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Post by motorcitysam on Jul 14, 2020 12:57:11 GMT -5
Marv was also good at drawing fouls using the "flop" technique. Friendly, personable guy off the court. Another player who dated a VERY hot woman. The best athletes always get the women, right Sam? Not always, but often enough to see the pattern. 🙂
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 14, 2020 13:11:06 GMT -5
#86. Gino Sovran, 6-2 F/C, 1946
Gino Sovran was a thousand-point scorer in three years at Assumption College (aka University of Windsor) before transferring to Detroit for his senior year. He led the Titans in scoring in 1946 at 8.9 points per game. It was a busy year for Gino—after the Titan season ended he returned to Assumption, leading the team to the Eastern Canada championships, and then he joined Toronto of the NBA’s forerunner league, the BAA, in the fall of 1946, while doing a final co-op semester at UD.
Sovran was a very good player, to be sure, but his brief NBA career was a bit of a fluke—the Toronto squad consisted entirely of American players, and the owner thought that adding a couple Canadians would be good for attendance. Sovran was certainly one of the best, if not the best, Canadian player at the time, and as his co-op semester was in Toronto, he was close at hand. So he signed while finishing up his UD degree. He was used sparingly, appearing in just 6 games during the 1946-47 season, and left the squad before the season ended. Still, he joins Calihan, Knorek, and Stolkey as early Titans to play in one of the NBA predecessor leagues, and one of 22 Titans overall (a list that does not include Calihan) recognized as a league player by the NBA. And you gotta like a 6-2 center.
After his brief pro career, Sovran earned a Ph.D. in engineering at the University of Minnesota, then joined General Motors, where he became a prominent automotive research engineer. He was elected to the Canadian Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. Gino Sovran died in Royal Oak in 2016, age 91.
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Post by upbasketballfan on Jul 14, 2020 13:16:21 GMT -5
We're talking Chatman the player, not how he was coached, what his dad did, whether he ever intended to stay for more than a year. It's not just traditional stats that are really powerful. Chatman also had good numbers in the various "advanced" stats that seek to account for team, tempo, etc. His Win Share total for his season in Detroit is good; his +/- Box number is good (i.e. how the team did with him on the court). These numbers account for Chatman's poor defense, and he still comes out looking pretty good. His offensive rating (Ken Pom) is good--up in Willie Green territory. His True Shooting Percentage is good. With all the shenanigans on the 2008 team, you never heard about Chatman causing problems. I don't know if he was the greatest team player in the world, but he didn't complain, he didn't mope on the bench, there are no reports of him causing trouble in the locker room, he stayed eligible. As I noted responding to Scout, I have my doubts about Chatman, too, and ranking him this high. But to convince me that this is really wrong, you're going to have to do better than complain about his dad, the coaching, and your subjective belief--not born out in the numbers--that the team played better without him. We did win 2 out of 3 when he was injured and the game we lost to Northern Kentucky was by 2 points. At the time they were 4-0 and we were 0-4 in conference. We came within a bounce of being 3-0 without him. Seeing as the #'s are weighing in so much, in conference we were .667 without him and .154 with him. Yeah, I know the eye test doesn't matter. It's all about the #'s. I go to a majority of the games usually every home game and about 4-5 of the road games. I very seldom watch the ball but waste a lot of my time watching flow, momentum and how much energy off of the ball a players teammates display when he does have the ball. I obviously do not know how to watch a game or remember turning points. I should quit watching games and just read the box scores.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 14, 2020 13:58:49 GMT -5
We did win 2 out of 3 when he was injured and the game we lost to Northern Kentucky was by 2 points. At the time they were 4-0 and we were 0-4 in conference. We came within a bounce of being 3-0 without him. Seeing as the #'s are weighing in so much, in conference we were .667 without him and .154 with him. Yeah, I know the eye test doesn't matter. It's all about the #'s. I go to a majority of the games usually every home game and about 4-5 of the road games. I very seldom watch the ball but waste a lot of my time watching flow, momentum and how much energy off of the ball a players teammates display when he does have the ball. I obviously do not know how to watch a game or remember turning points. I should quit watching games and just read the box scores. You're setting up a straw man, Up. Nobody said any of the things you just suggested I said. Not one of them. Of course the "eye test" matters. But eye tests are subjective, too. Surely you do not believe that you are the single best evaluator of basketball talent on the planet or that your observations are always correct? Just as we have to use stats wisely, we have to use judgment wisely. It's clear to me that you know your hoops. But it's also clear to me that sometimes you get carried away. You promised us Jason Whitens would be a star. Maybe he still will be, but 1.1 ppg as a freshman and 4.6 ppg last year leaves him some ways to go. Or, to avoid