| Lakehead | 68 | |||||||
| Loyola | 63 | Lakehead | 67 | |||||
| St. Mary’s | 91 | St. Mary’s | 79 | —–ST. MARY’S | ||||
| Windsor | 84 |
In the qualifying play-in series, GPAC champions Lakehead defeated Alberta 76-64; 69-61 (2g-0). …………………………………………………… In game one, host Lakehead fastbreaked to an 18-10 lead and were ahead 43-28 at the half. Bob Johnson scored 22 for the Nor’Westers, including 14 in the first half, and 13 rebounds. Jim Copeland added 17 and Ivan Simpson scored 18. Wally Tollestrup led the Bears with 22. Mike Frisby scored 13. Alberta coach Bob Bain said “any time we shoot like that, rebound like that and pass like that, we deserve to lose. I don’t know why but we never play well in the first game of a series. We are a young team and maybe it’s the freshman in us showing.” In game two, Jim Copeland scored 20 for Lakehead. Wally Tollestrup scored 16 and Tom Solyom 14 for the Bears, who were coached by Bob Bain, a member of the 1968 Wilfrid Laurier CIAU titlists coached by Howard Lockhart, now coach of semi-finalist Lakehead. Alberta was head 24-22 at the half but Lakehead opened the second half with an 18-4 run. …………………………………………………… In game two, the host Nor’Westers completed the sweep with a 69-61 win. The Bears led 24-22 at the half but Lakehead opened the second frame with an 18-4 run. Jim Copeland paced Lakehead with 20. Evan Simpson added 15. Wally Tollestrup led the Golden Bears with 16. Tom Solyom added 14.
In the semis, Lakehead defeated Loyola 68-63 in double overtime after Loyola rallied from nine points behind to tie the game at 49 in regulation. Stu Laframboise missed a chance to win it for Loyola in the final seconds as his shot rolled off the rim with four seconds to go. Robert Jackson hit a jumper from the corner with one second to play to knot the score at 55 in the first overtime with 18 seconds left on the clock. Loyola’s Ron Puskarich opened the second overtime with two field goals before Lakehead took command in the second overtime, as Jackson hit two straight buckets to put his team ahead by six. They held on to win. Jackson finished with 24, James Copeland 19 and Evan Simpson 12, Russell Bailey 5, Joe Edwards 2, Dan Rajanovich 2 and Jerome Blue 2 (also reported as 4), while Hill, Pierce, Whitfield, Francis and Thompson were scoreless. Lakehead coach Howard Lockhart told the Kitchener-Waterloo Record that “there was a game earlier this year when my pulse rate increased to 187, when Jackson hit that layup against the University of Manitoba. It must have eclipsed that tonight when he tied the game in that first overtime. (Lockhart had called a timeout with 18 seconds to play). Our strategy was to get the ball to Jackson. They did and he did the job. … We took a number of shots we shouldn’t have and they were taking the good shots. That’s what did it.” Loyola was led by Fred Moczulski, who scored 18 before fouling out with five minutes to play. Ron Puskarich added 16, Stu Laframboise 13, John Erglis 10 and Bob Brix 6. Lakehead started four Americans and Loyola started five. Loyola hit 7-12 from the line. Loyola coach Doug Daigneault said “I hate to go out like that. We have nothing to be ashamed of but it’s still a loss, no matter which way you look at it. We had two opportunities to win it in that first overtime but we missed.” Lockhart told the Montreal Gazette that “Loyola played a great game, just great. They deserved to win. We played badly. … Hell, they forced us to play badly.”
