Hall of Honor
Coach: Carl L. Shy
Players: Fred Anson '54, William "Bill" Chambers '55, Dan Chilton, Chin-Kuang Jack Chow, Phil Conley, James "Jim" Koontz '56, James "Jim" Tyler, Richard "Dick" Smith '54, Howard "Howie" Shanks, Eugene "Gene" Nelson '56, George Madsen '55 and Paul Lindfors
Managers: James Higgins, Milton Kimmel
The 1953-54 men's basketball team won the only outright conference title in program history, claiming the SCIAC crown with a 6-2 record – a high-water mark for wins that stood until the 2015-16 team's record seven. Having previously tied for the four-team conference title with Occidental in 1943, Head Coach Carl Shy led the Beavers to the undisputed championship by beating every conference opponent at least once, along with scoring a record 112 points in a 50-point win over then-non-conference La Verne, both records which still stand today against NCAA competition. Caltech was led by First Team All-SCIAC wing and Rhodes scholarship finalist Fred Anson, Second Team All-SCIAC forward Bill Chambers and Second Team All-SCIAC guard Howie Shanks, a junior transfer after graduating from PCC in 1952. Anson, a member of the inaugural Hall of Honor class in 2014, held the program career scoring record for 40 years and still boasts the highest points-per-game average in both a career (20.7) and season (22.8). Shy boasted quite the résumé as well, having earned a gold medal in the 1936 Summer Olympics after playing college basketball at UCLA. While serving as the coach at Caltech, he was also captain of the narcotic division of the LA Police Department.
After posting a 5-3 record in 1952-53 and with the majority of the team returning, expectations were high entering the historic season despite the Beavers playing their home games at PCC and other local gymnasiums, with Brown Gymnasium construction not finished until the following year. A 2-0 start to conference play with narrow wins over Occidental and Pomona-Claremont had Caltech in a tie with defending champion Whittier, but the Beavers fell in their next game to Redlands, 59-56. After a four-game non-conference break, the Beavers crushed Whittier, 68-53, to hand the Poets their first SCIAC loss of the year and force another tie atop the standings at 2-1. Whittier avenged the defeat barely a week later, but Caltech kept its hopes of a title alive with a thrilling 74-72 victory over then-first place Redlands and sealed at least a share of the championship with a 76-59 thrashing of Oxy in the following game. With the Beavers and Bulldogs tied atop the standings at 5-2 and Whittier finished for the season at 5-3, Caltech needed to beat last-place Pomona-Claremont along with an Oxy upset of Redlands. The Bengals from Eagle Rock obliged while the Beavers posted their largest margin of victory in the conference, 67-43, over the Tigers to claim the championship outright. Three-time SCIAC scoring champion Anson poured in 26 points while Chambers and Phil Conley scored 15 and 11, respectively, to account for more than three-quarters of Caltech's total, with George Madsen and Shanks rounding out Shy's regular starting five. The team and student body celebrated the championship with a bonfire on California Blvd.