framing it in stats--I think you'd agree he's got a long way to go to be high quality mid-major player. (I agree with you, btw, that the Titans should have offered him, and he's a contributing mid-major player). You argued that last year's Titans should have been able to beat Northern Kentucky 7 out of 10 games. I found that a bit of a stretch, and I doubt that many experts would agree with you on that, with or without looking at the stat sheet. As I've said many times, one misses a lot with the eye test. You can't watch every player, every play. And as in the rest of life, individual moments that are often not representative of the whole nonetheless stand out in the memory. Our prejudices sometimes come into play. Stats aren't perfect, either, and they can be misused as well, sometimes intentionally, sometimes simply because people don't understand them. But as I've also said, stats are an "eye test" of a sort, in that they record what people witnessed on the court. It's not like the eye test has played no part in these rankings. If I did not share at least some of your sense of Chatman as a player, he'd have ranked higher. As it is, I've agreed that, in a subjective ranking such as this, there's a good argument--an eye test argument--that he should be ranked lower. But the stats are damn impressive, and you know what?--Chatman looked pretty good to most people's eyes, too. His lackadaisical defense didn't go unnoticed, but he could play some pretty awesome basketball, as well. Of course, we can never know how the team would have done without him that season. But we do know that big men who can score 18 points, grab 8 rebounds, and toss off more than 2 assists per game, while shooting over 40% from three and 85% from the line, are hard to come by. It takes a lot of reading the bottom line of the eye chart to disregard stats like those. But I appreciate your disagreement.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 14, 2020 19:18:02 GMT -5
#87. Ramsey Nichols, 6-2 G, 1990-1993
Ramsey Nichols ranks 9th on the Titan list for career assists, and that’s pretty much what puts him on this list. He led the Titans in assists in both 1992 and 1993, although his career best in the category came as a sophomore in 1991, when he averaged 4.3 assists per game (Dwayne Kelley led the team with 4.4 per game). That was also his top scoring year, at 10.6 ppg. Nichols was limited by a so-so outside shot, and his numbers in most areas declined after his sophomore season. But he was a solid, pass first point guard, and a four-year Titan.
Nichols teaches in Kalamazoo, and is the head coach at Kalamazoo Central, where he helped develop Isaiah Livers. He previously coached at Benton Harbor, where he coached the 2005 Mr. Basketball winner, Wilson Chandler.
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Post by upbasketballfan on Jul 15, 2020 0:55:39 GMT -5
Yeah, I know the eye test doesn't matter. It's all about the #'s. I go to a majority of the games usually every home game and about 4-5 of the road games. I very seldom watch the ball but waste a lot of my time watching flow, momentum and how much energy off of the ball a players teammates display when he does have the ball. I obviously do not know how to watch a game or remember turning points. I should quit watching games and just read the box scores. You're setting up a straw man, Up. Nobody said any of the things you just suggested I said. Not one of them. Of course the "eye test" matters. But eye tests are subjective, too. Surely you do not believe that you are the single best evaluator of basketball talent on the planet or that your observations are always correct? Just as we have to use stats wisely, we have to use judgment wisely. It's clear to me that you know your hoops. But it's also clear to me that sometimes you get carried away. You promised us Jason Whitens would be a star. Maybe he still will be, but 1.1 ppg as a freshman and 4.6 ppg last year leaves him some ways to go. Or, to avoid framing it in stats--I think you'd agree he's got a long way to go to be high quality mid-major player. (I agree with you, btw, that the Titans should have offered him, and he's a contributing mid-major player). You argued that last year's Titans should have been able to beat Northern Kentucky 7 out of 10 games. I found that a bit of a stretch, and I doubt that many experts would agree with you on that, with or without looking at the stat sheet. As I've said many times, one misses a lot with the eye test. You can't watch every player, every play. And as in the rest of life, individual moments that are often not representative of the whole nonetheless stand out in the memory. Our prejudices sometimes come into play. Stats aren't perfect, either, and they can be misused as well, sometimes intentionally, sometimes simply because people don't understand them. But as I've also said, stats are an "eye test" of a sort, in that they record what people witnessed on the court. It's not like the eye test has played no part in these rankings. If I did not share at least some of your sense of Chatman as a player, he'd have ranked higher. As it is, I've agreed that, in a subjective ranking such as this, there's a good argument--an eye test argument--that he should be ranked lower. But the stats are damn impressive, and you know what?