These three combined for 105 sins and 0 losses

What is the mix of elements necessary for a basketball team to have a perfect winning season?

Certainly, talent stirred with purpose, focus, determination, preparation and execution is the answer.

But what will any coach tell you is the last element needed to win a state championship without experiencing a single defeat throughout a season filled with pitfalls, both home and away? 

The answer is luck, the final denominator in winning the grand prize without losing a single game.

Three Catholic League basketball teams are among the Louisiana schools to have posted perfect seasons: Brother Martin (1969-70), Archbishop Rummel (1977-78) and St. Augustine (1982-83).

True, there have been other local Catholic schools that were perfect: St. Aloysius, 30-0 in 1950-51; De La Salle, 23-0 in 1950-51 and 20-0 in 1948-49; and the Jesuit teams of 1945-46 and 1943-44, who each posted 15-0 records.

De La Salle could have risen to the top of its class in 1985-86 had the Cavaliers not lost a game during their championship run that ended with a 40-1 record. Coached by the master, Jimmy Tillette, they possessed all the elements except for the intangible of good fortune.

But let’s focus on the three who made history:

1970 Brother Martin 36-0

When St. Aloysius and Cor Jesu merged into Brother Martin High, the administration chose former Aloysius mentor Andy Russo over Cor Jesu’s Bob Conlin to be its first basketball coach. A year later, head football coach and athletic director Andy Bourgeois left the school, and Conlin became its head football coach, thus beginning a hall of fame career.

Russo knew how to cultivate talent. He molded a team with blue-collar determination to become a national Catholic champion in just his first year on the job. They won the title by erasing a 16-point, second-quarter deficit to score a 72-56 victory over Captain Shreve in the finals before a record crowd of 15,657 spectators in Alexandria’s Rapides Parish Coliseum. At the time, it was a record crowd for Louisiana high school basketball.

The Crusaders consisted of three hard-working, disciplined players – Ernest Brunet, Gabe Williams and Glenn Masson. They also had young, but talented Jay Trapani, Tommy Smith, Dale Valdary and the Furlan twins, Joe and Charles. Four were among the first African-American students admitted into the school.

Winning the Catholic League was difficult enough against the likes of St. Augustine, De La Salle, Redemptorist and Holy Cross. But to overcome a 16-point deficit in the title game against the No. 1 player in Class 3A (Jeff Sudds), Russo used a 1-3-1 trap. Shreve couldn’t penetrate it, and as the deficit dwindled, the Crusaders gained confidence and won going away.

To this day, no local team has won as many games without a loss. St. Augustine went 37-1 in 1994-95 and Holy Cross was 39-6 in 1973-74.

1978 Rummel, 34-0

Coached by Louisiana High School Hall of Famer Jim Robarts, Rummel won all 34 games and gained its second consecutive Class 4A title following a 1976-77 season in which it went 31-4. The Raiders won it by spoiling De Ridder’s bid for a perfect season, 52-48. 

Robarts returned four senior starters from that team, two of whom were All-State selections the previous year (Wade Blundell and Barry Barocco). The other veteran leadership came from 6-9 Dean Carpenter and 6-3 forward Jim Pittman. The nucleus of this experienced and highly disciplined team defeated Fair Park, 83-64, for its 34th win of the year and 49th consecutive. Rummel made the championship game a laugher after barely beating Carroll, 52-51.

Robarts, whose career began with a humble 3-21 season at Jesuit of Shreveport (Loyola Prep today), went on to coach at East Jefferson, Haynes Academy and Archbishop Shaw well into his 70s and ended his career with a record 704-408. The Rummel administration named the fieldhouse’s basketball court in his honor.

Once the terror of the All-Black LIALO before 1966, the Purple Knights were the crème de la crème of the hardwood in that league. But it wasn’t until the 1982-83 season that they earned the awe and respect of their local and statewide peers by winning 35 consecutive games, which included the Cass 4A title in a heart-throbber over Neville, 61-60.

Coached by the late Watson Jones, St. Aug had assembled its most talented group since 1966-67, when a Harold Sylvester-led team embarrassed its competition to win the CYO championship going away one year before it won a federal court order to join the LHSAA as the state’s only school with an all-black enrollment.

This team was so loaded and well-balanced that former Shreveport sports writer Jerry Byrd noted that a non-starter – Avery Johnson – played in the NBA for 15 years before becoming the Dallas Mavericks’ head coach. Another starter – Donald Royal – was the Knights’ No. 2 scorer who went on to star at Notre Dame and enjoyed a 13-year pro career. But Dwayne Lewis was the only player on that squad to earn All-State notoriety.

The road to the title was hardly a cakewalk. In a tune-up for the playoffs, the Knights had their hands full with local public school archrival McDonogh 35 before winning, 38-34. 

In a playoff game against Bonnabel before 3,500 spectators at Tulane University, St. Aug held a precarious 44-37 lead before forcing 34 turnovers to snap the Bruins’ 19-game winning streak with a 17-0 run in the final period and an eventual 66-47 rout.

Watson’s team then eliminated Bourgeois, 43-38, and brushed aside Green Oaks, 84-57, in the semifinal round.

The final win of the season came when Royal took a charge with nine seconds remaining in the title game to set up teammate Eric Coleman with the winning free throws.

Tragedy struck the basketball program when the beloved Jones became a murder victim in 1987. But his assistant became a legend in his own right. Bernard Griffith took over and led the Purple Knights to three more state titles in the 1990s.

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