIT.

• Darrell Floyd scored 62 vs. The Citadel, which during this season broke its NCAA-record 37-game losing streak.

Dons win again as Russell soars - 1956
By Joe Gergen
For The Sporting News

Defending a national championship should have been sufficient challenge for any team. But San Francisco, coming off a 28-1 season, was not just any team and the Dons were faced with an additional test as they attempted to repeat in 1956. They were deprive d of their captain and floor leader for the NCAA Tournament.

K.C. Jones had been permitted to return for a fifth season because he had missed all but one game of the 1954 season after his emergency appendectomy. But that one game, authorities ruled, rendered him ineligible for postseason competition.

One of three returning starters from the 1955 team, Jones had directed USF to a 36-0 regular-season record.

With Jones and Hal Perry operating in the backcourt for a second successive year and Russell flanked by upgraded forwards Mike Farmer and Carl Boldt, the Dons overwhelmed all opponents. Their lowest margin of victory in establishing a college record for consecutive victories was seven points.

"The best college team I've ever seen," declared Joe Lapchick, the respected coach at St. John's. "They play a defense I never saw before."

San Francisco's presence was requested from coast to coast. The Dons -- particularly Russell -- wowed the critics in New York, sweeping three games in the ECAC Holiday Festival. First, they drubbed La Salle (minus the graduated Tom Gola), 79-62, behind the center's 26 points and 22 rebounds.

Then they battered Holy Cross, 67-51, as Russell rejected a half-dozen shots, outscored All-American Tom Heinsohn, 24-12, and added 22 rebounds. Finally, their defense so thoroughly suffocated UCLA in a 70-53 finale that the big man was required to do nothing more than score 17 points and seize 18 rebounds.

So loose and confident was the team that it appeared to intimidate opponents off the court as well as on. The USF and UCLA teams were staying at the same hotel for the Holiday Festival and the crowded conditions made it necessary for the two groups t o eat their pregame meals at the same time in the same room. The Bruins were all business. They ate quietly while meditating on their assignments as directed by coach John Wooden.

Nearby, well within earshot, the Dons enjoyed themselves, needling each other and even rising one at a time to say a few words on behalf of coach Phil Woolpert's wedding anniversary. The subject of San Francisco's opponents, notably UCLA star Willie "The Whale" Naulls, did come up.

"Hey, Bill," someone said to Russell, "do you think you could possibly be courteous to The Whale tonight?" He obviously was not.

A month later, USF posted its 40th consecutive triumph over two seasons and surpassed the accepted all-time major-college record. (Various other streaks were adjusted above 40 in a later-year rewriting of the record books, but USF would tack on anoth er 15 consecutive victories in the '56 season and five more in its first post-Russell season.)

No. 40 came across the bay at Berkeley as the Dons overcame a slowdown ordered by Pete Newell, Woolpert's former college teammate at Loyola of Los Angeles and his predecessor at San Francisco. The final score was 33-24.

Jones' final college game, against St. Mary's, attracted a sellout crowd to Kezar Pavilion. Woolpert pulled all three prominent seniors -- Jones, Russell and Perry -- midway through the second half with the Dons comfortably in front and then everyone stood around through a tumultuous five-minute ovation.

"I could feel the chills down my back," the coach said.

The only question left to be answered was whether San Francisco -- without Jones -- would be vulnerable in the NCAA Tournament, which for the first time would crown regional champions from four geographic areas (the Far West, West, Midwest and East, designations that would undergo modifications as early as the next season and in later years as well).

The Dons' first opponent in the Far West Regional was UCLA, the last team to defeat USF but a badly beaten victim in the clubs' previous meeting.

"UCLA can whip San Francisco without Jones on the floor," volunteered Tippy Dye, the Washington coach.

If UCLA's Wooden felt that way, he certainly chose to suppress his feelings.

"We have improved a great deal," he said, "and perhaps the loss of K.C. Jones will hurt them. However, they've still got Russell and he's the ballclub."

