In this segment we will look at the college landscape 50 years ago. Let's start with Villanova.
As far as the "landscape" of the Villanova campus, there were no buildings on the "South" campus. There were no buildings on the "West" campus except for St. Mary's Hall that, if memory serves me, was not open yet. This dorm was property of the Augustinian Order built to house all their seminarians. Once the shortage of vocations became sadly evident, the University purchased the dorm. There was no Connolly Center, no Kennedy Hall (which houses the bookstore). Across from Vasey was an Army barracks called the classroom annex. To most of us it was just a shack, a real eye sore. It was an all-male institution except for their nursing program and for the daughters of the faculty. No other "skirts" were allowed. Students had to attend classes in a coat and tie.
We played 3 or 4 games at the Fieldhouse (now "The Jake") and the rest of the games were played in double headers at the Palestra (Penn's home court). There was no ESPN/Fox Sports but a new cable station WPHL Channel 17 with Charlie (always wore a turtleneck) Swift and Al Meltzer as the broadcasters. The Palestra had it all - the streamers after the 1st basket that would rain down on the court, the roll outs, the pep bands and, oh yea, YoYo, an old geezer who came to every game in a coat and tie and fedora and do his little dance. He was the ultimate "gym rat".
In 1965 -66 Jack Ramsey's St. Joe's Hawks would go 4-0/24-5 and play in the NCAA Tournament. Harry Litwack's Temple Owls were 3-1/21-7 and go to the NIT. Jack McCloskey's Penn Quakers were 2-2/19-6. Joe Heyer's LaSalle Explorers were 1-3/10-15. Jack Kraft's Cats were 0-4/18-11 and play in the NIT. The NIT was a very prestigious tournament at the time as the NCAA only took 22 teams for its tournament and the NIT had 14 for a total of 36 to play in the postseason.
The All Big 5 Team that year was: Cliff Anderson and Matt Guokas from St. Joe's; Hubie Marshall from LaSalle; Jeff Neuman and Stan Pawlak from Penn; Jim Williams from Temple and Billy Melchionni, who would win the Geasey Award as the MVP from Villanova.
Player uniforms had 2 numbers - even for home and odd for away. Thus, Melchionni wore 24 and 25 on the road. Players could only play 3 years of varsity ball since freshman eligibility was not granted until 1972. Villanova had, what was considered as, a top 5 freshman team in the nation. Their stars were Johnny Jones, a 6-4 athlete from Pompano Beach in Florida; Frankie Gillen, a PG from Bonner and 6-7 Jim McIntosh from Lincoln H.S. in Philly. Most teams were composed of players from a 50 mile radius of the school or from their home state. George Raveling changed that for Villanova. Johnny Jones was discovered by Raveling from the last page of Sports Illustrated with their Faces In The Crowd, which had little blurbs about a significant accomplishment by an athlete. Johnny Jones had scored 32 field goals and 21 free throws for 85 points - a new Florida record - while leading his team to a 193-58 win over Del Ray Beach Carver - another state scoring record. This record would stand for two more years until a certain Howard Porter would lead his team to a score of 200 points in a game while scoring over 50 himself.
Texas Western would shock and change the college basketball landscape forever with their 72-65 win over #1 ranked Kentucky to win the NCAA Tournament. They started 5 black players against an all-white Kentucky squad with their racist coach Adolph Rupp. The tournament had 6 schools from the Eastern region, 6 from the Mideast and 5 each from the Midwest and West for a total of 22. Although Texas Western won, the best team that year was a freshman team from UCLA with the greatest college basketball player ever - 7-2 Lewis Alcindor. Alcindor averaged 31 &21 a game; Lynn Shackelford and Lucius Allen both averaged over 20 and the freshmen beat the two-time defending NCAA Champs, UCLA Varsity, 75-60.
The All American Team that year was; Dave Bing from Syracuse, Clyde Lee (Vanderbilt), Cazzie Russell (Michigan), Dave Schellhase (Purdue) and Jimmy Walker (Providence). Cazzie Russell was the MVP.
The All Tournament Team in the NCAA that year was: Jerry Chambers (Utah), Louie Dampier and Pat Riley (Kentucky), Bobby Joe Hill (Texas Western) and Jack Marin (Duke).
Three other players deserve mention: Wes Unseld (Louisville) set a rebounding record with 19.4 a game; Maryland guard Billy Jones became the 1st African American to compete in the ACC and Steve Donches, a seldom-used sub, threw up a 29 foot prayer at the buzzer to beat Villanova that year. As no Villanovan will ever forget Kris Jenkins' "shot", no one from St. Joe's has ever forgotten their "shot"
