In what was St. Bonaventure’s tenth overall trip to the NIT, Coach Jim Satalin was a realistic optimist in his first look at the list of 16 teams in 1977, something he even remembers 45 years later. “It was a strong field, but we were really good that year,” he said in looking back to that year. “We probably should have gone to the NCAA…but I looked at the whole field and thought, ‘We’re as good as anybody in this field.’”
One team in the field was the University of Houston Cougars, coached by Guy Lewis, who ended up winning nearly 600 games in his 30 years as its head coach. In their first-round game, a sophomore named Larry Bird nearly derailed Houston’s season. Riding a seven-game win streak into the NIT, Indiana State relied on the high-scoring forward who averaged 33 points per game that season, but fell to Houston on the road. Bird, the #3 scoring leader in the nation, poured in 44 points in the 83-82 loss. Otis Birdsong, the Houston star who was #4 in scoring in the nation and a UPI first team All-American, led the Cougars with 30 points.
Houston then survived against Illinois State (91-90) before beating Alabama, 82-76, to reach the championship game.
St. Bonaventure had its own challenge in the first round. Satalin led a 20-6 squad to Princeton, NJ, to face Rutgers, a matchup with a team that the Bonnies had lost to 374 days prior in the previous season. This outcome was different, however, with Glenn Hagan scoring the winning shot in the 79-77 overtime win. Essie Hollis and Hagan led Bona scorers with 25 and 21 points, respectively.
The following games against Oregon and Villanova featured three- and four-point wins, respectively. In the lone game St. Bonaventure has ever played against Oregon, Sanders only missed five shots, going 11 of 16 from the field and a perfect eight-for-eight from the free throw line. The Bonnies were badly outrebounded, 42-23, with Oregon star and second team USBWA All-American Greg Ballard nearly matching the Bona total with 15 rebounds. Nonetheless, St. Bonaventure left the Garden with a 76-73 victory.
The Hagan-Baron backcourt flourished against Villanova, which ultimately finished third in the tournament. Hagan led all scorers, including the Herron brothers of Villanova, with 26 points, and Barron added 13 points in only 22 minutes of play. The backcourt dished out 14 assists, while both Hollis and Sanders fouled out of the game.
Birdsong’s scoring prowess hadn’t declined during the Cougars’ run. He carried a 26 points-per-game average during the tournament, yet prior to the Bona game, Lewis remarked, “He’d be the first to tell you he hasn’t had a good tournament.” One high point of Birdsong’s season was scoring 43 in a nationally televised loss to UCLA at Pauley Pavilion in January, proving that explosive games were possible. Since that setback, Houston went 20-4 with the most recent loss to #7 Arkansas in the championship of Southwest Conference tournament.
Entering the game, Birdsong and the size of Houston’s roster were on Satalin’s mind, but there was a key factor that he liked. Both teams were similar in one way.
“The good thing was that they played a style that was similar to ours in that they loved to get up and down [the court]. They weren’t a great defensive team. Neither were we, quite frankly, but we and they were able to outscore teams most of the year. When we looked at that game, I thought, ‘This team is really good, and we’re going to have to score a lot of points to win this thing, but it should be a great game,’” he said.
And he was right.