Men's Basketball | 2/15/2026 2:01:00 PM

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Saint Francis honored the 35th Anniversary of the 1991 NEC Men's Basketball Tournament Championship team with the retirement of Joe Anderson's (No. 44) and Mike Iuzzolino's (No. 42) jerseys in a pregame ceremony on Saturday.

"It was so special because we just talked about the 1991-92 team all the time," said Saint Francis head coach Luke McConnell after the game. "We use that word believe, and when you have an example like Mike Iuzzolino and Joe Anderson, that 1990-91 team did such a special thing at a special place, they had this place believing. It's infinite proof of it. It's something when you have a great, rich basketball tradition; we have something like that. It's something you pass down their legacy is up there forever, and it's a legacy that we pass down to our team" 

The 1991 Red Flash men's basketball team was historic in many ways, as it was the first Saint Francis team to win an NEC title and advance to the NCAA Tournament. It was a feat that was not accomplished again until last season. It was a walk down memory lane for Anderson and Iuzzolino.

"It was nostalgic walking through the doors," said Anderson. "It just felt like when I was a student here playing for the university. I'm walking through the doors, making the first right turn, going down the hallway to my locker room. The only difference today is that I went straight into the gym as a fan. A very special moment. I want to give a shout-out to the university for this honor and for recognizing the hard work we put in. Our goal as a team was simply to give the best basketball to all the fans who came to support us in the program. I hope that in between 1987 and 1991, the fans that came and watched us play saw some great basketball and enjoyed what they saw."

"It's not the jersey going up that created the happiness; it was all the memories," said Iuzzolino. "To think about all the great memories in terms of the times with your teammates and the bonds that you created with them. It's not the event that is important, but the people that you get to share it with. This is really a humbling honor, a very humbling experience to be out there. It's great to be back to see so many people who were here in 1991. This is truly a family environment at Saint Francis." 

"These two guys, they were two of the best I ever had," said Baron, the head coach of the 1991 Red Flash. "I'll never forget it. They were just so special. Just the way we did it. They grew, learned, developed, and never gave up. They had great careers, and it's just tremendous seeing them develop, and how they became just great family men, great examples, and mentors."

From the late 1940s to the early 1970s, Saint Francis College ranked among the upper tier of the nation's college basketball programs. Between 1947 and 1971, Saint Francis teams posted 19 winning seasons and six 20-win campaigns, and were selected to participate in the elite National Invitational Tournament on three occasions during the Golden Era of Saint Francis Basketball. 

With the graduation of Kevin Porter after the 1971-72 season, the Golden Era had ended, and over the next 17 years, Saint Francis went 189-267 (.414). The Red Flash registered four winning seasons during this span, with the last one coming in 1980-81 with a 17-10 record, the most wins since 1967-68. Anderson and Iuzzolino are the first players to have their jersey retired who did not come from the Golden Era of Red Flash basketball. 

Anderson arrived as a freshman in the fall of 1987, and Baron was in his first season as a head coach after serving as an assistant at Notre Dame for the previous six seasons. Iuzzolino started his collegiate career at Penn State that same season. Saint Francis went 7-20 in the first season, but then improved to 13-16 in the second year, advancing to the NEC Semifinals for the first time since 1982-83. Iuzzolino was sitting out that season due to NCAA transfer regulations, but played in a Red Flash uniform for the first time in the 1988-89 and joined forces with Anderson to help the Loretto program to a 17-11 overall record and a 10-6 record in NEC play, the first winning season in NEC team history.

Saint Francis finished 24-8 overall and 13-3 in NEC play in 1990-91. The 24 wins are a school record, while the 13 wins in NEC play are the most in a single season in 2019-20. The team scored 83.6 points per game, the 47th most in NCAA Division I. In addition, the Red Flash led the NEC in scoring average, posting the second-best mark in league history at the time and now ranks sixth in NEC history. The 2,676 points scored that season were the most in NEC history at the time and are now the seventh most, and still rank as the most in team history. 

"When you came to college as a freshman, the first thing you wanted to do was make it to the tournament," said Anderson. "I tried it three years prior. It wasn't successful. I was not letting my last year go by without us getting into that tournament. I was going to do whatever it took on my part to make sure that we got here. And as a team, we all bought in. We played well together, we believed in one another, and it happened. When I saw all the students and teammates jumping up and down, it was the culmination of four years of hard work. It was just a full circle moment."

