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.

SWAC's Texas Southern Shocks Patriot's Cousy, Holy Cross 1950

In what was supposed to be a NIT blowout game to warm up for our Michigan State vs. UCLA All-Time NCAA great, Fred Sturdivant rejected Matt Forman's attempted game-winning shot and grabbed the rebound to let SWAC champ Texas Southern pull off perhaps the biggest upset in the history of the Value Add Basketball Game.

The stunning 72-71 final eliminated Hall of Famer Bob Cousy, with our best team ever from the current Patriot teams Holy Cross, from our all-time great NIT tournament of the 20 all-time champs from non-power conference.

Mike Davis inherited the team heading into probation, leading to a 1-13 start and Texas Southern ranked as the 234th best team in the country at www.kenpom.com. The rest of the way they were 16-1 and were one of the best 100 teams in the country and believe this would have been the SWAC team who would have entered the tournament so hot I believe would have been the most likely SWAC team to pull a couple of upsets. Norfolk State 2012, also in our game, is the last HBCU team to win a game not counting the 1st Four in Dayton.

While it was the guard play of Ray Penn and incredible 3-point shooter Omar Strong who usually put up the big points that season, Sturdivant was in the top 1% of all shot blockers in the nation (more than 10% of all opponents' 2-point shots blocked) and field goal percentage (61.5% and 67% during the 16-1 finish) and in the last five games he blocked 30 shots for an incredible end to his career.

In our game this team already pulled an opening round upset against another all-time great - Calvin Murphy and Niagara, and our guess is they would have been quite a challenge opening weekend but for the probation. Davis did follow with incredible 16-2 SWAC seasons, and in the last few years Texas Southern teams have won Opening Four games in Dayton, but our money is that this was the perfect combo that would have given the SWAC its best show at 1st or even 2nd round upsets.

Texas Southern is likely the best HBCU basketball program again today.
 

Pos	Texas Southern 2013 (SWAC)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Ray Penn	10	2	2	0	0	1	1	0	1	5'9	12.2 Pts, 2.4 Reb
2-SG	Omar Strong	17	2	3	5	5	3	1	0	1	5'9	17.0 Pts, 3.4 Reb
3-SF	Madarious Gibbs	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	3	6'1	6.5 Pts, 3.7 Reb
4-PF	Fred Sturdivant	23	0	11	1	3	13	3	2	3	6'7	11.1 Pts, 8.2 Reb
5-C	Aaron Clayborn	8	0	3	2	4	7	0	1	2	6'6	7.6 Pts, 5.4 Reb
1-PG	Dexter Ellington	2	0	1	0	2	1	0	0	2	6'1	2.3 Pts, 1.8 Reb
2-SG	Lawrence Johnson-Danner	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'4	8.5 Pts, 3.0 Reb
3-SF	Kyrie Sutton	8	0	4	0	0	5	0	0	1	6'9	5.1 Pts, 4.3 Reb
4-PF	Billy Rosenberg (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	6'5	1.5 Pts, 0.9 Reb
5-C	Ethan Blackwell (no card)	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5'7	0.2 Pts, 0.6 Reb
	Turnovers 11	72	4	26	8	14	34	5	3	14
Pos	Holy Cross 1050 (Patriot)	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht	Actual Season
1-PG	Andy Laska	11	1	4	0	0	2	2	0	1	5'10	8.2 Pts
2-SG	Bob McMullen	2	0	1	0	0	1	1	0	3	6'3	6.5 Pts
3-SF	Bob Cousy	20	2	5	4	4	9	1	0	1	6'1	19.4 Pts
4-PF	Matty Forman	9	0	4	1	2	2	0	0	1	6'4	10.1 Pts
5-C	Frank Oftring	10	0	5	0	0	5	0	1	3	6'2	8.4 Pts
1-PG	Jim Dilling	6	0	3	0	0	1	1	0	1	6'5	5.5 Pts
2-SG	Bob McLarnon	5	0	2	1	2	1	1	0	2	6'0	4.4 Pts
3-SF	Gene Mann	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	1	1	6'1	2.6 Pts
4-PF	Bob McDonough	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	2	5'11	2.4 Pts
5-C	Dennis O'Shea	4	0	2	0	0	2	1	0	2	6'2	1.9 Pts
	Turnovers 12	71	3	28	6	8	25	7	2	17

Here is the all-time NIT Tournament with seven of the Elite 8 teams settled.