BRONX, N.Y. – Common knowledge dictates that nothing beats New York at Christmastime. 
 
For decades, while tourists flocked to Rockefeller Center and shoppers strolled up Fifth Ave, college basketball fans headed to Madison Square Garden, where the nation's top programs faced off against New York's best teams each year in the ECAC Holiday Festival.
 
In 1964-65, No. 1 Michigan fell in the championship game of the Holiday Festival to a St. John's team that would go on to win the NIT.  A few years later in 1968-69, the top two teams in the Associated Press poll, North Carolina and UCLA, spent Christmas in Midtown.  The Bruins, led by New York native Lew Alcindor, won the Holiday Festival en route to their third straight NCAA Championship.  In 1975, Bob Knight and No. 1 Indiana won the Holiday Festival on their way to a national championship and college basketball's last undefeated season.
 
"The Holiday Festival was huge," said Darryl Brown, a 1975 Academic All-American at Rose Hill and a current Fordham Trustee.  "It was the epitome of why I wanted to play basketball for Fordham University.  Playing in Madison Square Garden in front of a huge crowd, that's what I always wanted to do."
 
During those decades of prominence in the college basketball landscape, the Holiday Festival hosted one of the more memorable three-game stretches in Fordham history.  In December of 1974, Fordham entered the Holiday Festival with a record of 4-2.  After falling at Princeton to open the season on Nov. 30, the Rams defeated Yale and Seton Hall before losing by just four points at No. 9 Kansas, a team coming off a Final Four appearance that spring.  The Rams then took down Temple and CCNY before heading into a week-long Christmas break.
 
The Rams' auspicious start came on the heels of two rather disappointing seasons for fourth-year Head Coach Hal Wissel.  After going 18-9 and reaching the NIT in his first year, the Rams posted records of 13-16 and 8-17 against challenging schedules in 1972-73 and 1973-74; across those two seasons, Fordham played 27 of its 54 games against what would now be considered high-major opponents.
 
The Rams opened the 1974 Holiday Festival with a familiar foe, reigning Holiday Festival Champion and longtime local rival Manhattan, on Dec. 26.  In front of 14,322 fans, Kevin Fallon converted on 10 of his 11 second-half field goal tries, scoring 20 of his game-high 21 points after the break.  Darryl Brown also finished with a game-high 21 points, helping Fordham outscore the Jaspers, 34-22, over the final 12 minutes of the contest.
 
"When [Fallon] was on, he was a weapon," said Malcom Moran a 1975 Fordham graduate and 2007 Curt Gowdy Award winner who was WFUV's play-by-play announcer that season.
 
"There were times when [Fallon] wasn't even looking at the hoop and that's what shooters do," remembered Brown. "He's from Brooklyn, so he knows what street ball is.  In street ball, when you're hot, everyone expects you to keep shooting.  Nobody says anything about passing the ball.  If he had an opening, he was shooting."
 
The Rams' victory over Manhattan and its highly touted senior class set up a date with Saint Joseph's on Dec. 28.  The Hawks entered 1974-75 on the heels of a four-year stretch that saw the team go 79-35 and qualify for three NCAA Tournaments.  The Rams ran their future A-10 counterparts off the floor, 94-66.  Fordham shot 59% from the floor, converting on 38 of its 64 field goal attempts, in addition to owning a 40-26 advantage on the glass. 
 

After anchoring Fordham's second-half effort against Manhattan two days prior, Fallon once again paced the Rams against Saint Joe's, going 10-of-14 from the floor in a 23-point effort.  Brown finished with 20 points on 10-of-15 shooting with 15 rebounds and five blocks.
 
Just a few minutes after Fordham secured its spot in the Holiday Festival Championship Game, No. 5 Southern California took the floor and punched its ticket to the title tilt by disposing of Rutgers, 81-66.  Rutgers was one year away from its best season in program history, as the Scarlet Knights would go 31-2 in 1975-76 and advance to the Final Four behind All-American Phil Sellers.  Sellers scored 32 against the Trojans that night at MSG, but it was Mount Vernon native Gus Williams who proved the difference maker for USC, scoring 24 points on 11-of-17 shooting and dishing out 12 assists.
 
