Bill Kalbaugh Times Union Article March 31 2008

Bonnies: Huge 'What if?'

Siena's trip stirs memories of Bonaventure's Final Four

By MARK McGUIRE Senior writer Click byline for more stories by writer.

First published: Monday, March 31, 2008

As great as Siena's run into the second round of the NCAAs proved, you couldn't expect more, right? The idea of a small upstate Franciscan school making, say, the Final Four is preposterous.

"They played well," Billy Kalbaugh said. "Next year the goal is to win a couple of ballgames" in the tournament.

But a Final Four appearance for a school like that? It could never happen.

Except it did.

Thirty-eight years ago, St. Bonaventure -- a small Franciscan school from Olean -- made it to the Final Four. The Bonnies were led by seniors Bob Lanier, the Hall of Fame center, and his co-captain and roommate, Billy Kalbaugh, the point guard out of Troy by way of Catholic Central.
All these years later, Kalbaugh remembers the joy of beating Villanova (yes, the school that ousted Siena) to reach the Final Four, played in 1970 at Cole Field House at the University of Maryland.

"I remember the jubilation, the bench rushing out," Kalbaugh said. "We were thrilled; we were going to the Final Four."

But the joy was short-lived.

Lanier suffered a knee injury in that Villanova game. The senior's season was done.
"It was a real strange one for me. ... Bob was an indestructible guy," said Kalbaugh, who now lives in Greensboro, N.C. "You never felt he was going to get hurt."

Team trainer Dick Gigliotti broke the news to Kalbaugh while he was still on the court celebrating the Elite 8 win. "It just tempered the elation immediately," he said.

The team returned to upstate New York and visited Lanier at a Buffalo hospital. In the Final Four, the Bonnies played Jacksonville tough before losing 91-83, then lost the (now-defunct) consolation game to New Mexico State, 79-73.

Kalbaugh is the son of a local basketball legend, Bill Kalbaugh. In a two-season stretch from 1951 to 1953, the elder Kalbaugh led Mechanicville High to a pair of sectional titles; the "Whiz Kids" went 38-1 over those seasons. He moved on to coach hoops at RPI for 34 years. Now 86, he's a member of the New York Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame.

Today, the son works as national field director for Coaches vs. Cancer. (The national director is former St. Bonaventure coach Jim Satalin.) The organization, started in 1993 following the death of Jim Valvano, has raised $40 million over the years. Kalbaugh works with coaches around the country. "A really rewarding job," he said.

Kalbaugh will be in San Antonio for the Final Four. Inevitably, his thoughts will drift back to '70. And that NCAA Tournament produced one of the great What-if questions in sports:

If Lanier -- arguably the best player in the country that year (Pete Maravich won the Naismith) -- had not gotten rolled by Chris Ford and hurt his knee in the Elite 8 game, had he been able to play in the Final Four ... would the Bonnies, that little upstate Franciscan school, have won it all?

"Not a doubt in my mind," Kalbaugh said. "I still think about it quite often." Mark McGuire can be reached at 454-5467 or by e-mail at mmcguire@timesunion.com. Visit his blog at http://blogs. timesunion.com/mcguire.