Despite Donoher’s wariness, the 1965-66 Flyers rode the momentum generated by the 1964-65 team, which finished 22-7 and earned the program’s first NCAA tournament berth in 13 years, to a 23-6 record and another NCAA tournament appearance.
By making the tournament in his first two seasons, after he took over the program following the death of his predecessor, Tom Blackburn, from cancer in 1964, Donoher started building a legacy that would lead him to becoming Dayton’s all-time winningest coach.
“I think his ability to adjust his style of basketball to the personnel on hand has been a big factor in his success,” assistant coach Chuck Grigsby said in February 1966. “We set a team field goal shooting percentage record last year with the same players we had the year before. That’s a tribute to his style change.”
Donoher’s first two teams laid the groundwork for Dayton’s run to the NCAA championship game in the 1966-67 season. Much has been written about that group, most recently in this section in January, but the 60th anniversary of the 1965-66 team provides a good opportunity to look back on another memorable season.
Senior class: Henry Finkel, a 6-foot-11 center from Union City, N.J., who was also known as Hank, led Dayton with 22.7 points and 12.1 rebounds per game in his senior season.
Finkel’s scoring average ranks eighth in UD history. He set a school record that still stands by averaging 25.3 points as a junior after averaging 23.0 points as a sophomore. He won Dayton’s MVP award three times.
“He didn’t set records,” Donoher said after Finkel’s final season, “he tore up the record book and sat on it. It’s hard to put into words what this man did for us and our program. Have you ever seen anyone who displayed more unselfishness?”
Finkel finished his career as Dayton’s all-time leading scorer (1,968 points) but was passed by Don May (1,980) in 1968. Both played three seasons of varsity basketball in the era when freshmen were not allowed to play.
Roosevelt Chapman, who played from 1980-84, scored 1,863 points in his last three seasons plus 370 in his freshman season. He’s Dayton’s all-time leader in points scored (2,233).
Finkel played nine seasons in the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers, San Diego Rockets and Boston Celtics after leaving Dayton. He won an NBA championship with the Celtics in 1974. He ran an office business in Lynnfield, Mass., for 32 before retiring in 2014, according to the Boston Globe.
• Bill Cassidy, a 6-4 senior forward from Louisville, Ky., averaged 5.2 points in his final season. He was a co-captain along with Finkel.
“The word competitor is so overworked I dislike using it,” Donoher said before the season, ”but that’s what Cassidy is — a competitor. He’s not a real good shooter, yet he’s made 20 straight foul shots in games. He’s better in a game than in practice. I think he works himself up competitively to do everything better.”
Cassidy later worked two seasons (1968-70) as a part-time assistant and six seasons (1970-75) as an assistant coach on Donoher’s staff.
Junior class: Dayton’s starters for most of the season were Finkel, May, Bobby Joe Hooper, Glinder Torain and Gene Klaus, a 6-0 junior guard from Delphos St. John’s High School. A member of the last class recruited by Tom Blackburn, he averaged 8.7 points.
Before the season, Donoher said of Klaus, “He became a regular last year in our ninth game against Dartmouth. When we went to the Kentucky tournament, we took 12 players, but Gene stayed behind. He rated No. 14 or 15 on a squad of 16. But he never quit in practice and did things that forced his attention to me. The development of a kid like this is one of the real thrills of coaching.”
Klaus was inducted into the UD Hall of Fame in the 2003-04 season. He scored 671 points in three seasons. He holds the UD record for most appearances in NCAA tournament games (11).
Sophomore class: May, a 6-4 forward from Belmont High School in Dayton, averaged 20.3 points and 11.4 rebounds in his first season on the varsity team. He was one of four standout sophomores, along with Bobby Joe Hooper, Glinder Torain and Rudy Waterman, who played big roles for the 1965-66 team.
May chose Dayton over Notre Dame near the end of his senior year at Belmont in April 1964. He had more than 75 scholarship offers. He also had a scholarship offer to play baseball at Wake Forest.
