SCARLET HISTORY Rutgers will play its 106th season of collegiate men’s basketball in 2012-13. The Scarlet Knights enter the campaign under third-year head coach Mike Rice. Named the 17th head coach in the history of the program on May 6, 2010, Rice is intent on furthering the progress achieved during his initial two campaigns. The team heads into 2012-13 with a measure of experience and with 10 returning letterwinners on the roster, including nine with starting experience. Rutgers took to the court for the first time in the 1906-07 season. On the losing end of three games that year and with a 3-12 record the next, play was suspended for the next five years. The Scarlet Knights resumed action in 1913-14 and played in consecutive years through 1943-44 when World War II broke the string of 30-straight seasons of play. Since that inauspicious start, Rutgers has had considerable success and enters the 2012-13 campaign with 1155 victories. Along the way, there have been 20 postseason tournaments. Six Rutgers teams have earned berths in the NCAA Tournament and 14 have been invited to the NIT. The first half century of Rutgers basketball was not sensational in terms of outstanding records. The Scarlet Knights did have considerable success in the first full decade of play, winning 86 and losing 46 in the twenties. Frank Hill’s 28-year tenure produced a 223-162 record between 1916 and 1943 and Ed Benzoni’s 693 career points remained a Scarlet record for a period of 26 years. The next decade saw Rutgers win 56 percent of their outings and the forties also witnessed wins more than half of the time. During the fifties, the Scarlet struggled, despite the emergence of such athletes as Bucky Hatchett, Larry Gordon and Swede Sundstrom, all still prominent on the all-time leaders lists. Things began to take an upward turn with the arrival of head coach Bill Foster in 1963-64. The school’s ninth head coach had much to do with putting Scarlet basketball on the map. He went from a 12-12 slate in his second season to a 17-7 mark in 1965-66 as Bob Lloyd and Jim Valvano entered
Hatchett
their sophomore seasons. Lloyd, whose jersey number 14 was the first to be retired (Feb. 21, 1987), led the Scarlet out of obscurity, scoring 601 points and averaging 25 points a game as a sophomore, tossing in 26.5 points a game for 635 junior points and then scoring a record 809 points for a 27.9 average as a senior, when he became the first Rutgers basketball All-American. The 1966-67 season put Rutgers and Lloyd in the national spotlight. Rutgers put together a 22-7 mark and earned its first-ever post-season berth; Lloyd and Valvano combined for 1,335 points while taking the Scarlet to a third place finish in the National Invitation Tournament in Madison Square Garden. Foster’s teams would post a 120-75 record over the eight seasons, following the 22-win season with a 21-4 mark in 1968-69, the heydays of Bob Greacen and Dick Stewart. The sixties showed a splendid 70-32 record. Foster was succeeded in 1971 by his top assistant, Dick Lloyd, who with his aide Dick Vitale, posted a two-year 29-22 record. They were responsible for the arrival of Phil Sellers on the Scarlet scene. Sellers, Mike Dabney, Jeff Kleinbaum, Mike Palko and Bruce Scherer were the 1972 recruits and the group would mature into the nucleus of the squad which would shock the nation four years later by winning 31 consecutive games and reaching the Final Four. Sellers became the second Scarlet Knight to have his jersey (12) retired on Jan. 16, 1988. Eddie Jordan, who later became a Rutgers assistant and a head coach in the NBA with the 76ers, Wizards and Kings, would join this cast in 1973 when Tom Young became the 11th Scarlet head coach. Hollis Copeland joined the group in 1974 and James Bailey and Abdel Anderson were 1975 additions. With Sellers, Dabney, Jordan, Copeland, Bailey and Anderson as the sixth man, the Scarlet Knights raced to Rutgers’ highest success with a perfect 26-0 regular season mark in 1975-76. The victory string built to 31-0 before losses to Michigan and UCLA in the Final Four at The Spectrum in Philadelphia ended, but did not shatter, the dream. Young’s first six teams enjoyed postseason play. The 197374 team went to the NIT and the next two units made NCAA appearances. The 1976-77 squad (18-10) visited the NIT and the 1977-78 team (24-7) was an NCAA participant. The 22-9 team of 1978-79 went to the NCAA Tournament. Rutgers returned to postseason action, posting a 20-10 slate in 1981-82 for an NIT berth under Young and his crack assistant, Joe Boylan, the latter now the athletic director at Loyola College in Baltimore. The 1982-83 squad went 23-8 and made the NCAA tourney. Young won over 68 percent of his games at Rutgers, winning 239 and losing 117 over his 12 campaigns. The long list of his standouts includes, among others, Roy Hinson, number 10 on the all-time scoring list; Kelvin Troy, the 13th-best scorer in Rutgers history; Kevin Black, number 19 on the career scoring list; and John Battle, RU’s 15th best scorer all-time who went on to enjoy a 10-year NBA career. The seasons, stretching from Sellers to Battle, were times against which past and future Rutgers basketball successes are, and will be, tested. The seventies alone produced a glorious 194-87 mark and a winning percentage of .690. The 1980’s were a mixed bag. Tom Young led Rutgers to the 1982-83 NCAA Tournament before leaving to head the Old Dominion program in 1985. Craig Littlepage (23-63) was
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