His impact on his team and the sport was incalculable. In his first visit to Woolpert's office, Russell had informed the coach that he intended to become an All-American.

As farfetched at that might have seemed at the time, he had done better. Russell was altering time-honored concepts of the game, leading basketball into a new order.

His desire to improve and to win was remarkable. He spent hours working in an otherwise empty gym with assistant coach Ross Giudice. He spent hours talking defensive strategy with Jones. He spent hours playing one-on-one with Perry, a quick little ma n.

"If you can catch the flea," Perry told him, "you can catch the elephant."

Russell had caught everybody and everything, including the brass ring. All that remained was the opportunity to play for the first undefeated champions in NCAA Tournament history. He would be surrounded by Perry, Boldt, Farmer and Gene Brown, a sopho more guard who was a better outside shot than Jones but not in his class as a defender.

Coach Dudey Moore of Duquesne had called Brown "the best substitute in the country," and he lived up to that billing against UCLA. He scored a team-high 23 points, complementing Russell's 21 in San Francisco's 72-61 triumph.

Moore scored 18 more in the following game, Russell added 27 and the Dons romped over Utah, 92-77. The senior center had 45 rebounds in the two games.

The rest of the field in the Final Four, staged at Evanston, Ill., for the first time since the initial NCAA championship was held there in 1939, consisted of Temple from the East, Iowa from the Midwest and Southern Methodist from the West.

Patten Gymnasium had been replaced by a new field house, McGaw Hall, on the Northwestern campus and 10,600 fans, almost double the figure that attended the inaugural event, saw Iowa stop Temple, 83-76. What followed was a dismemberment of an SMU team t hat had won 25 of 27 previous games.

Perry, chosen captain for the tournament, and Brown hit consistently from outside and the 6-foot-7 Farmer, left open whenever the Mustangs tried to cover Russell with two men, scored as he pleased. The Dons took a 40-19 lead en route to an 86-68 vict ory that pleased everyone but Russell. He didn't think he played well, despite the fact he backed Farmer's 26-point effort with 17 points.

Nevertheless, USF once again had qualified for the championship game. Iowa, the Big Ten Conference champion, was a resourceful team and wasted no time exploiting a weakness in the Dons' defense to open a 15-4 lead.

The Hawkeyes positioned Bill Logan, a 6-7 center, at the free-throw line. When Russell moved out to guard him, star forward Carl "Sugar" Cain slipped in behind him, took a lob pass and scored.

"We didn't have a forward quick enough to stay with him (Cain)," Perry said.

So Woolpert called a timeout, removed Boldt and shifted Brown from guard to forward. Warren Baxter, a 5-8 reserve, came in at guard.

The Dons responded to the situation at both ends of the court and pushed into the lead at 24-23. By halftime, they held a 38-33 advantage and then drained the mystery from the game in the second half. USF prevailed, 83-71.

Fittingly, Russell was immense in his final game for San Francisco. One of four Dons in double figures, he scored 26 points, grabbed 27 rebounds and intimidated Logan -- a 36-point scorer in the semifinals -- into a 12-point performance from distant spots on the floor.

The outstanding-player award was denied the Dons' pivotman only because Temple's Hal Lear used the consolation game as a stage for the greatest scoring performance in tournament history, 48 points. Lear hadn't done badly in the Owls' semifinal game, ei ther, netting 32 points against Iowa.

In stretching its record for consecutive victories to 55, USF completed a 29-0 season and became the third school to win back-to-back championships. Of the three men primarily responsible for two years of dominance, only Russell and Perry were in uni form for the '56 Final Four. Jones watched from the bench in civilian clothes.

But when the trophy presentation was made, Perry coaxed Jones to the center of the court.

"I wanted to show my respect for the man," Perry said. And the two captains, regular-season and postseason, accepted the award.

The best group of players never recruited had capped the most successful season in college basketball history.