Hall of Fame
The 1955-1956 Dons basketball team earned their second consecutive NCAA Championship after a 29-0 season. They defeated UCLA 72-61, Utah 92-77, SMU 86-68 and Iowa 83-71 to become the third school to win back-to-back national championships. Bill Russell scored 26 points and grabbed 27 rebounds in the title game against Iowa. Hal Perry, substituting for K.C. Jones, scored 14 points in the semifinals and championship game. The high scorer Carl “Sugar” Cain led the Big Ten Champion Hawkeyes to a 15-4 lead, just as he had the year before. Head Coach Phil Woolpert made a key defensive switch and assigned Gene Brown to guard Cain the rest of the game. Russell then took over the game at both ends of the floor. In one long play, he rejected three straight Hawkeye shots as the Dons carved out a 38-33 lead at halftime. In the second half, USF extended its lead to 17 points in the before winning with a final score of 83-71. Russell and Perry were named to the All-Tournament Team.