Unsurprisingly, Fordham entered that Dec. 30 matchup against USC as a heavy underdog.  In an interview with USC Head Coach Bob Boyd, legendary broadcaster Howard Cosell had predicted a "massacre." The Trojans were averaging 96 points per game and sported an unblemished 8-0 record with wins over the likes of LSU, Oklahoma State, Vanderbilt and New Mexico.  While six of its victories had come at home, USC had also shown an ability to excel on the road, winning at Houston, 97-96, in overtime two weeks prior.  The Trojans' strength as a program was so well known that they played a key role in forcing expansion of the NCAA Tournament, which awarded at-large bids for the first time in 1975.

 
"USC in those days was capable of final-eight-type productivity and yet they didn't even get into the tournament," said Moran.  "There was one year where they were 24-2 and UCLA was the conference representative because the two losses were to the Bruins.  USC was really good and there was added local interest because Gus Williams was from Mount Vernon."
 
Williams was one of four Trojans that would go on to play in the NBA, including 6-foot-10 center John Lambert who went 15^th overall in the 1975 NBA Draft after averaging 14.2 points and 10.2 rebounds for the Trojans.  Frontcourt mate Clint Chapman, standing at 6-foot-9, was taken in the sixth round of that year's draft after averaging 10.7 points and 7.2 boards per outing. 
 
The Rams' starting center at 6-foot-7, Brown did not pay heed to the pregame chatter that seemed to already have the game decided before it tipped.
 
"I knew that if I didn't have anybody collapsing on me, I was going to be pretty free to move on their big men," said Brown.  "If I was one on one against someone, I didn't have any fear about going up against a guy three, four, or five inches taller than I was.  None whatsoever.
 
"My lasting memory of that night is coming out and how pumped we all were to play the game," continued Brown.  "Nobody thought we were going to lose that game, not one of us.  We were all in alignment that we were going to leave it all out on the court.  We got this far, why not?"


 
Fordham came out of the gate firing, as Fallon scored 12 points in the first 12 minutes.  Brown went to work over the final eight minutes of the half, scoring nine points and getting Lambert into foul trouble.  Brown converted on a three-point play to end the half, putting the Rams up 35-32 at the intermission.
 
Two nights prior, Rutgers held a seven-point halftime lead against the Trojans, but failed to hold it.  Fordham suffered no such fate on the other side of the break, easily taking control of the game and building its second-half lead to as many as 17 in front of 11,117 delighted onlookers. Facing a USC team that had scored 97 or more points six times in eight games, Wissel dropped the Rams back into a 2-3 zone and the taller Trojans never found their rhythm, shooting just 43% from the field in their first loss of the season. 
 
Brown, who made 10 of his final 11 field goal attempts, earned tournament MVP honors after finishing with 24 points and 14 rebounds.  Fallon added 22 points on 11-of-19 shooting while freshman Nestor Cora chipped in 15 points for the Rams, who shot 52% (37-71) from the field.
 
"Cora was a really dynamic player," said Moran.  "He was a very good defensive player.  He gave them a sense of energy and speed that they needed." 
 
In possession of the Holiday Festival Championship Trophy, the Fordham team, coaching staff and supporters descended upon The Penn Bar & Grill, a watering hole that used to occupy the southeast corner of 31^st Street and Eighth Ave.
 
"We took that place over," remembered Brown. 
 
Moran recalled that a Fordham fan anxious for a free souvenir found a pair of scissors and cut off Wissel's tie just below the knot.  In the aftermath of the victory, no one seemed to mind.
 
There aren't many games you can point to in Fordham's history when you think about Madison Square Garden that top this one," said Brown.  "To be involved in a battle like that was most memorable."