Some things you have to take in pairs, and St. John's tremendous
backcourt combination of Alan Seiden and Gus Alfieri is one of
them. One of the best duos in college basketball history, Gus and
Al – or Al and Gus – piled up victories in the late 1950s and
starred in the 1959 NIT final with an overtime defeat of Bradley.
They were adept at reading each other's games and also in seeing
inside their opponents' to set up scoring plays that boggled the
mind. Seiden had a pair of 20-point seasons, but you can't
always go on statistics. They played as if joined at the hip, and
they played basketball with a boundless joy.