BASKETBALL - Washington & Lee - Washington and Lee University

GENERALS BASKETBALL
That season was the first of nine straight losing seasons. W&L turned it around
in 1966-67 with a 20-5 record under third-year coach Verne Canfield.
Beginning with the 1966-67 season the Generals won four of five College Athletic
Conference championships. Those teams were led by the duo of Mel Cartwright and
Mike Neer. Cartwright became the first General since Jay Handlan to lead the team
in scoring four straight years. Neer made the most of a three-year career in Lexington
by scoring 1,289 points and grabbing 1,003 rebounds, including a school-record
403 in 1969-70. Cartwright and Neer are the only two players in school history to
reach both 1,000 career points and rebounds.
W&L had established itself as one of the top small college programs in the nation
and the Generals were invited to the first-ever Division III national tournament
in 1975. The Generals went just 15-12 that year, but defeated Navy 54-47 and lost
to Virginia by just a 77-69 count. The Generals were bounced from the tournament
by Glassboro State, the eventual runner-up.
Canfield guided the Generals back to the NCAA tourney just two years later
when the 1976-77 squad set a school-record with 23 wins. W&L, led by first-year
starter Pat Dennis' 21.7 points a game, finished the year ranked 4th in Division III.
Once again the Generals were eliminated in the first round.
The following year Dennis set a school record with his 700 points, averaging 25.0
points a game. W&L finished 22-6 and defeated Jersey City 66-65 in the opening
round of the tourney before losing to Kean 80-64 in the championship game of the
South Atlantic Regional.
W&L's most recent trip to the tourney came in 1979-80 with an unlikely group.
After finishing the regular season with just an 11-13 record, W&L won its third Old
Dominion Athletic Conference championship in four years to qualify for the NCAAs. In
the ODAC tourney W&L beat Emory & Henry 56-50, top-seeded Eastern Mennonite
95-84 and Hampden-Sydney 58-56 on Rob Smitherman's 18-foot jump shot at the
buzzer. W&L was eliminated in the opening round of the NCAA tourney.
W&L's last championship was the ODAC regular season title in 1988-89 when
a group of sophomores led by Chris Jacobs, Mike Holton and Ed Hart were the key
forces. All three of those players finished their careers with over 1,000 points.
W&L'S CHAMPIONSHIP SEASONS
1934 - Southern Conference
1938 - Southern Conference
1967 - College Athletic Conference
1968 - College Athletic Conference
1970 - College Athletic Conference
1971 - College Athletic Conference
1976 - Va. College Athletic Association
1977 - Old Dominion Athletic Conference
1978 - Old Dominion Athletic Conference
1980 - Old Dominion Athletic Conference
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