In the other semi, the St. Mary’s Huskies, with just 2 Canadians on their 11-man roster, defeated Windsor 91-84 in overtime despite being down by four with 1:18 to play. St. Mary’s had taken a 12-point late in the first half before Windsor went on a 10-0 run to close the margin to 38-36 at the half. The contest was close in the second, with the game tied 10 times. Windsor forged ahead 75-69 but Bob Taboski and Fred Perry hit buckets to cut the margin to two and set the stage for the dramatic finale. John Gallinaugh hit a bucket with one second to go to knot the score at 80. Windsor had been ahead 73-67 with 3:25 to play on a pair of Bruce Coulthard field goals. But Mickey Fox hit a jumper with 1:08 to play. With 45 seconds to go, Windsor had a two-point lead and the ball but Walt Lozynsky missed a “gimme’ layup. St. Mary’s froze the ball and after two timeouts, with nine seconds to go, Gallinaugh drove the lane and hit the tying shot with one second on the clock. In overtime, the teams traded buckets until Fox hit two straight field goals to give Acadia the edge. Fox finished with 32 including 15 field goals, while Gallinaugh scored 19, Lee Thomas 11, Otha Johnson 10, Fred Perry 8, Greg Redding 6 and Bob Taboski 5. Huskies coach Brian Heaney told Canadian Press that “John (Gallinaugh) is a mentally tough player. Nothing disturbs him. We wanted to get three men in various spots along the baseline. However, I told him to keep the ball himself if he found and opening.” Bruce Coulthard led Windsor with 18. Peter Mingay added 17 before fouling out, Walt Lozynski 13, Chris Coulthard 10, Bill Lozynsky 8, Jerry Sovran 6, Tom Hogan 6, Ernie Hehn 4 and Ward Conway 2. St. Mary’s shot 37-68 from the floor and 17-20 from the line, while Windsor shot 34-89 (.390) from the floor and 16-18 from the line. Almost ironically, in comparing the early years of the tourney, nine of 10 Windsor players were Canadians, as was their coach, with only Brady Spetz of Rochester, N.Y. as an American on the roster. By contrast, St. Mary’s coach Brian Heaney and 9 of his 11 players were Americans. Loyola included only one Canadians on its roster, while Lakehead had four Canadians on their squad. Lancers coach Paul Thomas told the Windsor Star that “we still should have won it, even with all those mis-shots and bad plays. … St. Mary’s deserves a lot of credit for the way they tied it with two seconds to go. They scored in overtime and we didn’t. It was as simple as that.” St. Mary’s coach Brian Heaney said “the Windsor system absorbs you like a sponge. It really dominates a game. You can have a 12-point lead and lose it just like that. That’s what happened to us in the first half.”
In the bronze medal match, Windsor defeated Loyola 87-65 after leading 20-12, 40-34 and 62-49 at the quarters. Peter Mingay paced the Lancers with 17. Walt Lozynsky added 16, Bill Lozynsky 14, Jerry Sovran 12, Chris Coulthard 8, David Coulthard 6, Tom Hogan 8, Ernie Hehn 4 and Ward Conway 2. Lancers coach Paul Thomas told the Montreal Gazette that “I’m amazed that Loyola could stay even that close. I substituted freely during the whole game and all the players see at least eight minutes of floor time. It’s part of my philosophy. I believe that if a player is good enough to make the team, then he is good enough to play regularly. You just can’t expect players to improve if they are sitting on the bench.” The game was played at 10 a.m. because of television commitments. Warriors coach Doug Daigneault said “we were tired. Some of our players had less than three hours sleep and just couldn’t keep up with all the subs Windsor kept putting into the game.” Ron Puskarich paced the Warriors with22. John Erglis added 13, Bob Brix 11, Fred Moczulski 8, Wayne Hussey 4, Kevin Passarella 4 and Stu Laframboise 3.