--Chatman looked pretty good to most people's eyes, too. His lackadaisical defense didn't go unnoticed, but he could play some pretty awesome basketball, as well. Of course, we can never know how the team would have done without him that season. But we do know that big men who can score 18 points, grab 8 rebounds, and toss off more than 2 assists per game, while shooting over 40% from three and 85% from the line, are hard to come by. It takes a lot of reading the bottom line of the eye chart to disregard stats like those. But I appreciate your disagreement. Commish I do appreciate the amount of research you put in. I do not remember promising Whitens would be a star. I like the way he plays the game and I remember comparing him to Bruinsma and feeling he could be better than Evan, which by the way is a complement. Whitens played some as a true frosh then became a starter as a soph only to go down early to injury and finished the season in a cast and was redshirted. This last year he started 29 of 32 games and was second on the team in rebounds. He was a very unselfish player on a team with a lot of selfish players and his high BB IQ was lonely. Whitens was not the reason Hawkins lost his job this year. If he had two more Whitens he might still be there. I do believe that I am a very good evaluator of most athletic talent, not only basketball talent and I do think my observations are always correct. If I can't see what I am looking at I will quit looking. I can not control how a player is valued, used or misused by his next coach.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 15, 2020 7:38:59 GMT -5
#88. Roy Simms, 6-3 G, 1980-83
Another pass-first point guard, “Sleepy” Roy Simms holds the Titan single-season record for steals, with 80 in 1983 (an MCC-leading 2.76 per game). He also led the MCC in assists that year at 4.2 per game. On the Titan all-time lists, he ranks 10th for assists and 8th for steals. Simms never scored much, topping out at just 6.4 ppg as a senior, but he actually put up good shooting percentages, shooting 49.5% in 273 attempts over his final 3 seasons. Simms lacked the outside shot necessary to be rank among the very top point guards, but he could play some ball.
As an aside, I’m thinking a dream Titan All-Name squad would feature a three-guard lineup with Sleepy Simms, Scrappy Jackson, and Cookie Marsh. Sounds a bit like names rejected for the screen play of Snow White.
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Post by Rogobob77 on Jul 15, 2020 8:33:00 GMT -5
Simms got the “Sleepy” nickname due to his rather prominent droopy eyelids that made him appear in a perpetual sleepy state. If I’m not mistaken, I think he may have also played some on the Titan baseball team.
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Post by upbasketballfan on Jul 15, 2020 9:01:16 GMT -5
#79. Tom “Cookie” Marsh, 6-0 G, 1971-1973.A legendary player at St. Cecilia’s gym, and rated one of the top 100 recruits in the nation out of Detroit Northern, Cookie Marsh was a starter on the 1972 and 1973 teams. He averaged 5.8, 11.7 and 13.7 points per game in his three Titan seasons. Marsh was a good outside shooter who would have benefited from a three-point line. As it was, he had a good if unspectacular Titan career. The high point may have been when Cookie powered the Titans to an 84-77 upset 15th-ranked Ohio U. in December, 1972, by scoring 12 points in the final 11 minutes. He finished with 25 points for the game. In 2017 Marsh and his longtime friend, Tom “Whitey” Daniels, published “Black and White Like You and Me,” a memoir of their long-time friendship, growing up and living in Detroit. For those who grew up in the Detroit Metro area in the 1950s, 60s and early 1970s, it’s filled with nostalgic references to Motown, local sports teams, and such. But it’s also a warm story of cross-racial friendship that merits attention as the country has erupted in protests triggered by the death of George Floyd. I was at Crisler Arena on Dec.12 1970 when UD coached by Jim Harding lost in over time to Michigan 73-72. We were led in scoring by Frank Russell but make no mistake Cookie, who was matched up with Dan Fife, was the best player in the gym and was very dominant down the stretch.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 15, 2020 9:57:34 GMT -5
#79. Tom “Cookie” Marsh, 6-0 G, 1971-1973.A legendary player at St. Cecilia’s gym, and rated one of the top 100 recruits in the nation out of Detroit Northern, Cookie Marsh was a starter on the 1972 and 1973 teams. He averaged 5.8, 11.7 and 13.7 points per game in his three Titan seasons. Marsh was a good outside shooter who would have benefited from a three-point line. As it was, he had a good if unspectacular Titan career. The high point may have been when Cookie powered the Titans to an 84-77 upset 15th-ranked Ohio U. in December, 1972, by scoring 12 points in the final 11 minutes. He finished with 25 points for the game. In 2017 Marsh and his longtime friend, Tom “Whitey” Daniels, published “Black and White Like You and Me,” a memoir of their long-time friendship, growing up and living in Detroit. For those who grew up in the Detroit Metro area in the 1950s, 60s and early 1970s, it’s filled with nostalgic references to Motown, local sports teams, and such. But it’s also a warm story of cross-racial friendship that merits attention as the country has erupted in protests triggered by the death of George Floyd. I was at Crisler Arena on Dec.12 1970 when UD coached by Jim Harding lost in over time to Michigan 73-72. We were led in scoring by Frank Russell but make no mistake Cookie, who was matched up with Dan Fife, was the best player in the gym and was very dominant down the stretch. Though I didn't mention it, Cookie was also a very good defensive player, and often matched up against bigger opponents. But... wasn't it Cookie who committed the key foul that led to Michigan's game winning free throws late in the OT?
