In Season Tournaments

[hopefan]

Ronk... the Dapper Dan... I attended  the very first one as a junior in high school...  1966... little guard wowed the world by putting up about 40....  Calvin Murphy...  I had THAT program for years, but alas no more.....

178??   now closer to 278 than 178, but I made a New year's resolution.....

[David Collinge]

Not that I'm not enjoying this trip down your Memory Lanes, but I wonder if there's anyone else out there who would like to tell us about their long-running holiday tournament?  Surely Wooster's Mose Hole Classic and Rochester's Wendy's Classic are not the only two tournaments that date back to (or beyond) the early days of D3.

[magicman]

When I played in the late 60's, the highlight of the season was a the Christmas Time tourney at Albany State...  the Capital District Tourney....  Featuring the 4 capital district schools Union, RPI, Siena, and Albany State....  it would be a sellout every year, and RPI would always be the underdog, Siena usually the favorite, but wow, talk about pumped up to play!!!!   Of course first Siena, and later Albany State moved to D1, and the tourney ended, probably in the early 80's...  wonder if Magicman could research its end...??

hopefan,
I spoke to Joe Cardany, former Union great, about the Christmas tournament in Albany. He said that they continued to hold it into the early to mid 80's but Siena stopped playing in the mid 70's. I believe the last year Siena played was Christmas of 1976, because the Albany-Siena rivalry ended on February 3 1977. After a long hiatus Siena and Albany renewed their rivalry once again in 2001 as Albany had moved up to D1 by then. Joe played at Union from the fall of 1977 until the spring of 1981 and Siena was never in the tournament during his 4 years there. They would have a scrimmage against Siena in pre-season but the Saints were no longer interested in playing a D3 team during the regular season. (Afraid of losing )  The tournament when Joe played was Union, RPI, Albany State and a guest 4th team from around the NY-Vermont region that was always different each year. It may have ended when Albany went D2, or possibly a few years before that. Not sure exactly what year that was, but I believe their last year in the SUNYAC was 1986-1987. That's the last time I could find any record of them in the SUNYAC playoff archives and if Albany was in the SUNYAC, you could pretty much count on them being in the playoffs. The Great Danes' coach, "Doc" Sauers, rarely had a losing season on his way to 702-330 collegiate coaching record. Anyway that's the best I can come up with.

[hopefan]

Thanks again Magic.....  I must have gotten so involved with Hope basketball in the early 80's that I didn't realize Siena got out....  Doc Sauers, and his long time assistant Bob Lewis (I think Bob) were good friends with Bill Kalbaugh and always treated me well... both were great guys.....