The March 16, 1953 issue of Life Magazine contains what has to be one of the most startling photos in college basketball history.

There, on page 118, is Seton Hall University basketball player Mickey Hannon lying unconscious on the court after the Pirates were attacked by Louisville fans at the Louisville Armory.

The Hall wore a target that on that road trip two reasons: A No. 1 ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 and the presence of a black superstar, Walter Dukes. The 7-foot All-America center was barred from hotels in the segregated southern city; the team opted instead to sleep on a train during the visit.

Louisville won the game and the bad blood didn’t end there — keep reading — but the Pirates got the last laugh. Later that month they captured the NIT title, besting St. John’s in the final before a Madison Square Garden throng of 18,500.

“It was the biggest crowd ever to see a basketball game east of Chicago,” said Arnie Ring, who started at forward for Seton Hall. “The NCAA Tournament had 7,000 out in Kansas City for their final game (Indiana’s one-point win over Kansas).”

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All true. The Big Apple was the sport’s epicenter and those Pirates were the toast of the town. They’ll be toasted again Thursday night as Seton Hall inducts the squad into its Hall of Fame.

Ring will be there and so will his old frontcourt mate, Henry Cooper. They’ve got fascinating stories to tell about that epic winter.

'A lot of Jim Crow stuff'

First, a quick primer on the leading characters:

Head coach John “Honey” Russell is a Naismith Hall of Famer who did two tours as the Pirates’ skipper. In between, he was the inaugural head coach of the Boston Celtics.

Point guard Richie Regan would become a singular force in Seton Hall history, ushering the school into the Big East and hiring P.J. Carlesimo. In 1953, he was nicknamed “The Cat” for his quickness and guile as playmaker.

Then there was Dukes, who averaged 26 points and 22 rebounds per game amid racist taunts (Cooper remembered players on two different teams calling him the N-word), extra-sharp elbows and unkind refs’ whistles (he once was called for a foul on the opening tip).

“Aside from being a brilliant player, he was just as outstanding as a person,” Ring said. “He put up with a lot of Jim Crow stuff, but he handled it by getting 35 points and 35 rebounds and winning the game. That’s how he got back at them.”

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Russell was so concerned about refs ringing up Dukes out of spite that he routinely tasked Cooper with defending the opponent’s best big man. On the other end, “Walter could have scored many more points,” Cooper said. “He was the second guy on our team in assists, after Richie.”

Dukes’ selflessness enabled Regan (14.2 pg), Harry Brooks (12.2 ppg), Ring (8.6 ppg) and Ronnie Nathanic (8.2 ppg) to help light up the likes of Villanova, Xavier, Boston College, Memphis State, Louisville (at home) and seventh-ranked Fordham as the Pirates opened the season with 27 straight wins and held the No. 1 ranking for six weeks.

They were the toast of New York, in more ways than one.

“We had a manager, Dick Scott, whose dad was deputy fire commissioner in New York, so anytime we wanted to get into pubs, nightclubs, what have you, if we had Dick with us they knew his father could shut them down on a moment’s notice,” Cooper recalled. “We got good treatment in addition to being a spectacle for the people in those places — all these tall guys coming in.”

'Dazed and prostrate'

The joyride took a detour on that early March road swing, first with a loss at Dayton and then the debacle at Louisville. Life Magazine reported that the players “went after each other with elbows, body blocks and half nelsons” and things escalated after “a head-on collision left Dukes dazed and prostrate on the floor.”

Said Cooper, “Walter got the ball and this guy (a Louisville forward) popped him in the jaw. Dukes went down, we lost the ball and Walter was called for walking.”

All hell broke loose during postgame handshakes. Life reported that a Seton Hall player, thinking he was about to be attacked, threw the first punch. Then maniacal Louisville fans poured onto the court.

“Somebody came out of the stands and grabbed Walter’s miraculous medal and ripped it off his neck,” Ring said.

In 1989, Regan told Newsday that the man said to Dukes, “You call yourself a Catholic” as he yanked the medal away.

Hannon got clobbered in the back of the head by a rampaging fan and collapsed to the floor, out cold.

“Harry Brooks had to get 13 stitches across his eye,” Cooper said. “Harry was from Union City; he was a tough guy with tough friends.”

When Louisville made the NIT a few weeks later, Cooper said, “The word got out that (Brooks' friends) were going to meet the Louisville team on the train and beat them up.”

The whole mess “was so bad that the FBI got involved,” Cooper said. Only threats of expulsion by Seton Hall's brass kept everyone at bay.

"We did something special'

When the season ended the Pirates chose the NIT over the NCAA Tournament, without a moment’s hesitation. Thanks to clutch play by Regan, they survived the opener against Niagara despite Dukes fouling out with eight minutes left. Then they routed Manhattan before taking down St. John’s 58-46.

“They had a ticker-tape parade down South Orange Avenue,” said Ring, who grabbed 22 rebounds in the final. “The (Newark) mayor had a big dinner for us and invited the coaches of the teams we beat — they showed up.”

Seton Hall finished 31-2 and remains the only New Jersey college basketball team that can lay claim to a national title.

Ring and Cooper are in their mid-80s now, and both live in Florida. Ring’s wife of 56 years, Carol, passed away a few months back, but their nine grandchildren will be at the induction. Cooper and wife Pauline have been married 62 years, though she is battling Alzheimer’s now; this is the first time he’s left her side in a decade.

Dukes died in 2001 and Regan in 2002. When the group reunited over the years there was a common sentiment, one that will be celebrated — perhaps for the final time — on Thursday.

“We said we did something special,” Ring said. “It was.”

Staff writer Jerry Carino: jcarino@gannettnj.com.