This story is part one in a three-part series on the 1959 Northwestern basketball team. Part two: Ruklick hooks way to history book. Part three: NBA great Chamberlain started building legacy against NU.

It was December 27, 1958. No. 12 Northwestern was scheduled to face No. 5 West Virginia in a game featuring two of the premier players in college basketball, Joe Ruklick and Jerry West, who both went on to be All-Americans. As 12,775 fans crowded into Chicago Stadium, they didn’t know what was in store.

In a double-overtime thriller, Ruklick led NU with 28 points, but it was a wiry 6-foot-3 guard who made arguably the biggest impact on the game. Willie Jones, who was nicknamed “The Bird” for his ability to soar, figured out a way to hang in the air on shot attempts and force West to foul him, according to a 1960 article in the Saturday Evening Post. Because of this, West fouled out during the second half of regulation after scoring just 17 points, 12 of which came on ball screens.

The Wildcats topped the Mountaineers 118-109, showcasing their tremendous potential.

“It’s been 50 years, but I don’t think there’s been a team as good as we were,” said forward Dick Berry, a sixth man from Warren, Ohio, who added that West told him years later that NU was the best team he played against.

The 1959 squad, which was ticketed to win the Big Ten by two major publications, featured three players who logged a combined 11 seasons in the NBA. The Cats compiled a 15-7 record en route to finishing tied for second in the conference, but a key injury contributed to four of the team’s losses, and it never got the chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. Since then, NU has never again finished as high in the Big Ten.

Fifty years later, this missed opportunity looms large over a program that never has been able to find success.

“Northwestern has had 41 losing Big Ten seasons in a row,” said Ruklick, who was the team’s leading scorer and rebounder for three straight seasons. “What if we had won the Big Ten championship? I think that we would have recruited better. I think a lot of high school coaches would have said, ‘Hey, Northwestern is the Big Ten champion, son. Go to Northwestern.’ … That’s the worst part.”

Ruklick led a group of 16 freshmen brought in by coach Waldo Fisher in 1956. Because NCAA rules did not allow freshmen to play varsity basketball, Fisher stockpiled talent on the first-year squad, which routinely beat the upperclassmen in scrimmages, according to player and team manager Bob Rossiter. The group, which was deemed a “perfect storm” of talent by Rossiter, had a handful of players who received All-State and All-American honors in high school.

“It was probably the best collection of athletes I’ve ever seen for one team,” Berry said. “And how they ever got there at one time, I’ll never know … It was unbeliveable.”

Arguably more impressive, though, was that the team was largely composed of local products.

The Cats were slated to win the Big Ten in 1956-57, Fisher’s last season, with 10 returning lettermen and five sophomores. But NU ended the campaign with a disappointing 2-12 conference record.

Fisher turned over the job to Bill Rohr, a Miami (Ohio) product who was brought in for the 1957-58 season after Ara Parseghian had success with the football program. That season, the Cats, who played a more up-tempo style under Rohr, tied for fourth in the Big Ten with an 8-6 record in conference play.

That set the scene for the 1958-59 team, which has been identified as the best in school history by Berry and two of NU’s greatest fans and living archivists: George Beres, who covered the team as a radio announcer in the 1950s and served as a sports information director in the 60s, and Chuck Mount, The Daily’s sports editor in 1962.

But the team’s potential went untapped. A foot injury to star forward Phil Warren at the beginning of Big Ten play led to the roughest stretch of the team’s season, essentially taking the Cats out of contention for the conference crown and a berth in the Big Dance. At the time, only one team from each conference was rewarded with a bid to the field of 16 teams.

“They just didn’t have the depth,” Mount said. “It was two stars and three supporters. Once Phil went down, the first three players off the bench were inexperienced, so in today’s format they might have been able to make the regional round.”

If Warren’s injury held the team back, Rohr’s coaching may have restricted the team even more. The young coach, who was learning with the team, has been criticized by former players for coaching by the book and lacking ingenuity, but also for being strict and tough.

Upon his hiring, Rohr looked Ruklick in the eye, and said that “there would be no more candyasses at Northwestern.”

Then, two years later in that game against West Virginia, Ruklick said that during a key timeout Rohr was “sitting on the bench, staring into space, in a state of catatonic ice. Frozen. Unable to get up and get into the battle.”

In spite of this, NU overcame obstacles in that game. Now, 50 years later, that squad holds the distinction of coming closer to the NCAA tournament than any other in program history.

[email protected]@u.northwestern.edu

Read more:A game-by-game look at the 1958-59 ‘cagers’ season 5/26/09Ruklick hooks way to history book 5/27/09Joe Ruklick: Quick Hits 5/27/09NBA great Chamberlain started building legacy against NU 5/28/09