[1] While a student as DeWitt Clinton High School in the late 1920s, Lou Bender connected on a long two-handed set shot during a game, prompting someone in the stands to shout, "Now that was a lulu of a basket.
At Columbia College from 1930 until 1932, Bender joined teammates George Gregory and Sam Schoenfeld to Ivy League titles in both 1930 and 1931, leading the league with scoring averages of 9.8 and 9.6 points per game those seasons, in an era before the shot clock in which ball control often limited scores to the teens.
[2] While at Columbia, Mayor of New York Jimmy Walker organized a basketball tripleheader at Madison Square Garden in January 1931 to raise funds to benefit the city's unemployed during the Great Depression.
Over the next several years, Madison Square Garden became a destination for basketball play, with doubleheaders featuring teams from the local area and around the nation.
[1] In September 2008, Bender was inducted into the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame along with NBA stars Kenny Anderson, Sam Perkins and Rod Strickland, coach Pete Gillen and pioneer Eddie Younger.