BASKETBALL - Washington & Lee - Washington and Lee University

Washington and lee
W&L BASKETBALL HISTORY
Since the Blue and White first tipped off in
1906, basketball has been one of the most
successful sports at Washington and Lee.
The school has also produced a number
of outstanding players.
The first W&L great on the hardwood
was Harry (Cy) Young who was named to
the Helm Foundation's 1917 All-America
team. Young led the Generals to a perfect
13-0 record that season.
W&L enjoyed numerous winning seasons
over the next decade and a half, but
it wasn't until Young returned as a coach
Jay Handlan
that W&L won a championship. The Generals
won the 1934 Southern Conference
championship with a narrow 30-29 win over Duke. That would prove to the first of
four straight trips to the Southern Conference finals for W&L.
The Blue Comets, as the W&L basketball teams of the late 1930s were called,
brought home a second Southern Conference title in 1937 by beating North Carolina
44-33. The victory avenged losses to the Tar Heels in each of the previous two
championships.
Those teams were led by the All-American duo of Norm Iler and Bob Spessard.
Iler was a three-time All-Southern guard and earned All-America honors in 1936.
Spessard was also a three-time All-Southern basketball player and the high-scoring
center was an All-American in 1937. Spessard was the first player in school history
to reach 1,000 career points.
The W&L teams of the late 1940s and early 1950s didn't win often, but featured
one of the nation's most explosive scorers in Jay Handlan. Handlan finished in the
top 16 in the nation in scoring every year and ended his career with 2,002 points.
At the time he was just the third player in collegiate history to reach 2,000 career
points. Handlan still holds seven school records, including most points in a game
- a 66-point performance against Furman in 1951.
W&L's last years in the Southern Conference came in the late 1950s and provided
W&L with one of its greatest teams. The University decided to abolish the practice of
awarding scholarships in 1954, but honored those that had already been awarded.
The 1956-57 team included five scholarship players who played almost all of the
minutes that year. The team became known as the "Five-Star Generals."
Dom Flora, Lee Marshall, Barry Storick, Frank Hoss and Barclay Smith led
the team to a 20-7 finish, including a loss to West Virginia and its star "Hot Rod"
Hundley in the finals of the Southern Conference tournament. It was the first time
a W&L team won 20 games in a season.
Marshall and Flora were named to numerous all-star teams with Marshall
averaging 22.0 points a game and Flora 19.1.
Flora had one more year left and made it one to remember even though the
Generals finished just 9-16. Flora earned All-America honors averaging 25.4 points
a game. Flora finished his career with 2,310 points, still the school record.
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