CC RIDERS
They were oblivious to the history they were making, naive about their remarkable accomplishment.
The 1950 CCNY basketball team completed a Hoop Dream of a season that no team will ever duplicate. The Beavers won the NIT and NCAA in the same year. They beat the likes of San Francisco, Kentucky, N.C. State, Ohio State and Bradley – twice.
The Big Apple truly was the mecca of college basketball that year. And the players were the least caught up of anyone in winning what many refer to as the Grand Slam of college hoops.
“It was very exciting when it happened but we didn’t get all caught up in it at the time,” Norman Mager, the super sixth man of the squad told The Post. “We had a good group of guys that just meshed together. We weren’t the biggest team but we were a smart club that had a cross section of all the qualities you’d want in a basketball player: speed, jumping, moving without the ball, shooting. We were truly a team.”
The team was coached by Nat Holman and he didn’t have a player taller than the 6-foot-7 Leroy Watkins, a key reserve who played a huge role in the 89-50 crushing of Adoplh Rupp’s Wildcats.
Holman was a visionary. He believed more in ball movement and pick-and-roles than he did in set plays. He preached the fast break. He change his starting five based on the opponent. And he had a group of players – all New York City high school stars – who had learned to play that breed of ball on the streets and in the schoolyards of the Big Apple.
“We did things in those days that you just don’t see today,” said Mager. “The athletes today are great – bigger and stronger than we were. But the smarts has gone out of the game. Only a couple of teams, like Utah with [John] Stockton and [Karl] Malone, play the game like a team.”
The CCNY team compiled an impressive 17-5 record during the regular season, but no one expected the Beavers to be a force in the NIT, which was the premier tournament at the time. In fact, of the 12 teams selected to play in the NIT, CCNY was the 11th team chosen.
The Beavers opening round foe was San Francisco, the defending NIT champ. CCNY pulled off a shocking 65-46 win, which set up the classic showdown with Kentucky. Holman and Rupp made plans to take in South Pacific, the hottest show on Broadway, the day after the game. That’s how certain Rupp was that his team would triumph and remain in New York.
“This young team of mine is better than the group which won the NIT as sophomores,” Rupp boasted before the game.
Holman had his own view. He started three black players, Ed Warner, Floyd Layne, currently the coach at Prospect Heights High School, and Watkins, against the all-white Wildcats. The 6-7 Watkins won the opening tip from Kentucky’s 7-foot Bill Spivey and the tone was set.
CCNY handed Kentucky its worse loss under Rupp, 89-50. Holman and Rupp never made it to South Pacific.
“I think they lowered the flag in Kentucky,” said Mager. “Rupp said, ‘I sent my poor boys back home.’ We had too many ethnic groups on our team. He didn’t like blacks and Jews.”
With the Kentucky victory behind them, the Beavers confidence grew. They cruised past Duquesne 62-52 to advance to the championship game against Bradley. City trailed 29-18 after 14 minutes so Holman went to Mager. By halftime CCNY had trimmed the lead to 30-27.
After six ties and seven lead changes in the second half, CCNY prevailed 69-61. Mager had scored 14 points but the Beavers weren’t ready to celebrate yet. The NCAA was on the horizon.
CCNY opened with a 56-55 win over Ohio State. Then the Beavers outlasted N.C. State 78-73, setting up a rematch with Bradley. Mager, who played at Lafayette, sank what proved to be the winning basket but it was Irwin Dambrot, a Taft product, who had 15 points and a key blocked shot down the stretch that secured a 71-68 triumph.
“During the tournaments we were so wrapped up in the games we didn’t even realize what an accomplishment it was,” said Mager. “I remember one day seeing a headline in the Post and thinking, ‘Hey, we must be doing O.K. The Post actually picked us to win the NIT so that was a feather in their cap.”
Eleven months after completing the Grand Slam, CCNY was rocked by a point-shaving scandal that changed the face of college baskteball in the city. Seven players on the CCNY team were charged with their involvement in fixing games during the regular season, but there was no wrongdoing during the tournaments.
Players at LIU and NYU also were charged. In the aftermath of the scandal, the Board of Higher Education banned scholarships at all City University colleges. The balance of power in college basketball shifted from New York to schools that now comprise the ACC and SEC.
With the exception of Mager, the CCNY players contacted by The Post politely declined to be interviewed for this story. They have signed a deal with a group in Great Britain, which is planning to produce a movie on the team. It’s a story that will live forever, just like CCNY’s sweep of the Grand Slam.