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Post by Commissioner on Jun 18, 2020 15:26:23 GMT -5
#14. Dick Dzik, 6-6 F, 1962-64Dick Dzik took his turn as Bob Calihan’s “star” during the 1963 and 1964 seasons, sandwiched in between a couple of All-Americans, Dave DeBusschere and Dorie Murrey. He is #2 to his 1962 teammate, DeBusschere, on the Titans all-time rebounding list. Arguably, Dick Dzik’s 1964 season is the best by any Titan not to garner All-America recognition. He averaged 21.7 points and 20.4 rebounds, the latter good for third in the nation and second all-time among Titans, trailing only Spencer Haywood’s 1969 total. That 1964 team, by the way, led the nation in scoring. This came on the heels of Dzik’s impressive junior season, when he also led the team in both scoring and rebounding at 16.3 points and 14.8 rebounds, the latter number the 8th best in Titan history. As a sophomore, Dzik averaged 9.1 points and 9.3 rebounds for the Titans’ 1962 NCAA tournament team. Dick showed up for the big games. He had 12 points and 16 rebounds in the Titans’ 1962 NCAA tournament loss to Western Kentucky. He had 26 points in the Titans’ 114-104 overtime win over Notre Dame in 1964, the first win ever for Detroit in South Bend. He had 23 points and 13 rebounds in a January, 1963 win over Michigan, outplaying all-Big 10 center Bill Buntin. After UD, Dzik played a few years of minor league basketball, and then had a long career in education. Dick Dzik taking it to Syracuse in a 92-69 Titan win in the Motor City Tournament, December, 1961.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 18, 2020 15:39:14 GMT -5
#15. Joe Kopicki, 6-9 F, 1979-82
I suspect some will think I’ve over-ranked Joe Kopicki. But there’s no denying he was an excellent player, at a time when the Titans were still a national program, and I’ve got a soft spot for Joe as the last great player of the Vitale/Gaines era. Joe’s stats are pretty good, too. Kopicki scored 1410 points in his Titan career, and is 10th on the Titan all-time list for total rebounds—but second of any Titan player in the last 40 years. Joe averaged 10.5 points and 6 rebounds as a sophomore, 19.9 points and 8.7 rebounds as a junior, and 18.6 points and 10.5 rebounds as a senior, while shooting 51% from the floor. He was a second team all-conference selection as a junior, a first team All-Conference selection as a senior, and was voted team MVP both seasons.
After his Titans days, Joe played 3 seasons in the NBA. He then had a long career in Europe, where he was a seven-time all-star in the tough Spanish leagues. He was inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame in 2010, and now coaches at his high school alma mater, Warren Fitzgerald.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 19, 2020 19:42:22 GMT -5
#16. Charlie North, 6-5 C, 1960-61.Because he was overshadowed by his teammate Dave DeBusschere, because his career was cut short by scandal, because of the scandal itself, it seems that Charlie North is often sometimes forgotten in the pantheon of great Titans. A two-time all-state player at Detroit Northwestern, Charlie played a year at Coalinga JC, and then, at the urging of Dave DeBusschere, came back to 8 Mile. Behind DeBusschere and North, the Titans made back-to-back post-season appearances in 1960 and 1961. As a sophomore in 1960, North averaged 19.8 points and 14.2 rebounds while shooting 50.1% from the floor. In ’61, North put up 18.1 points and 12.9 rebounds, shooting 50%. North scored 33 points in the Titans’ 1960 NIT loss to Villanova, and 30 in the 1961 NIT loss to Holy Cross. He also led the Titans with 23 points in a December, 1960 victory over 3rd ranked Indiana. North was a bruising rebounder and inside player, yet a smooth offensive operator with a sweet jump shot. With DeBusschere, North, and another talented juco forward, John Morgan (11.3 ppg, 9.8 rpg for the Titans in 1961), returning, and a couple talented rising sophomores, Dick Dzik and Al Cech, joining the team, great things were expected from the Titans in the 1962 season. Unfortunately, that promise was lost, and North’s legacy and career were tarnished by the bit part he played in the