New York. TheBeavers had a renowned coach in Nat Holman, years of basketball tradition and the loud support of a Garden crowd. "Lo and behold," Kaftan said, "we won." In fact, the Crusaders won 12 of 15 games that season and were in contention for a postseason tournamentbid that never came. The presence the next year of service veterans Joe Mullaney and Frank Oftring and the enrollment ofanother New York schoolboy star, Bob Cousy, built on that foundation. The team still was uncommonly short, but everyone could run and handle the ball. The 1947 Crusaders played a slick brand of give-and-go. Newspapers, in a playful reference to the athletic-club teams of that era, referred to them as the "Fancy Pants A.C." Without its own gym, Holy Cross scheduled games at the Boston Garden, where the collegians soon outdrew the professional Celtics of the fledgling Basketball Association of America (later the NBA). A caravan of cars followed the Crusaders from Worcester, 40 miles away, and all New England rallied behind the team as it defeated one national power after another. After early-season losses to North Carolina State, Duquesne and Wyoming, the Crusaders embarked on a long winning streak, highlighted by a narrow victory over an outstanding Seton Hall team, led by Bobby Wanzer. In only its second year of top-level competition, Holy Cross was selected to the field of the Eastern playoffsin New York. Other entrants were Big Ten Conference champion Wisconsin, Navy and hometown favorite City College. It marked the first appearance in the NCAA Tournament for all the schools except Wisconsin, which had captured the national championship six years earlier. On opening night, Mullaney had 18 points (all on field goals) and Kaftan added 15 as the Crusaders handed Navy only its second defeat of the season, 55-47. CCNY struggled for a while against Wisconsin, but the Beavers rallied from a 10-point deficit in the second half to win, 70-56. Now it would be H...