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Post by uofdfan1983 on Jul 15, 2020 10:45:15 GMT -5
Sleepy was indeed nicknamed as such for his droopy eyelids. I was there during the same 4 years Sleepy was at U-D and as VN Sports Editor I got to know him a bit. A great guy, a happy guy, a positive influence on his teammates. He was also the starting centerfielder on the baseball team for 4 seasons -- a great defensive player with just an adequate arm, a decent bat and a terror on the basepaths. A true multi-sport athlete. If he had any weakness, it was that he was good in all sports and not GREAT in any.
He returned home to West Virginia after graduation and was a teacher/coach in his hometown of Elkins. Unfortunately, he passed away at couple years ago, WAY too early...
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 15, 2020 18:38:01 GMT -5
#89. Warren Hintz, 6-5 C, 1947-1950
In both 1948 and 1949, Warren Hintz was awarded the Don Wattrick Most Efficient Player Award, which long ago was given to the Titans’ “best all-around player.” I don’t know much else about Hintz as a player. He averaged 4.7, 4.8 and 7.9 points in his first three seasons with the Titans, the last good for second best on the team. He dropped back to 3 ppg in 1950. I found no other season stats available for those years, other than his 1948 and 1949 shooting percentages, best on the team at 36.1% and 35.4%, and his 1950 percentage at 36.5%. But there were some decent players on those teams, including Brendan McNamara and John Kirwan, so if they twice in a row named Hintz the best all-around player, I have to figure Hintz was pretty solid.
To digress a bit, I’ve also never quite figured out why it was called the Don Wattrick Award. Wattrick played sports at Central Michigan in the 1930s, and then was a popular sports broadcaster in Detroit, covering the University of Michigan, the Lions, Pistons, and Tigers, but, to my knowledge, not the Titans. He was Sports Director at the radio giant WJR. His one clear Titan connection came in the 1960s. Although Wattrick had no front office or coaching experience, Pistons owner Fred Zollner named him General Manager in November, 1964. His first move was to fire coach Charley Wolf. According to a story recounted by Detroit News columnist Jerry Green many years later, Wattrick wanted to hire Earl Lloyd, a Piston scout, who had been the NBA’s first African-American player and would have, had he been hired, become the first African-American head coach. According to Green, this was vetoed by higher management on racial grounds, and so Wattrick asked the 24-year old Titan great Dave DeBusschere to become player-coach. (Lloyd was eventually named Pistons’ coach in 1972, making him the NBA’s 4th African-American head coach). But even all that came years after the Titans were awarding the Don Wattrick Most Efficient Player Award.
To further digress, Wattrick also hosted a local Detroit TV show in the fifties called “Stag Party,” airing at 10:30 on Tuesday night. Each episode opened with Wattrick instructing female viewers to “turn to your knitting, because the next half hour belongs to the man of the house.” What followed was an evening of testosterone-charged entertainment, with vignettes on topics such as auto repair, locksmithing, fire department training, and police work, all set off against “comely lasses and risqué humor,” with musical numbers by a very pretty blonde singer named Merri Leone, backed by the Leonard Stanley Trio. The closing credits for the show were superimposed over Merri Leone’s derriere.
