1943-44 Gonzaga basketball team

Gonzaga’s first great basketball squad had that Elite Eight team beat by more than half a century. Fifty-five years to be exact. Nearly forgotten today, the 1943-44 Gonzaga Bulldogs were the original one-and-done wonders of college basketball – 13 young men brought together by fate, steeled by wartime determination and blessed with a now-or-never opportunity to make some hardwood magic in a tiny gym on Boone Avenue.

Section:Gallery

Tue., Dec. 6, 2016

The 1943-44 Gonzaga basketball team posted a 21-2 record and was declared Northwest champions based on winning three of four games against the University of Washington. Front row, L-R: Jack Hafner, Jim Baker, Wally McGovern, Bob Gaston, Paul O’Toole. Back row: Jim Moriarity (manager), Dick Shorrock (manager), Paul Grieve, Jake Burton, Ed Hoene, Jack Coates, Archie Peterson, Jim Rafferty, George Ball and Navy Chief Specialist Chuck Henry, coach. First-string forward Earl “Cat Fingers” Strader was missing when the photo was taken.

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1. Basketball alums, L-R: Mel Ingram, Father Arthur Dussault, Lt. Commander Ray Flaherty, Dr. Ed Fitzgerald and Dr. Herbert Rotchford played together on the 1925-26 Gonzaga team that was the last to defeat the Washington Huskies until the ’43-44 Zags did it. The alums were honored and introduced to fans before the second game in the four-game UW-Gonzaga series, which the Zags won 76-39.

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Zags in action vs. UW: No. 5 Jim Baker goes up for a shot against the Washington Huskies. Baker, who led the ’43-44 team in scoring with an average of 15 points per game, had been a record-setting high school scorer in San Francisco and then played at Saint Mary’s College before joining the Navy and being shipped to Gonzaga. UW’s Perry Nelson wore a leather football helmet with face mask during the game to protect a broken nose.

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The Navy V-12 starting five, L-R: Bob Gaston, Earl Strader, Paul O’Toole, Wally McGovern and Jim Baker.

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Jack Hafner, sixth man and sometimes starter on the ’43-44 Gonzaga basketball team, presents a watch to Jesuit Brother Peter Buskens on behalf of the Navy V-12 personnel who studied at Gonzaga during the war. Buskens, a popular figure on campus for many years and “keeper of the lockers” for the Gonzaga athletic department, was made an “honorary V-12 man” by the Navy trainees.

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The 455-foot WWII warship “Gonzaga Victory,” built by Henry J. Kaiser, the one-time Spokane business turned international industrialist, was named in honor of the university. Father Francis Corkery, university president, was an honored guest at the launching ceremonies in the spring of 1945.

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