“I decided to choose Dayton because of the tremendous interest they have shown in me and I think my opportunities at UD are unlimited,” May said then.
May was one of the first recruits to pick UD after Donoher was named head coach on March 17, 1964, following the death 11 days earlier of coach Tom Blackburn, who had battled cancer.
“I’m going to sleep well tonight,” Donoher said after May’s decision. “I’ve really been sweating this one out.”
Hype started building for May when he averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds for the freshman team. He earned a spot in the starting lineup on the varsity team with his performance in the first scrimmage.
“May is a real athlete,” Donoher said before the season. “He’s a fine pitcher and would make an excellent football player. He’s a kid I can talk about without any fear of spoiling. He’s the fastest man in our sprint tests. We test a player’s jumping ability by having him stand on his toes and leaping as high as he can. Don’s our best, testing 23 inches.
“If Donnie has a weakness, it’s failure to concentrate at times, which leads to a tendency not to bear down on every play. He is blessed with a wonderful disposition. He won’t mind playing second fiddle to Finkel any more than he minded playing in Bill Hosket’s shadow at Belmont.”
May averaged 22.4 and 22.2 points in his last two seasons. He helped lead Dayton to the NCAA championship game, where it lost to UCLA in 1967, and to the NIT championship game, where it beat Kansas, in 1968. He averaged 8.8 points in a seven-year NBA career that included stints with five teams.
• Hooper, a 6-0 guard from Lees Creek, Ohio, averaged 9.5 points. He battled foot injuries throughout the season and an illness late in the season but appeared in 27 of 29 games. He improved his numbers every season, averaging 11.7 points as a junior and 15.2 as a senior. He ranks 44th in school history with 1,059 points.
• Torain, a 6-6 forward from Muncie, Ind., ranked third on the team with 9.7 points per game. He earned a starting job early in the season, replacing Cassidy in the lineup.
• Waterman, a 6-1 guard from Waterbury, N.Y., averaged 6.1 points in 18 games.
Team preview: Two days before a 90-54 victory in the season opener against Villa Madonna College, which is now known as Thomas More University, 1,600 fans attended the Journal Herald cage clinic at the UD Fieldhouse.
Donoher and assistant coach Chuck Grigsby covered topics such as shooting, pivot play and driving with and without the ball. Players demonstrated various drills, including “dribble tag,” in which four players dribbling balls chased each other around the court.
According to a Journal Herald report by Jim Zofkie, “In a special sidelight during the rebounding portion of the program, Donoher had seven of his players dunk the ball back-to-back. The climax came when seven-foot center Hank Finkel was followed in his dunking by the spectacular leaping dunk of 6-1 guard Rudy Waterman.
“Donoher later revealed that Waterman and 6-4 sophomore Don May, the Belmont product, get off the ground higher than any of the other Flyers. Both have a 23-inch difference from the highest point they can reach without jumping and the highest while leaping.”
Injury news: Jim Wannemacher, a 6-6 forward from Ottoville High School, missed the season with a back issue after averaging 6.0 points as a sophomore in the 1964-65 season. He returned in the 1966-67 and 1967-68 season but played limited minutes.
• Dennis Papp, a 6-3 forward from Fairview, missed the season after undergoing knee surgery. He averaged 9.1 points as a junior the previous season.
Star power: Dayton played a future member of the Basketball Hall of Fame on Dec. 15 in its fifth game: Wes Unseld, of Louisville. Unseld, a 6-7 sophomore center, scored 20 points on 8-of-19 shooting in a 76-59 loss to Dayton at the UD Fieldhouse.
Unseld averaged 19.9 points that season. Louisville finished 16-10.
Finkel scored 19. May, Klaus and Hooper all scored 16.
Best early victory: Dayton improved to 8-0 with an 85-71 victory against Auburn on Dec. 29 at the Sugar Bowl tournament in New Orleans, La.
May tallied 27 points and 15 rebounds against an Auburn team that would finish 16-10.
“Our consistent play impressed me the most,” Donoher said. “We had poise for 40 minutes, which is unusual for us. And we didn’t get too confused, defensively against their shuffle offense.”