To my knowledge, Warren Hintz never appeared on Stag Party.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 16, 2020 9:32:05 GMT -5
#90. Daryle Johnson, 6-7 F, 1971-72
Unfortunately, those who remember Daryle Johnson will often remember him for one of the great, inadvertent administrative blunders in Titan history.
Jim Harding, looking to improve off the dismal 1970 season (7-18) and in need of bodies as several players had quit the team, hit the juco ranks hard that year. One of those juco additions was Johnson, a long forward from San Francisco. Johnson was the one who contributed most. He averaged 10.3 points and 8 rebounds in 1971 as the Titans returned to respectability with a 14-12 mark. As a senior in 1972 Johnson averaged 8.4 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 56.4% from the floor. As those numbers show, Johnson was a good rebounder who could score some in the paint, often on second chance attempts. But Johnson’s main contribution was as a lock-down defender. Harding was a coach who emphasized defense, and Johnson was probably the best defensive player of the Harding era. His talents were particularly on display in the Titans’ stunning 71-49 win over #2 Marquette in February, when he held Marquette star Bob Lackey to 2 points, and sent the All-American to the bench early with a pair of charging fouls. Marquette ended up with its lowest point total in 15 years. On the season, Johnson was a big reason the Titans ranked in the top 15 nationally in scoring defense.
After the Marquette win, the Titans’ entered the UPI poll at #18. They beat #20 Duquesne in their next game, and despite falling flat in a loss to Western Michigan in the season finale, were still expected to get an NIT bid, back when that still meant a lot. And then came the crushing news: it was discovered that Johnson had played a handful of games for Wilbur Wright CC in Chicago in the fall of 1966, putting him outside of the NCAA’s “5 years to play 4” rule.
Johnson had dropped out of Wright CC after just one semester, worked for year and a half in the post office, and then returned to college at San Francisco City College (a juco). When he enrolled at San Francisco, he made no mention of his prior attendance at Wright, because, as he later said, he “wanted to start junior college all over.” Johnson sat out his first year at San Francisco due to a California residency requirement, then played one season there (1969-70). Neither his application to transfer to UD, nor his SF State transcript, mentioned Johnson’s enrollment, let alone playing ball, at Wright CC. When the violation was discovered, Johnson said (and there’s no reason not to believe him) that he didn’t know the rule applied to his distant, limited prior play at Wright.
The Titans already had image problems, caused by the team’s repeated walk-outs on hard-ass coach Jim Harding, and Harding’s own, unwise decision to rip into the NIT selection committee when it did not offer Detroit a bit in its first wave of bids (in those days there was no big selection show for either tournament—at large bids were announced over several days). The NCAA ultimately held the University blameless for the Johnson situation, but the bad PR probably tipped the scale against the Titan bid and the Titans were generally considered the first team out of the field.
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Post by nctitan on Jul 16, 2020 14:37:27 GMT -5
#90. Daryle Johnson, 6-7 F, 1971-72 I was one of the unlucky Class of 1973 whose UofD tenure started the year after Spencer Haywood and ended the year before Dick Vitale. I got to know Johnson a little during his stay. He was one of the nicest ballplayers, quiet and indeed a stud defender. He married the daughter of assistant coach Ben Bluitt, I think during his senior season. (Bluitt was the first black ballplayer at Loyola of Chicago, in the late '40s, and after his time as assistant at UofD Bluitt was head coach at Cornell. Bluitt was a gentleman, a father figure to the players, the total opposite of Jim Harding. I can't say for sure, but I expect Bluitt was the recruiter and the reason good black players came to Detroit during Harding's tenure.) Commish, my recollection of Johnson's eligibility problem was that he enrolled in Wilbur Wright JC but dropped out within a few weeks, never played basketball. But by enrolling and attending classes he started the five-year clock ticking. Then he enrolled at City College of San Francisco (not San Francisco State), a community college, before transferring to Detroit.
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Post by Commissioner on Jul 16, 2020 17:20:54 GMT -5
#91. Shawn Williams, 6-5 F, 1990-1991
Shawn Williams joined the Titans from Long Beach City (Jr.) College. He led the Titans in scoring his first season with the club at 12.4 ppg, and in rebounding the next, at 6.3 pg. He also averaged 13.2 points that second season. He was selected to the MCC All-Newcomer team in 1990 and was a big part of Ricky Byrdsong's slow but steady revival of Titan ball.
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