Final Four Fact February: Big O Meets His Match in San Francisco
Oscar Robertson is among the most transformative players in basketball history.
The Big O revolutionized the role of the point guard, playing a combination scorer and distributor with equal efficiency and paving the way for Pete Maravich, Nate Archibald and Russell Westbrook.
Robertson won an Indiana State championship at Crispus Attucks High School, a feat that in the 1950s was arguably more difficult than winning an NCAA championship. He later helped the Milwaukee Bucks to their first NBA title.
But Robertson is not among the rare breed to have won each of an NBA title, NBA Most Valuable Player and NCAA Tournament championship, a club that features Bill Russell, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton.
Cincinnati won a pair of championships in the early 1960s, both in the seasons immediately following Robertson’s departure for the NBA’s Cincinnati Royals.
If you’re a believer in hackneyed, mid-2000s mysticism, Oscar Robertson is a proto-example of Ewing Theory. However, that’s a reductive and frankly incorrect way of evaluating the end to Big O’s college career.
The 1960 semifinals and championship were the first played in California
The first NCAA Tournament culminated in Evanston, Illinois, on the campus of Northwestern University — a factoid that suggests Fate has a sense of humor, given the school’s basketball program wouldn’t actually make it into an NCAA Tournament until 78 years later.
From that first edition of what would become March Madness, the championship moved around the country, including a residency at Madison Square Garden that ended in turmoil.
While the event that later was named the Final Four had been played on the West Coast prior to 1960 — twice held in Seattle — the San Francisco-area’s venerable Cow Palace was the first California venue to host.
Though it never returned to the Bay Area, the Golden State welcomed the Final Four four times total from 1960 through 1975. The ‘75 edition at the San Diego Sports Arena was the last held in California, however, a casualty of the championship trending toward being dome-exclusive by the ‘80s.
That Stan Kroenke’s extravagant SoFi Stadium in Inglewood has a roof yet no walls, thus disqualifying it as a viable Final Four site, is one of the more infuriating developments of recent years.
San Francisco hosting the Final Four in the pre-dome days turned out well for one of the semifinalists, as Cal pursued a back-to-back championship just 18 miles from its campus.
Oscar Robertson recorded what may have been the first (only?) points/rebounds/assists triple-double in Final Four history
Officially, only eight players have recorded nine total triple-doubles in NCAA Tournament history — but that’s because certain statistics were not officially kept for categories like assists (1983-84) and blocked shots (1985-86).
It’s possible Bill Russell produced the first triple-double in Final Four history with an unofficial 26-point, 27-rebound and 20-block effort in San Francisco’s title win over Iowa in 1956. However, because of the lack of official tracking for certain categories, Russell’s can’t be definitively labeled as such.
Likewise, Oscar Robertson may not have had the first or only points/rebounds/assists triple-double in an NCAA semifinal or championship. Based on the reputable sources I checked out, however, the thought can be entertained.
Big O scored 18 points despite shooting a dismal 4-of-16 from the floor in Cincinnati’s 77-69 semifinal loss to Cal, getting to the free-throw line for 12 attempts.
The abundance of foul shots and Robertson’s poor field-goal shooting were byproducts of the same thing: legendary Cal head man Pete Newell and that season’s USBWA Coach of the Year employed a strategy wherein the Golden Bears essentially quintuple-teamed Big O, who was averaging more than 34 points per game coming into the national semifinal.
“I’m glad we don’t have to play against Oscar anymore,” Newell told the Associated Press following the win. “His assists must have set up at least 35 points. We jammed up on him in the first half. We had to overplay Oscar so much they got a man loose.”
College Basketball Reference credits Robertson with dishing 10 assists to match his 10 rebounds, thus completing the triple-double. However, Newell’s assertion Big O passed for “at least 35 points” suggests more from the Bearcats guard.
NYU became the last Metropolitan New York Final Four team until 1985
New York’s part in growing college basketball into a national sport cannot be overstated. Madison Square Garden earned its nickname as “The Mecca” from a hoops perspective for its hosting of top 10 matchups throughout the regular season, holding the National Invitational Tournament when it was arguably the more important postseason event, and hosting 7-of-8 national championships from 1943 through 1950.