NCAA point shaving scandal of 1961. It turns out that in December, 1960, North received a letter from an acquaintance, Mike Siegel, about playing on a summer resort team for money (it was common in those days for players to be set up with jobs at summer resorts, allowing them to earn some money and play a lot of summer ball, and also for guests and others to gamble on games at summer resorts, so there was money to be had in paying players). North gave a letter from Siegel to Calihan, who passed it up to AD John Mulroy. Mulroy said the letter was "ambiguous" and took no action. North then passed a second letter from Siegel on to Calihan. This one was apparently less ambiguous, and Calihan warned North that the activity suggested was "not permissible." He again passed the letter up to Mulroy, who again did nothing himself and notified neither the police nor the NCAA. Eventually North and Morgan agreed to meet with Siegel and an attorney named Charlie Tucker at a restaurant in Detroit, where they were asked to fix the December 22, 1960 game against Ohio State, in return for $1000 each. At first they balked, but then changed their minds. A meeting was scheduled at the restaurant on December 19, where they would collect their money. But there were a number of off-duty police in the restaurant that night, and seeing the cops, the fixers left, figuring they had been set up. Ultimately, then, the game was not fixed, and North led the Titans with 25 points in the loss to #1 OSU. At least that’s one version, told in Albert Figone’s “Cheating the Spread.” The other version, in T.V. LoCicero’s “The Lessons of Sport,” goes like this: North and Morgan met with a couple fixers, but refused to go along. The man—whom North later described as “a fat guy with a Jewish name”—gave them each $50 (about $450 today after inflation), saying, “Here take it, just for meeting with me.” They took the money. Later, Siegel offered North $500 to shave points against Gonzaga, where the line favored the Titans by 15. North and Morgan agreed to the deal, but North later said that on the floor, the two “forgot about it all. We just played.” The Titans won by 5. North said he never saw any money. In any case, the scandal came to light in the spring of 1961 as part of much wider collegiate gambling scandal, and both North and Morgan were expelled from UD. The next year, behind DeBusschere and sophomore Dick Dzik, the Titans got an NCAA bid, but with North and Morgan--the two best players on the 1961 club after DeBusschere--they would likely have been a serious national title contender. Charlie’s tale is a sad one, because he wasn’t a bad guy. He was poor (and married with a child), perhaps a bit naive, and he was let down by Calihan and especially Mulroy, who should have taken more forceful action. He lost a likely NBA career, and after being expelled, had a difficult time finding a job. He worked as a garbage man and as a debt collector, and played minor league ball in the North American Basketball League. He eventually landed a job with the Detroit police department, working plainclothes in the Intelligence Division. Although I opened this comment by suggesting that North was often overlooked among Titan greats, Charlie was eventually inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame in 2005, perhaps a first for a player expelled from the university bestowing the honor. North is 6th on the Titans career list for points per game, and 4th for rebounds per game. Charlie North launches a jumper in the Titans' 70-68 victory over 6th-ranked Utah State, December 5, 1960. North finished with 16 points in the game.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 19, 2020 20:52:08 GMT -5
#17. Jermaine Jackson, 6-4 G, 1996-99
I've mentioned that in making these rankings, I put quite a bit of weight on honors a player received while playing--All-American, All-Conference, etc. It's what people following the league or team thought at the time, and that's very informative. But I'll admit that voters for such awards are often swayed by flashy stats. Average 20 points a game, you're likely to be All-Conference. Lead the league in blocks, you're likely to be All-Defense team.
