Post by Commissioner on May 23, 2014 6:18:26 GMT -5
A few years ago at Detroittitanhoops.com I posted a list of 65 great Titan victories from the post-WWII era. Unfortunately, these were lost in one of the crashes of that Board. Fortunately, I had that list saved in Word format. I've decided to reproduce here so it is out there in the public realm. But I've expanded it to a full 100 wins, going back to the start of Titan basketball in the 1905-06 season, and I've reworked some of the rank order even within those post-WWII games. Over the next several days I'll be posting this updated list, with game commentary.
A few notes:
First, I've no set criteria for determining what qualify as great Titan wins. Roughly (but not entirely, definitively, or consistently) in order of importance, I was looking at the following criteria:
1. Quality of opponent - was this a big win over a top opponent? a ranked opponent? how highly ranked?;
2. Importance of victory - did this game matter in Titan basketball, or have some national impact to it? Was it a post-season tournament victory, a game that clinched a league title, a post-season bid, or a game that set Titan ball on a positive course? A game against a key rival? One thing folks will note is that several games come from the Motor City Tournament are included. From the 1950s into the early 1970s, there were very few Holiday tournaments, and the Motor City Tournament was a major seasonal event in college ball;
3. Was the victory a milestone in some other way, as in team or personal records set;
4. Quality of the game itself - was it an exciting game, or was there some other exceptional feature about it that make it worth mentioning.
In selecting games, I've tried to be fair to every era, every decade. There are fewer games from the Titans' early years, though, because there were fewer important games - no conference titles, no national rankings, etc. And it should be obvious that I did not see the vast majority of these games, live or on television. So I've had to rely on news accounts to try to sense how important the win was seen at the time, how important the game was on the national stage. Worse, those news reports are spotty and sometimes just not there. More recent games provided a different challenge. For example, Detroit's victory over Akron in December of 2012 just didn't feel like a particularly significant win at the time. But Akron was a really good team - a top 50 team nationally in an era of over 350 D-I teams, MAC regular season and tournament champions, a team that won 19 in a row immediately after losing to Detroit. I tried to think "how would I have rated a similar victory over say, a similar quality Seton Hall team in say, 1963?" And I think the answer is "pretty high." Distance in time and the disparity we attach to the names (Seton Hall v. Akron) may warp our perspective.
A lot of cool wins still get left out. For example, I had included in one draft list the Titans' January, 1964 115-43 win over Western Ontario. That game set a team single-game scoring record at the time, and a record for the largest margin of victory that still stands. But the more I thought about it, other than happening to roll up the score a bit more, how much does that game differ from slaughtering UM-Dearborn 106-51 in the fall of 2013? Not much. And although Detroit led the nation in scoring that year, we really weren't that good either - the Western Ontario win evened our record at 6-6 on the way to a 14-11 season. So in the end, despite its ongoing place in the record books, I left that Western Ontario massacre out.(But, if you must know Dick Dzik scored 30 points and 5 other Titans reached double figures in the win). I also left out a rollicking 123-110 win at Xavier the next year, the 3rd of 4 consecutive Detroit-Xavier games in which the teams combined for at least 200 points. That game also set a single season scoring record (since surpassed), and Xavier is, after all, a serious opponent, unlike outmanned Western Ontario. But Xavier wasn't very good that year (10-15), and in the end I left the game out, too. (Lou Hyatt led the Titans with a career-high 35 points). Was it an impressive win? Yes. As impressive a win as beating Akron in December of 2012? Probably not.
Also, remember that this is a list of wins. Now and then I'd think, "Oh, I left out game X," and then remember that we lost game X. Hence, the list doesn't include big Titan historical games such as the #12 Titans against #1 Michigan in the Sweet 16 of the 1977 NCAA tournament, or the great Hersey Hawkins/Archie Tullos shootout against 20-4 Bradley in February of 1988 (a 122-107 Bradley win with the All-Americans Hawkins and Tullos scoring 63 and 49 points, respectively. Hawkins broke Oscar Robertson's MVC record in the game, while Tullos merely set a Titan single game mark that still stands).
I suspect that the first posts - ranking games 91-100 and 81-90- will be less interesting than later posts, which, obviously, list bigger, more impressive wins. So if the first installment or two seems a touch "meh," please come back to review games ranked higher in the list.