Likewise, Metropolitan New York schools fielded outstanding teams in the post-World War II years that proved so instrumental in shaping the sport. CCNY and Long Island U. are more famous today for having been at the center of the 1951 point-shaving arrests, but both were powerhouses of the day — CCNY in particular.
Frank McGuire oversaw a winning program at St. John’s, coaching the Johnnies to the National Championship in 1952. And NYU — a school known more for producing award-winning filmmakers than NBA talent — enjoyed runs of success under coaches Howard Cann and Lou Rossini that extended from the ‘40s into the ‘60s.
Cann coached the Violets to the 1945 National Championship Game but had no answer for the original dominant college basketball big man, Bob Kurland.
Fifteen years later, the Violets returned to the Final Four against an expanded field but again ran up against one of the college game’s all-time greats.
NYU finished the regular season with just three losses, two of them to teams that joined the Violets in the NCAA Tournament East Region:
West Virginia, featuring a near-30-point per game scorer by the name of Jerry West.
Saint Joseph’s, making what was the second in a run of seven NCAA Tournament appearances over eight years with Hall of Fame Jack Ramsay at the helm.
While NYU did not get a rematch with Doctor Jack’s Hawks — Saint Joe’s lost a 58-56 heartbreaker to Duke in the opening round — the Violets did get a mulligan against the Mountaineers.
West Virginia pasted NYU in the regular season, 98-69, but the Violets scored revenge in overtime of the Tournament. West went for 34 points, outscoring the Violets’ own future Hall of Famer “Satch” Sanders with 28. But Al Filardi grabbed 21 rebounds (unofficially) to go with Sanders’ 19, and Filardi was one of four Violets starters to score at least 13 points.
Among the quartet, 5-foot-8 Russ Cunningham connected on the game-tying basket in regulation and sank what proved to be the game-winning free throw in overtime.
Cunningham scored nine points in the regional final win over Duke, while Sanders went for 22 points. Those are noteworthy statistics given the opponent, as the Black players Cunningham and Sanders came up big against a school in Duke that just 15 years earlier, had to arrange to play neighboring HBCU North Carolina Central (then the North Carolina College for Negroes) in secret for fear of retaliation from locals1.
NYU’s historic run to San Francisco ended in defeat, and no New York metro program reached the Final Four again until St. John’s in 1985.
Jerry Lucas recorded double-doubles (unofficially) in every game en route to the first of two Most Outstanding Player awards
Much like the ‘45 NYU Violets’ title hopes ended against one of college basketball’s earliest superstars, the ‘60 Violets ran into a buzzsaw with Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas.
Lucas ranks among the most accomplished players in college hoops history, earning All-American recognition three times; National Player of the Year twice; and NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player twice.
His MOP recognition in ‘60 was a no-brainer, with Lucas leading Ohio State to the national championship with performances of 36 and 25 points in the Regional, then 19 and 16 in the Final Four. Lucas also helped shut down Cal’s star and All-American, Darralll Imhoff, who finished with eight points.
Unofficially, he recorded a double-double in every postseason game, including grabbing 25 rebounds against Western Kentucky and officially, he shot 64 percent from the floor for the Tournament.
Lucas repeated as MOP the following season, joining a club of players to earn the honor without winning the championship. Others are:
Jimmy Hull, Ohio State (1939)
B.H. Born, Kansas (1953)
Hal Lear, Temple (1956)
Wilt Chamberlain, Kansas (1957)
Elgin Baylor, Seattle (1958)
Jerry West, Virginia (1959)
Art Heyman, Duke (1963)
Bill Bradley, Princeton (1965)
Jerry Chambers, Utah (1966)
Howard Porter, Villanova (1971)
Hakeem Olajuwon, Houston (1983)
Scott Ellsworth’s book The Secret Game is a must-read for any hardcore basketball fan, but it’s also an illuminating read for those interested in World War II-era American history.