1955 National Champions
National Champions
1955 California Basketball Association Champions
Head Coach: Phil Woolpert
Overall Record: 28-1 WCC Record: 12-0
All-WCC Team: K.C. Jones, Bill Russell (POY)
Top Scorer: Bill Russell (21.4) Top Rebounder: Bill Russell (20.5)
USF Hall-of-Famers: Stan Buchanan, K.C. Jones, Hal Perry, Bill Russell, Phil Woolpert
Behind future Hall of Famers Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, USF won its last 26 games of the 1954-55 season on its way to capturing the school’s first NCAA basketball championship…the Dons ascended the top spot in the nation after impressive victories over UCLA, Wichita State, Oklahoma City and George Washington…breezed to the California Basketball Association title with a 12-0 record…downed West Texas State (89-66), Utah (79-59) and Oregon State (57-56) to earn a spot in the Final Four…defeated Colorado (62-50) and LaSalle (77-63) to claim its first of back-to-back national titles under head coach Phil Woolpert…in the championship game against LaSalle, 6-1 K.C. Jones held 6-7 Tom Gola, a three-time All-American, to just 16 points, including seven after intermission…Jones led the Dons with 24 points, Russell added 23 and Jerry Mullen chipped in 10…Russell was named the tournament’s most valuable player while Jones landed a spot on the all-tournament team…the city of San Francisco embraced the Dons upon their return from Kansas City with a parade down Market Street…in November of 2011,
Sporting News named the 1954-55 Dons the fifth-best collegiate team of all-time, behind only the 1966-67 UCLA team (33-0), the 1972-73 UCLA squad (30-0), the 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers (32-0) and the 1981-82 North Carolina Tar Heels featuring Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins.
Did You know? Bill Russell was cut from his Junior High School basketball team. On the court as a growing teen Russell was mostly pogo-stick legs and gawky elbows, too awkward to make the squad. His Junior High coach also didn’t think Russell understood how to play the game.
They Said It: “Jones played the greatest basketball game seen by anyone at any time," Dons coach Phil Woolpert, who at forty years of age had just become the youngest coach to win the NCAA title. Woolpert added, with words usually reserved for Bill Russell - "Jones did things they have never seen in the middlewest. His blocks, his leaps to wrestle the ball away from Gola--you'd say they were impossible, but K.C. did them with the greatest game of his life." (Bernie Schneider, USF Dons historian)
