Rider to Celebrate Historic Win February 8
1963-64 Team to be Honored
LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ—There have been many great wins in the 85-year history of Rider University men's basketball.
The 1984, 1993 and 1994 conference championship games that sent Rider to the NCAA tournament always come immediately to mind.
But the biggest regular-season victory in Rider history occurred on March 3, 1964.
In the early 1960s New York University, NYU, was one of the top basketball teams in the nation. The Violets were perennial invitees to the National Invitation Tournament, the NIT, which was THE national postseason tournament at that time, much bigger and more prestigious than the NCAA tournament.
In the next to last game of the 1963-64 season, Rider traveled to NYU to take on the Violets in their small, on campus Alumni Gym.
Since NYU was a national power, the Violets played the majority of their games in Madison Square Garden, with only a handful in their campus gym.
Rider was having somewhat of a disappointing season, going to University Heights with a 14-9 record (Rider was 20-8 in 1962-63) playing without two of the better players in the program. Point guard Jack Cryan, who went on to earn “Little All-American” honors (best players in nation under 6 feet tall), was sitting out with a back injury, and Wayne Wyckoff, an All-State player in high school, was sitting out as a transfer from Guilford College.
The Broncs were a 30-point underdog to the Violets, who were led by All-American Happy Hairston (member of the 1973 NBA champion L.A. Lakers) and All-American Barry Kramer (sixth player picked in the 1964 NBA draft).
In NYU's Alumni Gymnasium, the Violets lost to Penn State in January of 1941, and went the next 23 years without losing there again. NYU won 57 consecutive games in their campus gym. When Rider walked into NYU's Alumni Gym the Violets had a record there of 118-4. None of the 63-64 Broncs were born the last time NYU lost in that gym.
Before the game head coach Bob Greenwood gave a short speech to the Broncs. “This is my greatest game as a coach,” the late Rider coach said, “and it can be your greatest as players.”
Greenwood had seen NYU play three times in person and four times on television. “I knew I had to draw them outside with my backcourt men,” Greenwood said after the game. “I had to set up picks and screens for every single shot. I put a man-to-man defense and 5'11” Nick Valvano (brother of Jimmy V.) on Kramer and 6'8” Bill Van Druten on Hairston.”
Valvano held Kramer to two points, no field goals in the first half. Hairston scored eight points in the first half, and the score was tied at 29-29 at intermission.
Another member of the Rider coaching staff, graduate assistant Dick Phelps, saw NYU play Iona and Hofstra. “I came back to Coach Greenwood and (freshman team coach) Tom Petroff and said 'We can beat these guys,” said Phelps, who went on to have a hall of fame coaching career at Notre Dame using his nickname, 'Digger.' “We put the game plan in and practiced it for two days.”
In the second half it was the Doug Endres show. Endres, who went on to score 1,056 points in just 76 career games at Rider, had the game of his life, finishing with 32 points. Rider took a 12 point lead in the second half before the powerful Violets came storming back, cutting the lead to 64-59 with 2:00 remaining.
Kramer scored his 19th point of the game to cut the Rider lead to 64-61 and with 1:27 left the lead was down to 64-63.
Rider hall of famer Dick Kuchen grabbed a key defensive rebound and was fouled with 18 seconds remaining. Kuchen, who went on to coach at Cal and Yale after compiling 1,127 points and 822 rebounds at Rider, sank both free throws and the Broncs had pulled off the college basketball upset of the year, 66-63.
“When our bus was about four miles from campus we were met by an escort,” Greenwood remembered. “Students in convertibles, police cars. They escorted us back to campus with horns blowing and police sirens, and when we arrived there were over 1,000 people there with homemade signs cheering us. It was amazing.”
“When I was at Notre Dame and we beat UCLA in 1974, ending their 88-game winning streak, the media people said to me 'Wow, this is your first great win',” Phelps recalled. “And I said 'No, it was back at Rider, when we beat NYU after I scouted them and put in the game plan'.”
Amazing it was. When the Rider Broncs, a 30-point underdog, upset national power NYU on its own home court, ending a streak of 57 games over 23 years.
On Sunday, February 8, Rider honored the players from that team in a halftime ceremony.
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