Sunday, March 9, 2025

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.

PosDetroit Mercy 1963     Height         Season Stats              Highlights (to be added)
1-PGHowie Komives6'1,NBA20.2 Pts, 3.5 Reb 
2-SGPat Haley6'35.9 Pts, 2.6 Reb 
3-SFWavey Junior6'211.8 Pts, 7.0 Reb 
4-PFElijah Chatman6'37.2 Pts, 6.7 Reb 
5-CNate Thurmond6'11,NBA19.9 Pts, 16.7 Reb 
1-PGBill Reynolds5'104.6 Pts, 1.1 Reb 
2-SGLyle Pepin6'22.2 Pts, 0.7 Reb 
3-SFMel Gilbert6'43.3 Pts, 2.7 Reb 
4-PFBob Carbaugh6'41.9 Pts, 0.9 Reb 
5-CTom Baker6'52.9 Pts, 1.5 Reb 
PosBowling Green 1963HeightSummary 
1-PGRay Albee5'914.4 Pts, 4.2 Reb 
2-SGLarry Hughes6'411.7 Pts, 8.1 Reb 
3-SFGeorge Heger6'35.0 Pts, 5.4 Reb 
4-PFDave DeBusschere6'6,NBA25.6 Pts, 20.0 Reb 
5-CCharlie North6'619.8 Pts, 14.2 Reb 
1-PGTom Villemure5'92.1 Pts, 0.3 Reb 
2-SGFrank Chickowski6'14.3 Pts, 3.1 Reb 
3-SFBob Wright6'41.4 Pts, 1.5 Reb 
4-PFJohn Parker6'41.2 Pts, 2.1 Reb 
5-CDick Dylus6'81.3 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.








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