I hope that this list will bring back some memories, educate many about some of the history of Titan ball, and just be fun. Please feel free to comment, including to criticize the ranking order. But don't be too harsh - if I did this exercise again in 6 months I'd most certainly change many of the rank orders, and there's no real right or wrong answers. I do feel pretty good that most fans will recognize the Top 10 games as better/bigger wins than games 30 to 40, and games 30 to 40 as better/bigger than 90-100, and so on.
Enjoy.
A few notes:
First, I've no set criteria for determining what qualify as great Titan wins. Roughly (but not entirely, definitively, or consistently) in order of importance, I was looking at the following criteria:
1. Quality of opponent - was this a big win over a top opponent? a ranked opponent? how highly ranked?;
2. Importance of victory - did this game matter in Titan basketball, or have some national impact to it? Was it a post-season tournament victory, a game that clinched a league title, a post-season bid, or a game that set Titan ball on a positive course? A game against a key rival? One thing folks will note is that several games come from the Motor City Tournament are included. From the 1950s into the early 1970s, there were very few Holiday tournaments, and the Motor City Tournament was a major seasonal event in college ball;
3. Was the victory a milestone in some other way, as in team or personal records set;
4. Quality of the game itself - was it an exciting game, or was there some other exceptional feature about it that make it worth mentioning.
In selecting games, I've tried to be fair to every era, every decade. There are fewer games from the Titans' early years, though, because there were fewer important games - no conference titles, no national rankings, etc. And it should be obvious that I did not see the vast majority of these games, live or on television. So I've had to rely on news accounts to try to sense how important the win was seen at the time, how important the game was on the national stage. Worse, those news reports are spotty and sometimes just not there. More recent games provided a different challenge. For example, Detroit's victory over Akron in December of 2012 just didn't feel like a particularly significant win at the time. But Akron was a really good team - a top 50 team nationally in an era of over 350 D-I teams, MAC regular season and tournament champions, a team that won 19 in a row immediately after losing to Detroit. I tried to think "how would I have rated a similar victory over say, a similar quality Seton Hall team in say, 1963?" And I think the answer is "pretty high." Distance in time and the disparity we attach to the names (Seton Hall v. Akron) may warp our perspective.
A lot of cool wins still get left out. For example, I had included in one draft list the Titans' January, 1964 115-43 win over Western Ontario. That game set a team single-game scoring record at the time, and a record for the largest margin of victory that still stands. But the more I thought about it, other than happening to roll up the score a bit more, how much does that game differ from slaughtering UM-Dearborn 106-51 in the fall of 2013? Not much. And although Detroit led the nation in scoring that year, we really weren't that good either - the Western Ontario win evened our record at 6-6 on the way to a 14-11 season. So in the end, despite its ongoing place in the record books, I left that Western Ontario massacre out.(But, if you must know Dick Dzik scored 30 points and 5 other Titans reached double figures in the win). I also left out a rollicking 123-110 win at Xavier the next year, the 3rd of 4 consecutive Detroit-Xavier games in which the teams combined for at least 200 points. That game also set a single season scoring record (since surpassed), and Xavier is, after all, a serious opponent, unlike outmanned Western Ontario. But Xavier wasn't very good that year (10-15), and in the end I left the game out, too. (Lou Hyatt led the Titans with a career-high 35 points). Was it an impressive win? Yes. As impressive a win as beating Akron in December of 2012? Probably not.
Also, remember that this is a list of wins. Now and then I'd think, "Oh, I left out game X," and then remember that we lost game X. Hence, the list doesn't include big Titan historical games such as the #12 Titans against #1 Michigan in the Sweet 16 of the 1977 NCAA tournament, or the great Hersey Hawkins/Archie Tullos shootout against 20-4 Bradley in February of 1988 (a 122-107 Bradley win with the All-Americans Hawkins and Tullos scoring 63 and 49 points, respectively. Hawkins broke Oscar Robertson's MVC record in the game, while Tullos merely set a Titan single game mark that still stands).
I suspect that the first posts - ranking games 91-100 and 81-90- will be less interesting than later posts, which, obviously, list bigger, more impressive wins. So if the first installment or two seems a touch "meh," please come back to review games ranked higher in the list.
I hope that this list will bring back some memories, educate many about some of the history of Titan ball, and just be fun. Please feel free to comment, including to criticize the ranking order. But don't be too harsh - if I did this exercise again in 6 months I'd most certainly change many of the rank orders, and there's no real right or wrong answers. I do feel pretty good that most fans will recognize the Top 10 games as better/bigger wins than games 30 to 40, and games 30 to 40 as better/bigger than 90-100, and so on.
Enjoy.