‘Kings of the Palouse’: Bound for Hooptown Hall of Fame, 1981-82 Idaho Vandals dazzled with defense, efficiency

Brian Kellerman, at 64, sometimes gets asked where he played college basketball.

When he tells them Idaho, questioners tend to be unimpressed.

For those who have forgotten, fellow Vandal Phil Hopson can best describe what it felt like to be part of the Idaho hoops golden age in the early 1980s.

“Man, we were the Kings of the Palouse,” Hopson said.

Of course they were idolized, having reeled off 43 consecutive home wins, rising into the top 10 of the national rankings, and twice advancing to the NCAA Tournament, making it to the Sweet 16 in 1982.

The proper chain of nobility must list coach Don Monson as the King of the Palouse, with Kellerman, Hopson, Kenny Owens, Kelvin Smith and Gordie Herbert as the beloved crown princes.

“It wasn’t just on campus, or in Moscow,” Hopson said. “It was everywhere. We couldn’t go anywhere without people wanting to shake our hands or get our autographs or telling us they’d seen us play.”

Specifically, it is the 1981-82 Vandals team that went 27-3, with a No. 6 ranking and advancement to the NCAA Sweet 16, that is being honored with induction into the 2025 Hooptown USA Hall of Fame on Wednesday.

“It’s definitely a big place in history for Idaho,” said Monson, 92, and living in Spokane. “It’s always neat to reminisce about a chapter that still stands up and is a great memory for a lot of people, including this old coach.”

All against inconceivable odds.

They did it with five men who started every game, none of whom was taller than 6-foot-6, and with a hybrid zone defense that confused opponents and was perfectly tailored to their undersized personnel.

They did it by reversing fortunes of a program that had won only 26 games in four seasons under the previous coach. They played home games in a cavernous football stadium, on a court that consisted of a layer of rubber over concrete. And they did it with a roster relying heavily on overlooked prospects from the Pacific Northwest.

They managed to thoroughly trounce every regional team that had looked down their noses at them when they came out of high school.

And they did it with a mid-40s coach in his first job leading a college program.

Coach Jim Jarvis was fired after a 4-22 season in 1978. Monson, who prepped at Coeur d’Alene High and had been a reserve for three varsity seasons at Idaho, had assisted Jud Heathcote at Michigan State.

Instead of sticking around for another season with Heathcote, who was about to win the NCAA Tournament with Magic Johnson (in large part, a Monson recruit), Monson took over the Vandals.

“I knew the circumstances in Moscow,” Monson said. “I played at Idaho, so I knew how hard it was to get the fans and get recognized nationally. It seemed impossible.”

Jarvis left him a nice gift, though, a transfer redshirt from New Orleans named Don Newman.

“He was outstanding, the engine that kept our motor going,” Monson said of Newman.

Hopson, from Portland, and Kellerman, from Richland, came in as freshmen together. Soon thereafter, Newman pulled them aside for an important pep talk.

“He got it all started,” Hopson said of Newman. “That guy was so competitive and athletic. He told Brian and I how he expected us to be winners that year, and he needed us to contribute, and if we had any questions, to not hesitate to come to him for advice. He was a real leader, and he gave us all confidence.”

As he looks back, Kellerman regrets that the Vandals his sophomore season don’t get nearly the credit that the 1981-82 team does.

“We were 24-5 that year, and went to the NCAAs for the first time, losing on a last-second shot in OT (70-69 to Pitt),” Kellerman said. Seniors Dan Forge and Ron Maben were key contributors to that team.

That was the best season in school history, but was only a table-setter for the next season, as point guard Kenny Owens was entering his senior year, as was 6-6 forward Herbert, while Kellerman, Hopson and center Smith were juniors.

Owens was a prep from New York City, who spent two seasons playing at Treasure Valley (Ontario, Oregon). Monson recalled his interest in Owens heightened after he received a phone call from a Gonzaga Prep prospect named John Stockton.

“I’ll never forget that call,” Monson said. “I got off the phone and my wife asked, ‘Who was that?’ I told her, ‘John Stockton … he’s going with Gonzaga’.”

Unlike Stockton, Owens did not set assist records in the NBA, but he certainly served Monson’s purposes, leading the team in scoring as a senior.

“Kenny was like a bulldog out there,” Hopson said. “You couldn’t stop him. He got going downhill and he could go anywhere he wanted. Most of his scoring was on drives and fastbreaks and free throws.”

Monson had his crew operating at high efficiency from the start of the 1981-82 season, reeling off wins over Washington (by 25), Washington State (by 20) and then running away with the Far West Classic (in Portland) title with romps over Iowa State (by 20, Owens 15 assists), Oregon State (by 22) and Oregon (by 19, Owens 32 points).

Monson recalls that fans erected a sign at the Moscow city limits that read: Idaho 4, Pac-10 0. Wins over all four Pacific-10 Conference foes – by an average of 21.5 points – was rarefied air for the Vandals.

