WVU Surprises St. John's
July 10, 2003 10:43 AM | General
December 29, 2002
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Nineteen forty-six was the year the GI Bill became a reality for thousands of U.S. veterans returning from the devastating war in Europe and Asia. College campuses throughout America were being populated by 25, 26, 27 and even 30-year-old college students tempered by a war unlike no other in the history of mankind.
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| Lou Leverte watches two players scramble for the ball during West Virginia's upset win over St. John's. (WVU Sports Communications) |
Hundreds of “GI Joes” made their way to the West Virginia University campus at the start of the fall semester in 1946, including several candidates for WVU’s basketball team.
Although the Mountaineers had been playing basketball since 1903, the program really took off during the 1941-42 season when Coach Dyke Raese took an underdog Mountaineer team to New York and upset Long Island, Toledo and Western Kentucky to win the 1942 National Invitational Tournament. That title remains 59 years later as West Virginia’s only major tournament championship in men’s basketball.
The U.S. Navy claimed Raese shortly after the NIT championship and the Mountaineer program was directed by NIT star Rudy Baric in 1943, Harry Lothes in 1944 and John Brickels in 1945.
Although Brickels only stayed one season before accepting Paul Brown’s offer to join the Cleveland Browns football staff, he orchestrated a 12-6 record in 1945 and developed a solid nucleus of players for new Coach Lee Patton.
Among those holdovers were guard Bob Carroll, a Wheeling High product who was named to the Pittsburgh Press all-district team as a freshman in 1945, 6-3 center Dave Wilson of Huntington, who captured second team all-district honors as a freshman, and 6-3 forward Leland “Lefty” Byrd, who ranked second to Carroll on the team in scoring in 1945.
A pair of freshmen in Clyde “Hard Times” Green and New York City native Tom “Lou” Leverte joined six ex-GIs in Fred Morecraft, Jake Barnes, Dave “Hop” Hadden, Charles “Tall” Ward, Bill Chaff and John Probst to give Patton an interesting blend of talent and experience.
Howard “Beve” Beverly, Earl “Stretch” Martin, Robert Miller, Charles “Toddy” Porter, Arden “Pear” Pepper, Bill Garten and Don Shreve rounded out the preseason roster. Center James Fox, a Dansville, W.Va., native, was a late edition to the team.
Leverte came from the same area where Patton was coaching at Iona Prep School in New Rochelle, N.Y., having spent a year there after coaching 14 seasons at Princeton High School.
Patton's Princeton teams were a yearly staple in the state basketball tournament, and Patton had a reputation for fielding basketball squads well schooled in fundamentals, with good ball-handling, deliberate offenses and tight, man-to-man defenses.
The Arizona State graduate was responsible for the development of West Virginia three-sport star Jimmy Walthall.
West Virginia began the 1945-46 season with a victory over Glenville State and captured 13 straight games before losing, 48-42 at Temple on Feb. 2. Five more victories followed over Lehigh, Army, Bethany, Pitt and Washington & Jefferson before West Virginia lost a 50-45 verdict at Navy on Feb. 20.
The Mountaineers finished the season with four straight triumphs over Maryland, W&J, Pitt and Carnegie Tech to become the first team in school history to record 20 victories in a single season.
In the meantime prior to the Carnegie Tech win, West Virginia was invited to make its third NIT appearance at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The NIT was originated by the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association as a climax to the 1937-38 season. It soon caught fire and became immensely popular in New York City.
For the first three years from 1938-40, just six teams were invited to the tournament before the field was expanded to eight in 1941.
A year after the NIT was created, the NCAA decided to get into the postseason tournament business as well. Some NIT participants usually joined the NCAA tournament a week after its conclusion.
West Virginia’s 21-2 record was good enough to warrant a berth in the NIT field. Due to its title in 1941, West Virginia became a favorite of New Yorkers looking for an underdog team to root for.
In addition to the Mountaineers, the rest of the 1946 NIT was comprised of Rhode Island, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Arizona, Muhlenberg, Syracuse and St. John’s.
West Virginia drew the hometown Redmen in the first round. St. John’s had developed quite a postseason reputation under Coach Joe Lapchick, an original member of the Boston Celtics before arriving at the Queens-based school. The school’s first NIT title came in 1943 when it defeated Toledo, 48-27. In 1944, St. John’s won again by downing DePaul, 47-39. DePaul reached the finals that year after knocking West Virginia out of the tournament with a 75-58 first-round victory.
Adding drama to the St. John’s victory over DePaul was a fainting spell by Lapchick in the second half just as Redmen took the lead.
“I dealt strategy a helluva blow,” Lapchick said later.