Brian Heaney became the first man to the win the national title as both a player and a coach, as his St. Mary’s squad rallied from a 9-point deficit early in the second half to win 76-67. The youngest coach in the country at 26 years of age, he credited former Acadia mentor Stu Aberdeen with having taught him the game. Heaney had briefly played with the Washington Bullets of the NBA before moving on to the coaching position. The game was played before 3,500 at Waterloo and the final was very much The Mickey Fox, as he scored 39 en route to his selection as TR MVP. Mickey Daniel Fox, an English major, said he felt tired and sluggish in the first half. “I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was the pressure that bothered me a bit. …We got things straightened out at halftime. Then when I started to hit with some shots in the second half, it seemed to give me a boost.” Lakehead had been ahead 39-34 at halftime after Dan Rajanovich came off the bench to ignite Lakehead. In the second half, they stretched their lead to nine 43-34 before Fox took over scoring four straight field goals, as part of 23-point effort in the second half, to tie the game at 47 five minutes into the half. After Lee Thomas tied the game with 14 minutes to go, the St. Mary’s press rattled Lakehead and the Huskies went on a 11-0 run, including by Fox, and had soon stretched its lead to 17. Lakehead coach Howard Lockhart later noted “we went a little cold when we got up by nine in that second half.” Heaney noted that “maybe I’m enjoying this a little more than when I played with Acadia. Since I found out it’s much harder coaching than it is playing, at least for me. You have to be part of a team when you’re active but as a coach you must worry about everybody.” Heaney said he got on his team at halftime for its defensive lapses and told them that if they wanted to win, “we had to lace our buckles to their buckles and do a job.” Lakehead played the entire contest in a zone. Lockhart said “the one that really killed us was that basket Fox with about five minutes to go. He had a sensational day, that Fox. Hell, he had two of our guys draped all over him in the corner but up he went and down the ball went. That really rocked us.” Fox finished with 39 points. Lee Thomas added 21 points and 18 rebounds, and John Gallinaugh 7 points, Fred Perry 6, Taps Gallagher 2, Greg Redding 2, Otha Johnson 2, while Brian Burgess, Art Waters, Peter Halpin and Bob Taboski were scoreless. St. Mary’s hit 19-23 from the line. Lakehead, which led 39-34 at the half, were paced by Robert Jackson 22, Evan Simpson 18 and Dan Rajanovich 10. Jim Copeland scored only 7 after leaving the game with an ankle injury early in the second half. Russell Bailey added 4 and Joe Edwards 4, while Ken Hill, Jerome Blue, Tom Francis, Grant Pierce and Rick Whitfield were scoreless. St. Mary’s shot 30-60 from the floor and 19-23 from the line, while Lakehead shot 32-84 from the floor and 3-6 from the line. Heaney noted “I felt all along we could win it. I think we feared Windsor the most coming into this tourney. This is a young team but we don’t make many mistakes. That’s the secret of winning in the east …don’t make many mistakes. …this is a team of the future. We have all our ballplayers back next season and we will only lose one the following year.” St. Mary’s finished (21-8) on the season.
The all-tourney team featured: MVP Mickey Fox (St. Mary’s); Lee Thomas (St. Mary’s); John Gallinaugh (St. Mary’s); James Copeland (Lakehead); and Robert Jackson (Lakehead)
At their annual general meeting in the summer of 1973, the CIAU passed a resolution admitting a GPAC representative to the national tourney. In the face of pressure from the federal government, which pointedly reminded the CIAU that it was funded out of taxpayer pockets, the CIAU’s 49-member institutions reluctantly agreed to limit the number of foreign-born players on a team to three, effective in 1974-75. Until then, there were no limits but the feds argued that the CIAU was doing little to develop Canadian players. Ottawa had become involved when the three French schools in Quebec, the University of Sherbrooke, Laval University and the University of Quebec at Montreal, refused to play Loyola College because of the west-end Montreal school’s recruiting policies. Loyola had 11 Americans on its 12-man basketball squad that represented the QUAA in the nationals. The CIAU also agreed to explore the possibility of an eight-team draw.
The bronze medalist Windsor Lancers: Jerry Sovran; Peter Mingay; Bruce Coulthard; Chris Coulthard; Bill Lozynsky; Walt Lozynsky; Ward Conway; Ernie Hehn; Tom Hogan; Brady Spetz; coach Paul Thomas
The silver medalist Lakehead Norwesters: Robert Jackson; Evan Simpson; James Copeland; Dan Rajanovich; Joe Edwards; Russell Bailey; Ken Hill; Jerome Blue; Tom Francis; Grant Pierce; Rick Whitfield; John Gamble; Mike Lalonde; Rick Warner; coach Howard Lockhart; assistant coach Jerry Hemmings
The champion St. Mary’s Huskies: Mickey Fox; John Gallinaugh; Lee Thomas; Otha Johnson; Greg Redding; Fred Perry; Art Waters; Brian Burgess; Peter Halpin; Bob Taboski; Donald Gallagher; coach Brian Heaney; manager John Landry; manager Terry O’Neil; manager Peter MacAllister