March 26, 1952: Kansas Phogs Out St. John's

March 26, 1952: The University of Kansas wins the NCAA men's basketball championship for the 1st time, defeating St. John's 80-63 at the Hec Edmundson Pavilion, on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Their head coach was Forrest Allen, known as "Phog" for his "foghorn voice"; and as "The Father of Basketball Coaching," having learned the game at "KU," from the literal inventor of the sport, Dr. James Naismith, playing for him in 1905, '06 and '07. He then succeeded Naismith as head coach, in the 1907-08 and 1908-09 seasons. He went to other schools until 1919, when he returned to Kansas, and remained their through the 1955-56 season. The Kansas Jayhawks were named National Champions by the Helms Athletic Foundation in 1922 and 1923, before there was an NCAA Tournament.

The reason Allen went to other schools was that he was going to medical school. After graduating, he integrated numerous concepts of healthy eating, efficient exercise regimens, and proper body alignment into his coaching. A section on sports medicine was included in his book, My Basket-Ball Bible. Among the athletes he treated at his downtown office at 13 East 8th Street in Lawrence, near the KU campus, was a high school football player from Commerce, Oklahoma, who developed osteomyelitis from an injury 1946: Mickey Mantle.

Clyde Lovellette and Dr. Forrest "Phog" Allen

Allen's '52 Jayhawks were led by All-Americans Clyde Lovellette and B.H. Born. Lovellette went on to to win NBA Championships in 1954 with the Minneapolis Lakers, and in 1963 and 1964 with the Boston Celtics. Born returned the next season, and helped Kansas reach the Tournament Final again, but they lost to Indiana. Born only played in the minor leagues, never in the NBA.

The 1952 title led to enough income and alumni donations to fund the building of the Fieldhouse that bears Allen's name, one of the great locations in the history of basketball. Its 1st season, 1955-56, was Allen's last as head coach in Lawrence. He won 24 Championships in the league that would become the Big 8 Conference.

Frank McGuire coached St. John's into this Final. It remains the closest they have ever come to winning the National Championship, and no other New York Tri-State Area school would reach the NCAA Final again until 1989.

McGuire, however, would win a title: The University of North Carolina hired him away, and his "Underground Railroad," taking Irish Catholic and Jewish players off the streets of New York and bringing them South (the opposite of the original Underground Railroad, especially since the players were all white) won him the National Championship in 1957.

Allen died in 1974, McGuire in 1994, Born in 2013, Lovellette in 2016.

*

March 26, 1952 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled for this day.

There was 1 game in the NBA: The New York Knicks beat the Boston Celtics, 88-87 at the Boston Garden. Bob Cousy scored 34 points in defeat. Max Zaslofsky led the Knicks with 21.