In 1946, St. John’s had a 17-5 overall record entering the tournament. Its best player was mammoth 6-9 center Harry Boykoff, who scored 13 points in the Redmen’s 1943 win over Toledo before his basketball career was interrupted by military service.
St. John’s won both prior meetings against West Virginia in New York, 43-30 in 1937, and 51-50 in 1939. Four of West Virginia’s five starters were native sons with just Leverte hailing from outside the Mountain State’s borders.
Patton and his team left for Greensburg, Pa., where they entrained for to the Big Apple and their stay at the Hotel Belvedere located across the street from the Garden.
West Virginia and St. John’s were to play the nightcap of Thursday’s opening round doubleheader. Bowling Green and Rhode Island were scheduled to meet in the opener. A sellout crowd of 18,000 was on hand to witness the basketball doubleheader.
Though the Falcons were 11-point favorites to defeat Rhode Island, the Rams pulled off a stunning, 82-79 upset behind the sharp shooting of Ernie Calverley.
Perhaps being bolstered by the Rhode Island shocker, a confident West Virginia team took the court against St. John’s for the 10 p.m. night cap.
Despite being a five-point underdog, West Virginia jumped out to a fancy 45-23 halftime lead behind the hot shooting of Leland Byrd.
West Virginia led from the start after a pair of free throws from Dave Wilson. A couple of hook shots by Byrd and a “stretch shot” by Carroll pushed WVU’s margin to 10-4 with just three minutes gone. St. John’s tied the score at 12 before another Byrd hook shot gave WVU a 14-12 advantage. With eight minutes left, West Virginia went on a 15-point tear to turn its four-point lead into a 19-point advantage at 40-21.
The scoring streak was finally broken by a Redmen two-pointer, but the Mountaineers finished with two more buckets by Wilson and Leverte to take 22-point edge into the locker room.
Lapchick inserted four new starters at the start of the second half and the Redmen trimmed the deficit to 50-36 with 14 minutes left. But the Mountaineers fought back to claim a 63-47 advantage with seven minutes to go.
St. John’s made one last ditch effort by scoring nine of the next 11 points to cut the deficit to 64-56, but two quick baskets by Byrd and a layup by Carroll killed the St. John’s rally.
West Virginia pulled off the 70-58 upset against the hometown Redmen, stunning the jam-packed Madison Square Garden audience once again.
Byrd was particularly impressive, tallying a game-high 28 points on 13 field goals and 2-of-2 from the free throw line. Carroll contributed 14 and Wilson added 12 for WVU. Meanwhile Boykoff, who earned All-America honors in 1943, could muster just seven points before being benched late in the game.
Three days later West Virginia’s Big Apple rally ended when No. 1-seeded Kentucky edged the Mountaineers, 59-51 in the second round. The Wildcats went on to defeat surprising Rhode Island, 46-45 in the finals to capture the 1946 championship.
The Mountaineers rebounded from its Monday night loss to outdistance Muhlenberg, 65-40 to take third place.
Rhode Island’s Caverley was named the tournament’s MVP. West Virginia finished the 1946 season with a marvelous 24-3 record. Its three losses came to teams with a combined record of 52-12. Years later, the St. John’s victory was selected as one of the school’s finest.
Byrd led the team in scoring with an 11.3 points per game average. He was followed in the scoring column by Carroll (11.1 ppg.), Leverte (10.6 ppg.) and Wilson (8.5 ppg.). Overall, the Mountaineers averaged 63.4 points per game – a high total for the time.
Lee Patton would coach one more team to an NIT berth in 1947 before tragically dying in an automobile accident late in the 1950 basketball season.
West Virginia 70, St. John’s 58
West Virginia (23-2)
Carroll 6 2-4 14, Leverte 3 0-0 6, Beverly 0 1-1 1, Wilson 6 0-4 12, Fox 1 2-3 4, Byrd 13 2-2 28, Green 1 3-4 5. Totals 30 10-18 70.
St. John’s (17-6)
Wertis 1 1-2 3, Larkin 1 0-0 2, Jacobsen 5 2-2 12, Fraschilla 2 3-3 7, Pastushok 1 0-0 2, Kebler 2 1-1 5, Boykoff 2 3-5 7, Oldham 0 0-0 0, Doctor 4 2-2 10, Baer 1 2-2 3, Preesman 0 0-0 0, Zaslefsky 3 1-1 7. Totals 22 14-17 58
Halftime-West Virginia 45-23. Fouled out - none. Total fouls- West Virginia 15, St. John’s 17. Technicals- None.
Officials – Pat Kennedy and Chuck Solodare
Attendance – 18,000.
