NBA Greats from Small Conferences For Last NIT Spot

This is our third straight NIT game with a 1-point spread or even, as these two teams were added to our game when we were adding teams with an all-time great NBA player - in this case Detroit Mercy's Nate Thurmond (ranked as the 49th greatest pro player ever) facing up against Bowling Green's Dave DeBusschere (73rd).

Detroit Mercy will not be in the Horizon League semifinals Monday night, finishing near the bottom of the league a year after the replacement of Mike Davis, who was unable to repeat the magic he had taking Indiana to the national title, putting together incredible teams at Texas Southern, and then coaching his son Antoine Davis at Detroit Mercy to within three points of breaking Pistol Pete Maravich's all-time NCAA scoring mark. However, their 1960 team was the team we picked as the all-time greatest team from the schools currently in the Horizon League.

Their opponent in our all-time great NIT tournament of great non-power conference teams came just three years later - the 1963 MAC all-time great Bowling Green, which will be a longshot in this year's Mid-American tournament as they start as the 8-seed Thursday against 1-seed Akron. They came off a 20-14 season last year, and played Michigan State tough early in the year, but have slipped t 14-17.

The 1963 team came four years after the Bowling Green football team claimed the small college national championship. The football program has won 12 MAC titles and was coaches for several years by Urban Meyers.

Pos	Detroit Mercy 1963	Height	Season Stats	Highlights (to be added)
1-PG	Howie Komives	6'1,NBA	20.2 Pts, 3.5 Reb
2-SG	Pat Haley	6'3	5.9 Pts, 2.6 Reb
3-SF	Wavey Junior	6'2	11.8 Pts, 7.0 Reb
4-PF	Elijah Chatman	6'3	7.2 Pts, 6.7 Reb
5-C	Nate Thurmond	6'11,NBA	19.9 Pts, 16.7 Reb
1-PG	Bill Reynolds	5'10	4.6 Pts, 1.1 Reb
2-SG	Lyle Pepin	6'2	2.2 Pts, 0.7 Reb
3-SF	Mel Gilbert	6'4	3.3 Pts, 2.7 Reb
4-PF	Bob Carbaugh	6'4	1.9 Pts, 0.9 Reb
5-C	Tom Baker	6'5	2.9 Pts, 1.5 Reb
Pos	Bowling Green 1963	Height	Summary
1-PG	Ray Albee	5'9	14.4 Pts, 4.2 Reb
2-SG	Larry Hughes	6'4	11.7 Pts, 8.1 Reb
3-SF	George Heger	6'3	5.0 Pts, 5.4 Reb
4-PF	Dave DeBusschere	6'6,NBA	25.6 Pts, 20.0 Reb
5-C	Charlie North	6'6	19.8 Pts, 14.2 Reb
1-PG	Tom Villemure	5'9	2.1 Pts, 0.3 Reb
2-SG	Frank Chickowski	6'1	4.3 Pts, 3.1 Reb
3-SF	Bob Wright	6'4	1.4 Pts, 1.5 Reb
4-PF	John Parker	6'4	1.2 Pts, 2.1 Reb
5-C	Dick Dylus	6'8	1.3 Pts, 0.7 Reb

Results of the game will be added, as one team claims the final NIT spot:

The winner of that game will play the Dartmouth early 1940s team in one all-time NIT semifinal which as it turns out will produce one old-timers team in the title game.

Then the two newer teams will play in the other national semifinal. We did not a slight error in the 12 teams created at the end, so their Dunk Ranges and ratings were lowered by 5 as reflected in these cards.