A win on the road at Montana State on Jan. 22 pushed their record to 16-0. While the No.-8 ranked Vandals earned the nation’s attention, Mother Nature began throwing obstacles at Monson’s team.

The Friday night win at Bozeman was followed by a bus ride through a wicked Rocky Mountain storm to Missoula. Arriving at 2:30 a.m., the Vandals would suffer their first loss of the season that evening, 53-51, to the rival Grizzlies.

Adding to the Vandals’ disappointment, and exhaustion, the Missoula airport shut down that night. When the bus line refused to challenge Lookout Pass in such a storm, Monson ended up renting four-wheel-drive vehicles to plow through the night to get the team to the Spokane airport to make the flight to Chicago.

Picture a team having suffered its first loss of the year, then being forced to drive through mountain pass in a storm so bad it closed the airport.

Finally, after a 3½-hour bus ride from O’Hare Airport to South Bend, Indiana, the Idaho team hit the rack at 4:30 Monday morning.

Despite three games in four days, through countless travel delays, the Vandals opened up an 18-point lead over the Irish. In the second half, the exhausted Vandals went cold, and ended up losing 50-48 in overtime. To come away from a road trip like that with two losses by four points shows how close Idaho was to entering the postseason unbeaten.

Presumably, having finally caught up on their sleep, the Vandals ran off 10 consecutive wins to capture their second consecutive Big Sky Conference Tournament and earn a bye in the first round of the 48-team NCAA Tournament.

Lute Olson’s No. 16-ranked Iowa team needed a win over Northeast Louisiana in the first round to earn a meeting with the Vandals at Washington State’s Friel Court. Hopson led the Vandals with 21 points and nine rebounds, but it was Kellerman’s clutch midrange jumper with 3 seconds remaining in overtime that cinched the 69-67 Idaho win.

Idaho’s only win in the NCAAs to this day set up a Sweet 16 rematch with Ralph Miller’s No. 4-ranked Oregon State Beavers. Having been thumped 71-49 by the Vandals in the Far West Classic, Miller had plenty of scouting to prepare his team for a rematch.

In the era before the shot clock, Miller had the Beavers slow down the game, only heading to the basket when one of their taller players had worked for an easy shot. Idaho lost 60-42.

“This is just my opinion, but had we played a different team, other than Oregon State, we would have had a good chance of winning,” Hopson said. “They had played us before and had experience against our match-up zone. I can’t say we would have beaten (eventual national runner-up) Georgetown, but I think we could have given them a challenge.”

At 27-3, Idaho finished ranked No. 8 in the Associated Press Poll. Monson was named the national coach of the year.

Kellerman, Hopson and Smith returned for their senior seasons, and the Vandals finished 20-9, settling for an NIT bid, losing in their opener to Oregon State – again.

The Vandals, under coach Kermit Davis, made it to the NCAAs in back-to-back seasons in 1989 and 1990, but with no wins.

Monson moved on to Oregon after the 1983 season, having won 100 games (41 losses) in five seasons.

“I think the thing I’m most proud of is doing it at Idaho,” Monson said. “I’m a Vandal, a good, true Vandal. I played there. I wasn’t a real star, a real scorer or anything. I lettered three years. I was from Coeur d’Alene. I was always an Idaho guy.”

And? “I remember the kids, the individuals. That’s what I really remember.”

Both Hopson and Kellerman recall Monson being a coach of his era, at times combustible.

“Everybody sees the surface, yet Don is just a very caring and special person,” Kellerman said.

“I enjoyed playing for him,” Hopson said. “In those days, coaches could scream and yell at you and it wasn’t a big deal. He also taught us everything. How to be confident in a game, how to protect leads.”

Hopson recalled a specific moment, after the Vandals had torn through the Far West Classic field. “We were celebrating in the locker room and (Monson) pulled us all together, telling us how proud he was, and that we were the best team he ever coached. He told us we were even better than that Michigan State team he had (the year before Magic Johnson led the Spartans to a national title). It really built our confidence. It showed how much he believed in us, and that made us believe in ourselves.”

Monson’s influence as a coach was surely reflected in Owens’ long career as an assistant coach at Columbia Basin College in Pasco, and, in the impressive international career of Herbert, now head coach of the Canadian national team.

Kellerman identified the most important thing that Monson helped create and sustain with the Vandals – chemistry.

“Chemistry is a funny thing,” Kellerman said. “It takes a lot to build and doesn’t take much to disrupt. I think the bond you have is from the shared experiences in the battle. It’s the kind of bond that lasts. We were there for a purpose. It’s great if you’re friends, and we are, but the bond is (built) through the battle.”

Kellerman said that when the teammates get together, now, “it’s like just continuing the conversations we had more than 40 years ago.”

“From the coaches all the way down to the last player on the team, we had a great camaraderie,” Hopson said. “We weren’t the most talented team, and, as individuals, we were probably a little above average, but put us together, as a team, we were a well-oiled machine.”

That’s selling them a little short.

After all, they were the Kings of the Palouse.