Final Four Fact February: The Legend of Bill Russell Begins

Let’s start this edition of Final Four Fact February with a recommendation of the new Netflix documentary chronicling the life and career of Bill Russell, Legend. A must-watch for any basketball fan.

Legend begins with Russell’s early years after his family relocated to Oakland, and the improbable factoid that one of the most transformative players in the game’s history had no scholarship offers but the University of San Francisco.

Just as improbable is Russell’s fears, early into his tenure with the Boston Celtics, he would be cut from the roster. The latter is particularly staggering, given just how dominant Bill Russell was at USF.

Russell led the Dons to two national championships, the first culminating in 1955 at the Municipal Auditorium in Kansas City.

USF’s basketball championship came less than four years after its football program’s Orange Bowl snub

Before Bill Russell and K.C. Jones arrived at USF, the Dons boasted a standout football team. USF ran the table in 1951 and was ranked 14th.

The history is unofficial — Orange Bowl reps have been mum on the subject for years, and as this excellent 1990 Sports Illustrated article spells out, the episode generated little fanfare for decades. Nevertheless, the commonly agreed sequence of events says that the undefeated ‘51 Dons were informally approached about playing fellow unbeaten Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl under the condition USF left its Black athletes at home.

USF refused, and losing out on the associated bowl-game payout resulted in the immediate closure of the football program.

In an alternative universe’s timeline, USF football gets the shot at perhaps a share of the national championship and combines with Dons basketball winning the NCAA Tournament to establish the university as an athletic powerhouse.

Bill Russell shot better than 70 percent from the floor in 4-of-5 Tournament games

In Legend, the chief criticism noted of Russell’s game upon entering the NBA is that his shot-making was limited to attempts at the rim. That may be, but when you’re making 40-of-53, as Russell accomplished through the first four Tournament games, it’s tough to argue with the results.

Russell’s stretch of unparalleled shot-making included an 11-of-14 showing against Oregon State in the Regional final, a game in which the big man matched his Tournament-high with 29 points and grabbed 16 rebounds.

San Francisco needed every bit of that production: The Dons narrowly escaped the Beavers, 57-56, despite leading almost wire-to-wire. Per the United Press wire report of the USF victory, Russell shined in spite of a cold — which limited him to 13 points on 5-of-7 shooting the previous night in a win against Utah — and while drawing the key defensive assignment, Oregon State’s “Swede” Halbrook.

At 7-foot-3, Halbrook was one of basketball’s first giants. Sports Illustrated regaled readers with a day-in-the-life examination of being so big a month prior to OSC’s encounter with USF.

Halbrook averaged almost 21 points and more than 14 rebounds per game in the 1954-55 season; Russell held him in check in the Dons’ win.

Despite Russell’s dominance in the post, Oregon State went on a furious rally late that included a converted free throw off a K.C. Jones technical late in the game. The foul shot brought the score to its final, making it the third of three games decided by just one point in that Tournament.

8-of-28 games were decided by four points or fewer

The three one-point finals in the 1955 Tournament — Villanova over Duke in the 1st Round of the East-1 Region, 74-73; Tulsa beating SMU in the West-1 Region third-place game, 68-67; and USF’s West-2 Regional final defeat of Oregon State — accounted for a portion of numerous close calls throughout the postseason.

Almost 30 percent of the entire Tournament came down to two possessions, including Penn State beating Memphis State and Bradley holding off Oklahoma City each by four points in their 1st Round matchups.

Villanova’s one-point win over Duke was similar to USF’s defeat of OSC, with the Wildcats leading throughout but needing to hold off a furious, late-game rally. The next game, however, Villanova needed to come back against Canisius — which the Wildcats did, forcing a 71-71 tie with more than two minutes remaining.

Thirty years before Villanova became the most famous team in Final Four history to leverage the game clock in its favor, and the last winner of a contest played sans-shot clock, the Wildcats were victims of similar circumstances.

From the Buffalo Evening News:

Canisius’ run ended in the Regional final against defending champion La Salle when one of the all-time greats of early college basketball, Tom Gola, went for 30 points and 25 rebounds.

Gola followed that performance up with 23 points, including a perfect 7-of-7 from the free-throw line, and 13 rebounds in the last of the Tournament’s nail-biters: A 73-70 Explorers win over Iowa to advance to the title game.

Tom Gola scored one point in 1955 than in 1954 when he won MOP

Tom Gola led the Explorers to the 1954 national title, concluding a remarkable postseason with 19 points against Bradley for a total of 114 in the five-game postseason.

Gola finished with three points fewer in the national title game a year later, running up against the defensive dominance of Russell and Co., but Gola outpaced his 1954 postseason production with 115 points.

Gola grabbed 18 rebounds in his showdown with Russell, but both Bill and the Dons ultimately had the upper hand: Russell scored 23 points despite being limited to 9-of-22 shooting from the floor and grabbed a remarkable 25 boards.

Russell helped limit Gola to 6-of-15 shooting from the field. The operative word, however, is helped: In a bit of foreshadowing of what made him a Hall of Famer in the NBA, K.C. Jones drew the primary assignment of defending Gola despite giving up six inches in height.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The 1955 National Championship did not air on television

While La Salle’s 1954 title win over Bradley aired nationally, becoming the first NCAA Tournament contest broadcast on live television, the only way to see the following year’s championship live was to be one of the 10,000 in the sold-out Municipal Auditorium.

College hoops spent the better part of the ensuing decade-plus in a TV quagmire, in part because the speed of the game simply made it more difficult to shoot than football or baseball, and the surface wasn’t quite compact enough compared to boxing or wrestling, which were TV hits of the medium’s early days.

How far we’ve come.