Students at CCNY, dubbed the poor man's Harvard because of its lofty academic standards, lived and died with every game, raising arena roofs with their unique school cheer: "Allagaroo garoo gara, Allagaroo garoo gara, Ee-yah ee-yah, Sis boom bah, Team!

The team was made up mostly of sophomores and was the last squad selected to play in Madison Square Garden's famed NIT, which had a 12-team field and was at that time more prestigious than the NCAA tournament.

CCNY then faced 3rd ranked and two-time defending NCAA champion Kentucky and their 7-foot center, Bill Spivey, in the second round.

Kentucky was a racially segregated school from the Southeastern Conference, and several Wildcats refused to shake hands with the black and Jewish CCNY players before the game.

In the title game, the Beavers squared off against top ranked Bradley, who had All-American Paul Unruh and the 5'8" speedster, Gene "Squeaky" Melchiorre.

[2] CCNY again faced top-ranked Bradley and won the tournament, 71–68, to score the only Grand Slam in the history of college basketball.

Irwin Dambrot of CCNY was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, and Nat Holman appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

After a hiatus of more than half a century, the Big Dance finally returned to the most famous indoor arena in the United States.

After the scandal broke, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, ended his basketball career, and enrolled at Columbia University Dental School.

In 1989, Dambrot went to Kansas City for the 50th anniversary of the NCAA tournament, when all previous MVPs were invited; he met a lot of coaches and was treated royally.

[4] He had been living in Mendham, N.J. and died of Parkinson's disease at age 81 on January 21, 2010, and was interred at Locust Hill Cemetery in Dover, New Jersey.

Ed Roman, the team's 6-foot-6-inch center, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to fix the outcome of games at Madison Square Garden.

Warner had worked as a high school basketball referee, but in April 1984 he was partly paralyzed when his automobile was struck from behind in Upper Manhattan.

He was one of the players arrested in the scandal and agreed to serve in the United States Army for a time in exchange for suspending his jail sentence.

After discharge, Roth finished City College business school and became an insurance executive in Westchester County, New York.

Nat Holman put Watkins in to jump-center for the opening tipoff against Kentucky in the NIT, and he surprisingly outjumped 7-foot Bill Spivey.