[Photo credit: St. Bonaventure University Archives.]
In 1960, Ohio State (OSU) enrolled about 18,000 undergraduate students.
In the same year, 1163 students were at St. Bonaventure University.
In late December of that year, the two universities met for the championship of the highly regarded annual Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Holiday Festival in Madison Square Garden. Both teams were undefeated. Ohio State entered the in-season tournament ranked #1 in the country, while the Bonnies were fifth in the UPI poll. Though receiving one first-place vote, they placed behind the Buckeyes, Bradley, St. John’s, and Indiana.
The New Year’s Eve matchup served as the most memorable game in the Bona career of Fred Crawford, who was later named as one of the best players in the school’s longstanding basketball history.
Raised in the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Harlem, Crawford found the Holiday Festival experience to be a coming home of sorts, and playing at the Garden was a particularly special memory, especially in 1960. “It was the little engine that could in St. Bonaventure going against Ohio State,” Crawford summarized. “That whole dynamic was very interesting.”
The Bonnies entered the Holiday Festival with the third most potent offense in the country, averaging 92 points a game. Even with the strong offense, Crawford pointed to a solid defense as pivotal to the Bonnie success in forcing opponents to “make passes and plays they didn’t want to make.”
Both Crawford, a 6-4 sophomore forward, and 6-5 senior forward Tom Stith were the leading scorers for the 6-0 Bonnies entering the OSU game, as they had defeated teams that included Utah (#18), St. Joe’s, and Xavier. Despite the success, the Bona Director of Public Relations, Jack Ritzenthaler (Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, 1977), remarked to reporters immediately before the Holiday Festival that the Bonnies had been “playing over their heads.”
Meanwhile, Ohio State featured a powerful squad, highlighted by All-American and US Olympic star center Jerry Lucas who averaged 25 points and 18 rebounds a game. Three other starters—John Havlicek, Larry Siegfried, and Mel Nowell—subsequently played in the NBA. Havlicek won eight NBA championships with the Boston Celtics, and both he and Lucas were named to the 50 greatest NBA player list in 1997. The final OSU starter that evening, forward Bobby Knight, later became one of the most winning college basketball coaches in history.
Crawford didn’t remember a unique strategy designed to stop Lucas and the other Ohio State stars. “We had been doing pretty good, so we weren’t about to change our gameplan,” he said.
Despite the vast difference in school sizes, the Bonnies were not intimidated by the likes of Ohio State. “No, we didn’t think about that,” Crawford said. “In fact, I don’t think we ever went into a game not thinking that we had the opportunity to win.”
In the championship played before 12,897 fans, Ohio State charged to a quick 5-0 lead behind a three-point play by Lucas and later led, 17-9. It was Crawford, however, who kept St. Bonaventure in the game, as he demonized Ohio State’s zone in scoring 18 points in the first half. Down 40-36 at halftime, the Bonnies faltered in the second half, facing an 11-point deficit with eight minutes remaining.
St. Bonaventure rallied at the end, sparked by—in Crawford’s words—“some of Tom’s [Stith] legendary jump shots.” Crawford remembered a key goaltending call against him being a decisive factor in the final seconds. He pinned the shot—it may have been taken by Havlicek— against the backboard in being whistled for the violation. “I think that’s what gave them the two-point advantage,” he added.
Did the officials get the call correct? “Of course not,” Crawford replied without a second thought. After the ensuing buzzer, Crawford felt “cheated.”
“I think we could have extended the game and had an opportunity to win,” he said.
In the end, Lucas collected 21 rebounds and missed only seven shots from the field in scoring 32 points. He was the near-unanimous MVP of the tournament. Stith and Crawford led the Bonnies with 35 and 24 points, respectively. Each player added eight rebounds apiece.
An upset loss to Wake Forest in the 1961 NCAA tournament prevented any Bona hopes for a rematch with Ohio State. The Buckeyes lost their only game of the season in the NCAA championship game to Cincinnati. OSU was ranked #1 in both the UPI and AP postseason polls; SBU came in third place in both rankings.
The Holiday Festival championship was the first—and only—time that St. Bonaventure faced Ohio State in the extensive basketball history of both schools. It was an evening where David nearly beat Goliath, and, thanks in large part to Crawford’s talents, where a small school from Western New York almost beat the top-ranked team in the country.