First loss: Despite a career-high 44 points by Hinkel, Dayton lost 77-75 to Maryland in New Orleans a day after beating Auburn.
Maryland built a 14-point halftime lead by making 20 of 30 shots. The Flyers rallied to take the lead in the second half but were doomed by three late turnovers.
Hinkel scored what was then the second most points in school history. The total now ranks tied for fourth. He made 14 of 27 field goals and 16 of 17 free throws.
“I wanted to win the ballgame,” Hinkel said. “Forty four points? I had no idea.”
Best regular-season victory: Dayton beat No. 5 Saint Joseph’s 79-76 at the Palestra in Philadelphia on Jan. 29, improving to 14-3.
After the game, Donoher said it was “perhaps my greatest coaching victory.”
Dayton won despite Cassidy and May fouling out in the second half. Cassidy left the game with 15 minutes, 10 seconds remaining.
May’s night ended at the 8:01 mark. He finished with 16 points. Saint Joseph’s led 63-61 at that point.
Torain and Waterman replaced Cassidy and May in the lineup.
Torain made two free throws to give Dayton a 73-72 lead in the final two minutes. After a steal by Torain, Waterman scored with about a minute to play. Torain scored again in the final minute on a tip-in.
Finkel led Dayton with 23 points on 8-of-11 shooting.
After the game, Donoher credited a former Saint Joseph’s player, Paul Westhead, who worked as a volunteer assistant freshman coach at Dayton under Blackburn in the 1963-64 season for providing a scouting report on Saint Joseph’s. That year, Westhead was working at Cheltenham High School in Philadelphia.
Westhead later gained fame as a head coach. He led La Salle from 1970-79. He had stints at George Mason, Loyola Marymount and Oregon. He also coached the Los Angeles Lakers to an NBA championship in 1980.
“Westhead was particularly good,” Donoher said, “in tipping us off to the different kinds of defenses St. Joe used. It helped us plan our game perfectly.”
Only home loss: Dayton was 12-0 at the UD Fieldhouse when it fell 77-72 to No. 4 Loyola Chicago on Feb. 16. The loss ended a 20-game home winning streak that started the previous season. Loyola finished 22-3 that season.
In the Dayton Daily News, Si Burick wrote about Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, who would lead his team to its eighth straight NBA championship that year, attending the game to scout the talent with two of his players, John Havlicek and K.C. Jones.
“Afterward, the old redhead, who had to chew on his famous cigar in a Fieldhouse where no smoking is permitted, divested himself of a few opinions,” Burick wrote.
“Loyola had too much speed for Dayton,” Auerbach said. “They had quickness, the knack of getting good position and jumping ability. Their little guards, Doug Wardlaw and Jim Coleman had great movement and fine shooting eyes.”
Finkel scored 20 points on 8-of-18 shooting. May had 25 points on 10-of-24 shooting.
Of Finkel, Auerbach said, “They tell me this wasn’t one of his better nights and that he’s been doing good work from the outside. Well, he certainly impressed me, and this was a night when he belonged on the inside. I don’t suppose I’ll ever get a crack at this big kid in the draft, but I’d take a chance on him. He’s got a good touch. He makes good moves. He’s got enough speed, considering his height. And I watched him in the game and in practice, and it’s easy to see he has the right attitude.”
Of May, Auerbach said, “For a sophomore, he is a sound ball player and definitely will be a good pro prospect by the time he gråduates.”
Best late-season victory: Dayton beat Houston 78-69 on Feb. 24 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Dayton blew most of a 19-point lead in the second half and led 67-65 with 31 seconds to play when it made a play that helped clinch the game. After a basket by Houston, Waterman threw what Dayton Daily News beat writer Bill Clark described as a “basic football pass” to May to beat a full-court press. The deep pass led to an easy basket for May, who scored 27 points.
“John McVay called that play,” Donoher joked after the game, referring to the UD football coach.
