By Woodrow Carroll
With the conference portion of the collegiate basketball season well under way, a glance at the various polls tells us that every team has suffered at least one defeat.
Purdue, Houston, and Kansas, and you can mix and match the top teams with each passing day, lead the Associated Press top 25 poll with each of the three having lost once. We know, it would be no surprise to see each of those three teams, as well as a great many other familiar faces, make it to the NCAA postseason tournament.
In the two-loss department, and we know that even the best teams in the collegiate basketball likely will suffer further setbacks as the season progresses. We have Connecticut, Arizona, Texas, Alabama, and Tennessee with two defeats We quickly become aware that most of the teams in the hunt for basketball glory have solid football programs. In fact, teams not known for success in both football and basketball are outliers.
There are, however, three teams in the AP Top 25 for basketball singularly silent in football.
Gonzaga, the No. 9 team in the basketball poll has established itself as a force in collegiate basketball. At one time, Gonzaga had good football.
John Houston Stockton, the grandfather of former NBA star John Stockton, played pro football in the 1920s when the pro game was in its infancy. John H. Stockton was a celebrated football player at Gonzaga before going on to the pro game. Football at the Spokane, Wash. school, however, was dropped at the start of World War II and never revived. World War II brought about the temporary cessation of a great many collegiate sports programs. Most were back in place once the War ended. Not so for Gonzaga, however!
One of thee earliest Green Bay Packers’ stars was Tony Canadeo who had an interesting background.
Born and raised in Chicago, Canadeo attended Steinmetz High School on Chicago’s northwest Side. Canadeo’s high school football skills earned him a scholarship to play football at distant Gonzaga. Canadeo’s outstanding play at Gonzaga did not go unnoticed and he was a 1941 draft choice of the Packers. In a pro career spent entirely with the Packers, that lasted through 1952, Canadeo twice was a first-team NFL all-star selection.
• Another high-ranking team with football no longer in the picture is Xavier. The Xavier Musketeers were once had a solid football program. However, the cost of maintaining football became too much and the school discontinued the sport in 1973.
Xavier reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA basketball tournament on three occasions, 2004, 2008, and 2017 before falling.
Xavier’s high-water mark might have been in 1958. The Musketeers won the NIT (National Invitational Tournament) in 1958 when the tournament was on a par with the NCAA Tournament in prestige.
• College of Charleston moved into the No. 23 spot in the most recent basketball poll. Nicknamed the Cougars, College of Charleston is a member of the Colonial Athletic Association. The Cougars are 14-1 with the lone loss being a 102-86 setback at the hands of prestigious North Carolina.
• The Iowa Hawkeyes football program took some heat after struggling to defeat FCS (Football Championship Subdivision), a second level member, South Dakota State, 7-3 in its season-opener. Turns out that the Hawkeyes were the only team to beat the South Dakota State Jackrabbits this season.
With a 45-21 victory over North Dakota State in the Sunday, Jan. 8 FCS championship game in Frisco, Texas, the Jackrabbits laid claim to the FCS championship. South Dakota State, a member of the Missouri Valley Conference which features Illinois State, Western Illinois, and Southern Illinois among others, finished with a 14-1 record.