College Basketball: Doctor of Ferocity

COLLEGE BASKETBALL

It is getting harder and harder for St. Joseph’s College of Philadelphia to maintain its position as the most underrated basketball school in the U.S. Not that St. Joe’s doesn’t try. A small (enrollment: 1,719) Jesuit liberal arts college, it conducts no high-powered recruiting campaign, schedules no gut courses for athletes, and employs a lecturer in education as head coach. Considering also that all but one of the players on the St. Joe’s varsity come from Pennsylvania, and that the average height of the squad is a mere 6 ft. 3 in., the Hawks of St. Joe’s would figure to be more like pigeons—except that they almost always win.

Last season, counting a 17-game South American tour on behalf of the State Department, St. Joe’s won 42 out of 46 games, wound up No. 3 in the nation. Last week, after six games of the 1965-66 season, the Hawks were up to No. 2—and even that seemed like an insult, looking at the records of their rivals. U.C.L.A., picked by most experts to win its third straight N.C.A.A. championship, dropped two games in a row to Duke. Duke thereby jumped all the way from No. 6 to No. 1, despite a loss to unranked South Carolina. Michigan lost 100-94 to Wichita State but still held the No. 3 spot. By contrast, St. Joseph’s highflying Hawks were not only still undefeated, they had not come within 17 points of losing. In two games last week, they clobbered Albright, 85-54, and Michigan State, 82-65.

Cymbals & Tears. “Ferocity,” according to Coach Jack Ramsay, is the key to St. Joe’s game—and opponents who have experienced the dubious pleasure of playing the Hawks in the cacophonous confines of Philadelphia’s Palestra, know just what he means. The screaming starts at the opening whistle, and it does not stop until the final buzzer—even for foul shots. A masked, feathered mascot dances about the sidelines while cymbals clash, and the cheering section roars: “The Hawk will never die!” An Ed. D. who is always called “Doctor” by his players, Ramsay is a pretty ferocious fellow himself—wringing towels, bouncing up and down on the bench, shouting hoarse-voiced encouragement to his Hawks. “He’s so intense that it’s almost impossible to speak to him for ten or fifteen minutes after a game,” says a St. Joseph’s administrator. “He gets ’em up so far that after we won one game a couple of our subs were in the dressing room crying, and they hadn’t even been in the game.”

Ramsay’s charges do isometric and isotonic exercises to increase their leaping ability (Center Cliff Anderson is only 6 ft. 4 in., but he can jump to a height of 12 ft., has averaged 14 rebounds a game so far this year). And they compensate for their lack of height with a go-go game designed to rattle bigger, slower opponents. On defense, St. Joe’s favorite tactic is the “zone press”—a full-court, blanket defense described by one opposition player as “like running into a windmill.” The idea, says Ramsay, “is to stop the man who is advancing the ball on the dribble and cut off the passing outlets.”

A Method. On offense, St. Joe’s relies mainly on a pro-style fast break, with Guard Matt Guokas acting as “the quarterback”—taking the ball up the center of the court and passing off to one of his two forwards for the shot. Guokas, says Coach Dolph Schayes of the pro Philadelphia Warriors, “could play for me right now.” Ramsay’s only complaint is that Matt, who is the best shot as well as the best playmaker on the team, is inclined to pass off too often. There’s a method. So far this season, Guokas has taken 43 shots at the basket, has scored with 30 of them—giving him the fourth best field-goal percentage in the nation.