Jesuit hoops trying to hit it big

When you think of Jesuits, images of the Inquisition or education are probably the first things that come to mind. Chances are basketball isn't anywhere near the top of that list.

But the landscape of college basketball, both past and present, owes a great debt to the distinguished contributions of Jesuit universities on the court.

The 28 Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States—20 of whom offer men's and women's basketball at the Division I level—form a uniquely important group of schools that have become a fixture in the national limelight.

Today, there's a new initiative to return Jesuit basketball closer to the summit of its former glory. And some very familiar faces to St. Joe's fans are near the forefront of the Jesuit Basketball Spotlight (JBS) that is bringing the programs closer to the elusive and fanciful notion of a Jesuit basketball tournament.

Bring on the Spotlight 

With the Jesuit colleges in Division I stretching from Boston to Seattle and Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, it's no wonder that plans to unite the schools on the court have been hard to fulfill.

Repeated failures at just such an endeavor led to a radical rethinking by the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) several years ago, led by Hawk Hill favorite Joe Lunardi, '82.

"A couple of years ago, a core group of people got together with the blessing of Fr. Charles Currie, the president of AJCU, to think outside the box a little bit beyond the tournament idea to leverage what's there without playing coach, athletic director, or conference commissioner, which is beyond our authority," said Lunardi, a member of the JBS steering committee and the AJCU's Communications Advisory Council. "We might be able to get a few friendly coaches or Ads [athletic directors] who will tweak a game or schedule a neutral site here or there. But what can we do to work for all 28 and be a value added instead of a hardship?"

Lunardi based the new plan on one already used by Coaches vs. Cancer. In addition to their annual tournament, the organization holds the "Suits and Sneakers Awareness Weekend" where coaches nationwide wear sneakers on the sidelines to raise awareness for cancer research. The idea allows their crusade against cancer to gain tremendous national exposure without any manipulation of teams' schedules.

The same thing might be applicable for games between Jesuit schools, Lunardi thought, creating a simple way to raise the profile of games between the schools.   

Right off the bat, it surprised everyone involved, and gave the committee hope for its viability.

"We thought, let's take an inventory of the games that already exist between and among the Jesuit schools without any special scheduling and just call them something," Lunardi said. "Let's have a branding exercise. Well, there's over 90 games a year, which blew everyone away.

"There was no need to set up different games or different arrangements, just take advantage of what already existed, and use that as an opportunity to talk about some of the distinctive features of Jesuit higher education," said Currie. "While we're using basketball games, the primary focus is not on the basketball itself, but using the basketball as a way of highlighting Jesuit higher education—academics, student leadership and service activities, internationalization, various things like that."

But Lunardi and the steering committee took things a step further. They essentially created a "conference without a conference" in his words—not unlike the hallowed institution of the Big 5—complete with weekly game notes, players of the week, and standings.

The JBS Web site includes directions for publicizing the program through announcements by teams' public address systems, video screens, and radio and television broadcasters. Lunardi has gotten cooperation from sports information directors at a number of schools, and mention of the JBS has begun to make its way into schools' pre-game publications.

The only cost to a university for inclusion is the optional decision to procure a JBS floor decal for display on the court during games. It's a one time cost of $250 that ensures what Lunardi describes as a "two-hour commercial" for the JBS and, indirectly, the host school.

Now in year two of the project, AJCU is beginning to see an increased interest by schools to get games in the Spotlight for recognition that comes at a minimal cost.

"Let's call what we already have something, beat that drum for two or three years, and see if there's traction," Lunardi said. "And if there are people who aren't getting the traction from playing a lot of games in the spotlight, maybe they'll go out and schedule some games, and that's already beginning to happen."

The popularity is exactly what the JBS's founders were hoping for, and so far is serving as the ideal "coordinated first step to build awareness of the Jesuit mission by using the strength of Jesuit basketball," as its Web site declares. It may pave the way for the type of showcase tournament that generations of people involved with Jesuit basketball have worked towards.

Early Dominance

It took just nine years after the NCAA's formation of an official national tournament for a Jesuit basketball school to write its name as champion, highlighting a period of prominence for schools flying the flag of St. Ignatius. Holy Cross's triumph in 1947 was the first of six Jesuit National Championships, four of which came prior to 1963 when the NCAA Tournament was hardly the Big Dance it has become, limited to a variable number of teams that was always less than 25.

Jesuit schools, based largely in the urban centers of the Northeast, took advantage of the preoccupation of large state schools on the more profitable business of football. Except for several notable exceptions—such as Kansas, Indiana, and Kentucky—basketball season was merely a brief hiatus from football. The latter sport was held at the arena in which the state-funded, land-grant universities could assert their dominance, using their immense resources, vast campuses, and wide recruiting bases to build programs that few urban universities could dream of matching.