"One of the things Coach Baron always preached, if you guys want to be really good, everybody has to make sacrifices," said Iuzzolino. "He really got guys to believe in that you have to sacrifice for the good of the team. You decided to play a team sport, and the team is more important to you. One night I was scoring the ball, one night the next guy was scoring it, and then when all three of us (Anderson, Iuzzolino and John Hilvert) were scoring at the same time, that made us really good."

"It was like a dream come true, and that's why Joe calls it 'the miracle on the mountain,' because it really was," said Baron. "To do it the way we did it from day one from scratch, and just to build and not give up was incredible." 

Saint Francis defeated St. Francis Brooklyn 96-70 in the NEC Semifinals to put the Red Flash in the NEC Championship Game for the first time in program history. The Loretto program then defeated FDU 97-82 in the NEC Championship Game to earn the first NEC title for any sport in Saint Francis history. 

The Red Flash then hosted Fordham in the NCAA Play-in Game and defeated the Rams 70-64, sending Saint Francis to the NCAA Tournament. The win was ranked the best in team history in an Altoona Mirror 2020 poll (the win against the Knights in the championship game ranked ninth). 

"I went up to Maurice Stokes grave, and I said, "Mo, you've got to help us tonight. You've got to block some shots," Baron recalls a moment from that season before the Red Flash played Fordham in the NCAA Play-in Game.

The season ended with a 93-80 loss to Arizona on March 14, 1991, in the NCAA Tournament in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

"Most people didn't know where Saint Francis was," said Anderson. "We constantly had to hear about players coming into Saint Francis to play against us. After we lost to Arizona in the NCAA Tournament, Arizona head coach Lute Olson sat down with Mike and me. He put his hands on both our knees and said, "Listen, I told these guys (his Arizona players) that this might be the toughest game that they had out of any opponent that we had in our conference. He said, You guys really can shoot the basketball, and I was concerned. I wanted to come up here to introduce myself and just let you know that I think you guys and this team is a great team, and I'm proud that we were able to play against you tonight."

Anderson is the only player to score more points at Saint Francis than Stokes, the Naismith Hall of Famer, with 2,301 career points (Stokes finished his career with 2,282 at Saint Francis). Iuzzolino is the only player to register more points in a single season with 772 points in his senior season of 1990-91 (Stokes had 760 points in 1950-51, also his senior campaign). Iuzzolino registered 1,346 points in his two years in Loretto, 13 points less than Stokes had in his final two years. Anderson, Iuzzolino, Stokes, and Darshan Luckey (2002-03, 2004-05) are the only players to post 550+ points in multiple seasons.  There is one more connection that Anderson and Iuzzolino share with Stokes. There are only five players in Red Flash history to average 20.0 points per game in a two-year span: Sandy Williams (25.8 ppg., 1962-64), Stokes (25.1 ppg., 1953-55), Porter (23.8 ppg., 1970-72), Iuzzolino (22.8 ppg., 1989-91) and Anderson (21.0 ppg., 1989-91). 

"Well, for me, I think it was more of everybody outside like I was never the type of person that took on individual accolades," said Anderson about surpassing Stokes. "I couldn't get the points that I got without the teammates that I had, first and foremost, Coach Baron, Coach Lombardi, and the rest of the coaching staff, who designed the plays to make us successful as well. I'm not thinking about it as a player, but to hear everyone else talk about it to the point where it gives you a level of excitement, not so much the actual breaking the record, but just being made with someone of such class that meant so much to this program and this university."

Iuzzolino grew up in nearby Altoona and came from the gym at Building II to Altoona to be one of the best to wear a Saint Francis uniform. Iuzzolino is not the only student-athlete to come out of Altoona and succeed, and he is excitement about that fact. "Altoona is such a small town, but we've had four NBA and WNBA players from there. Some of the most successful people, whether it be in men's basketball or women's basketball at Saint Francis, have come from Altoona, and we're really proud of that."

The 1991 season was a great one for Anderson, Iuzzolino, and Baron, and for Iuzzolino, it still drives him. 

"Some people are after the pursuit of happiness, but I like the happiness of the pursuit," said Iuzzolino. "That's what made me stay involved in basketball and competitive nature, just that pursuit every single day, to go out and do something and impact young people's lives. As you get older, I'm thankful for enjoying the passage of time and being part of basketball since I was in second grade, and for the last 48 years, I feel blessed every single day."