Dayton won despite getting a career-low seven points from Finkel. Both teams had great seasons with Houston finishing 25-6 and making the NCAA tournament, but both teams played so poorly in this game, they were booed by the crowd of 11,620 waiting to see two local teams, Manhattan and NYU, play in the second game.
Donoher said Houston and Dayton “played horrible basketball and set basketball back a few years.”
NCAA bid: Dayton received an invitation to the NCAA tournament on Feb. 23 with three games remaining in the regular season. The National Invitation Tournament extended a bid to Dayton on the same day.
By this point, the NCAA prohibited member schools that received NCAA tournament invitations from participating in other tournaments. Dayton turned down a NIT bid for the first time in 1965.
Dayton had other reasons to pick the NCAA tournament over the NIT. The school had switched from a two-semester academic calendar to trimesters, and that meant final exams for the second period were held in late March and early April.
“What we had to consider,” Athletic Director Tom Frericks said, “was what a mass student-body exodus of the kind we used to know would mean academically in the trimester system. Now missing one class is more vital than missing several would have been before the change.
“When we first went to the NIT, it was a 12-team tourney with four first-round byes. Now it has 14 teams and you have to be pretty lucky to get one of the two byes. It means maybe 10 days away from school for the members of the team and then, if you stay in, the later departure of a large portion of the student body, which should be studying for final exams.”
Finkel’s farewell: In his final home game as a Flyer, Finkel set Dayton’s career scoring record, passing Don “Monk” Meineke, who scored 1,866 points from 1949-52. Finkel scored 32 points in a 109-80 victory against Detroit to push his career total to 1,876.
Finkel, Cassidy and the team’s other senior, Jack Warrell, were honored at halftime. Finkel told a sellout crowd of 5,880, “It has been my pleasure.”
Meineke attended the game and congratulated Finkel and wished him luck in the postseason.
Dayton finished 22-4 in the regular season.
NCAA victory: Two days after beating Detroit, Dayton beat Miami University 58-51 in the first round of the NCAA tournament at Memorial Gymnasium in Kent, Ohio.
This was Dayton’s third victory of the season against Miami. The Flyers won 63-48 in Dayton on Dec. 7 in the third game of the season and 75-60 in Oxford on Feb. 19.
Miami played a slow-down game to keep the third game close, and it resulted in Dayton’s lowest score of the season. Donoher said Miami coach Dick Shrider, who stepped down as basketball coach after the season to become athletic director, had an excellent game plan.
“If we had to play Dayton again tomorrow, we’d play them the same way,” Shrider said. “It’s a lot easier to come back from four down than it is from 20, and if we had made some of those 1-and-1s from the free-throw line, we would have been right on Dayton’s tail.”
NCAA losses: Four days later, Dayton lost 86-79 to No. 1 Kentucky at the Iowa Field House in Iowa City, Iowa.
Finkel’s 36 points were not enough to lead the Flyers to the upset. Donoher called it a “typical Finkel performance — in other words, “a great one.”
“We didn’t win it, so my game couldn’t have been that great,” Finkel said. “It was a hard loss.”
Dayton led 64-59 midway through the second half. Then turnovers by the Flyers led to a 9-0 run by Kentucky in a 90-second span. That was the turning point, though the Flyers kept it close until the final minute and never trailed by more than the final margin.
Louie Dampier scored 34 for Kentucky. Future NBA coach Pat Riley scored 29 and scored a big basket with 45 seconds remaining to give Kentucky an 82-77 lead.
Kentucky reached the NCAA championship game before losing to Texas Western.
Dayton’s season ended a day later with an 82-68 loss to Western Kentucky in the Mid-East Regional consolation game. Finkel fouled out with 1:47 remaining after scoring 31 points in his final game. He received a standing ovation from a sellout crowd of 13,000.
Finkel twice turned down chances to play professional basketball earlier in his career to stay at Dayton.
“I wouldn’t trade this season at Dayton for all the money in the world,” Finkel said.
Finkel finished his career with most of Dayton’s scoring records.
“They are like all records — made to be broken,“ he said, ”and Donnie May has the ability to break them in the next two seasons.”
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