Basketball got its start at USF, then known as St. Ignatius College, in 1910. The original coach was Orno Taylor, whose subsequent achievements were lost to history. The College Annual reported that "the entire team did nobly in the season just finished and the student body as a unit thanks them for their loyalty and devotion." The St. Ignatius team won six of its seven games, losing only to
Pacific (then located in San Jose) by three points. Included in the victories was a sweep of
Santa Clara, still a major rival, by scores of 38–31 and 22–13. but sensed that the young
center had an extraordinary instinct for the game, especially in clutch situations. When DeJulio offered Russell a scholarship, the latter eagerly accepted. Sports journalist John Taylor described it as a watershed in Russell's life because Russell realized that basketball was his one chance to escape poverty and racism. (center) is holding the ball. At USF, Russell became the new starting center. Woolpert emphasized defense and deliberate half-court play, concepts that favored defensive standout Russell. Woolpert was unaffected by issues of skin color. In 1954, he became the first coach of a major college basketball squad to start three
African American players: Russell, K.C. Jones and
Hal Perry. In his USF years, Russell used his relative lack of bulk to develop a unique style of defense: instead of purely guarding the opposing center, he used his quickness and speed to play help defense against opposing
forwards and aggressively challenge their shots. On the hardwood, his experiences were far more pleasant. Russell led USF to NCAA championships in 1955 and 1956, including a string of 55 consecutive victories. He became known for his strong defense and shot-blocking skills, once denying 13 shots in a game.
UCLA coach
John Wooden called Russell "the greatest defensive man I've ever seen". During his college career, Russell averaged 20.7
points per game and 20.3
rebounds per game. Besides basketball, Russell represented USF in
track and field events. He competed in the race, which he could complete in 49.6 seconds. He also participated in the
high jump;
Track & Field News ranked him as the seventh-best high jumper in the world in 1956. That year, Russell won high jump titles at the Central California
AAU meet, the Pacific AAU meet, and the West Coast Relays. One of his highest jumps occurred at the West Coast Relays, where he achieved a mark of . After his years at USF, the
Harlem Globetrotters invited Russell to join their
exhibition basketball squad. Russell, who was sensitive to any racial prejudice, was enraged by the fact that owner
Abe Saperstein would only discuss the matter with Woolpert. While Saperstein spoke to Woolpert in a meeting, Globetrotters assistant coach Harry Hanna tried to entertain Russell with jokes. The USF center was livid after this snub and declined the offer: he reasoned that if Saperstein was too smart to speak with him, then he was too smart to play for Saperstein. Instead, Russell made himself eligible for the
1956 NBA draft. Woolpert stayed at USF for nine years. During his tenure, he was known for building national powers almost exclusively on Bay Area talent; the athletic department had virtually no recruiting budget and had little to offer out-of-state players. It held the number one spot in the polls on numerous occasions and six consecutive conference titles from 1977 to 1982, and all but two WCC regular-season titles from 1972 to 1982. In 1977, led by
All-American center
Bill Cartwright, the Dons started the season 26–0 and were regarded as the #1 team in the nation in both major polls. Sports Illustrated highlighted the 1977 team with a cover story titled "The Dandy Dons." Until they lost to
Notre Dame.
NCAA violations and self-imposed death penalty The Dons remained an elite program well into the early 1980s, perennially ranked in the top 20, and captured six consecutive conference titles from 1977–82. San Francisco's success on the court came at a price, however. The NCAA placed the Dons on probation two times in the late 1970s for booster/alumni interference with the program and recruiting improprieties by coaches. Each NCAA investigation eventually led to the dismissal of a San Francisco head coach, leading
San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Glenn Dickey to call the program "totally out of control." Despite Lo Schiavo's warning, the improprieties continued. An exclusive invite-only booster organization called the Dons Century Club committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to illegally recruiting players, paying off family members, and covering travel expenses, Basketball players continued to receive special academic treatment; many were marginal students at best, and at least one incident occurred in which a player threatened another student, and the incident was swept under the rug by school officials. The situation finally came to a head in December 1981, when All-American guard
Quintin Dailey was found guilty of raping a female student. During the subsequent investigation, Dailey admitted taking a no-show job for $1,000 a month at a business owned by a prominent USF booster, and that another booster also paid Dailey $5,000 since 1980. True to his word, on July 29, 1982, Lo Schiavo announced that he was shutting down the basketball program—the first time a Division I university had voluntarily shut down a major sport under such circumstances. Lo Schiavo said that the Dons program "was once a source of inspiration, respect and pride for this university and city." By contrast, the recent scandals had resulted in USF being perceived as "being hypocritical or naïve or inept or duplicitous, or perhaps some combination of all those." Under the circumstances, Lo Schiavo felt that the only responsible course was to shutter the program. In a prepared statement, Lo Schiavo later said, "We hope that it one day may be possible to restore a men's intercollegiate basketball team. That possibility will depend upon whether those responsible for this university are convinced that the factors that destroyed the program are not going to beset it again." Drastic as it was, the move was widely applauded by several members of the coaching fraternity. who quickly returned the program to respectability. He was not able to reach the postseason, however, and resigned in 1995. Three years later USF went to the
1998 NCAA tournament under
Phil Mathews and they had a
2005 NIT berth under former coach
Jessie Evans. The program regressed the next few years, and Jessie Evans was granted a request for a 'leave of absence' on December 27, 2007. Basketball coach
Eddie Sutton took over on an interim basis, needing two wins for a personal milestone of 800 career coaching victories. At the time,
Bob Knight was the only other Division I men's coach to have accomplished the feat. After months of speculation, Evans was finally officially fired by USF on March 20, 2008. Rex Walters was named as the Dons' head coach on April 14, 2008. In 2010, the USF Dons won over 20 games and went to the quarterfinals of the postseason
CIT tournament. Walters was relieved of his duties on March 9, 2016, and replaced by
Kyle Smith. At the conclusion of the 2018–2019 season, Kyle Smith was hired by Washington State University after three consecutive 20-win seasons. Smith's Associate Head Coach
Todd Golden was promoted to Head Men's Basketball Coach on March 27, 2019. Under Golden, the
2021-22 Dons returned to the
NCAA tournament for the first time in 24 years. Golden departed after the season to coach
Florida, where he led the Gators to the
2025 national championship, and was replaced by
Chris Gerlufsen. The Dons have never approached the prominence they enjoyed from the 1940s to the 1980s. The program has never won an NCAA Tournament game since its revival; indeed, the Dons last survived the tournament's opening weekend in 1979. This was largely because Lo Schiavo significantly increased admissions standards for all student-athletes in the wake of the scandals of the 1970s and 1980s, pricing the Dons out of blue-chip recruifs. In a 2011 interview, Lo Schiavo reiterated that he never questioned his decision, noting that all but one trustee voted in favor of shuttering the program in 1982 "because we had to make the point that we mean what we say and we intended to be good citizens." ==Postseason results==