When Jermaine Jackson was named Horizon Player of the Year in 1999, he averaged 13.9 points per game. That remains the lowest point per game average in the 41-year history of the Award. Consider as well that he didn’t lead the league in any traditional statistical category, and wasn't even the leading scorer on his team. To have such pedestrian top line stats and still be recognized as Player of the Year is a real tribute to one’s all-around game and court presence. If you look a bit more, Jackson’s ability and complete game does show up in the stats: he was 8th in the league in points per game, 6th in rebounds per game, 3rd in assists per game, 10th in steals per game, 6th in free throw percentage. In the fancy new advanced stats just coming into use, he was 8th in True Shooting Percentage, 5th in Offensive Win Shares, 1st in Defensive Win Shares, and 2nd in Total Win Shares (to Rashad Phillips). He was named to the Conference’s All-Defensive team, and probably would have been Defensive Player of the Year had they then had that award- he certainly would have been a deserving recipient, as he was a tenacious defender with an eye for where the ball was going to go. Still, it’s tough to be named player of the year without some flashy top line numbers, and that makes Jackson's recognition all the more impressive.
And Jermaine was a winner. He was the floor leader on Detroit’s 1998 and 1999 conference champs, teams which beat St. John’s and UCLA, respectively, in the NCAA tournament. Jackson's value is reflected in the fact that he played a tremendous number of minutes. He averaged 35 minutes a game all 4 of his Titan seasons. Perry Watson always wanted him on the floor. Throw in the fact that he’s 5th on the Titans’ All-Time assists list, was a 2nd team All-Conference selection as a junior, and was selected for the Horizon All-Tournament team in both 1998 and 1999, and it’s pretty easy to rank Jermaine amongst the top 20 Titans post-WWII.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 20, 2020 18:24:26 GMT -5
#18. Tony Tolbert, 6-4 G, 1993-94
Tony Tolbert was arguably the key man in reversing the Titans’ basketball fortunes in the mid-1990s. Tolbert joined a solid core that had been recruited by Ricky Byrdsong, including point guards Ramsey Nichols and Michael Jackson, forward Michael Lovelace, and guard Dwayne Kelley, but the addition of Tolbert seemed to put the Titans back over the top. After Tolbert, a transfer from Michigan, became eligible for the 1993 season, the Titans went 15-12 and 16-13 in Tolbert’s two seasons, ending a string of 7 consecutive losing seasons and 11 losing seasons in 12 years. The second of those seasons, 1994, was Perry Watson’s first, so Tolbert also links together Byrdsong's long rebuilding job with the Perry Watson championship era to follow.
A big guard, Tolbert averaged 20.4 points in 1993, second in the MCC, and a league best 23.6 points in 1994. He was a Horizon first team All-Conference selection both years and was named conference “Newcomer of the Year” in ’93. His 22.1 career points per game average is third on the Titans all-time list, and 7th best in MCC/Horizon history. Tolbert was a very good three point shooter (40.9% in both of his Titan seasons, 5th in the Titan career ranks), but he was selective with long shots, using the possibility of a three to force defenders to play him tight, and then driving past them with a quick first step, or cutting to the basket to take the pass. And he was a deadly finisher at the rim—a spectacular dunker for a guy standing 6-4. He was also a solid rebounder, averaging 5.5 boards as a senior.
After his Titan days Tolbert played for the Harlem Globetrotters and coached high school ball in the Detroit area.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 21, 2020 10:00:57 GMT -5
#19. Antoine Davis, 6-1 G, 2019-20
In some ways, a player like Davis is hard to rank because we lack the perspective of time. That’s why most athletic halls of fame require players to be retired for several years before consideration. It’s also hard because the Titans have been so dismal. Of the 18 players I’ve put above AD, none failed to play on a winning team, only Archie Tullos played on a 20-game loser, and only Tullos and Guy Sparrow played on teams with an aggregate losing record (Sparrow’s 4 clubs were, in the aggregate, 1 game below .500, and above .500 after his freshman year, when he played in just 12 games). Are AD’s stats padded because he’s been the only option? Or are they deficient, because he’s forced to take bad shots, because teammates haven’t converted scoring opportunities created by AD into assists, etc.?
Comparing him to other players isn't easy. I feel like he was not as good as Earl Cureton--whom, you'll note, we haven't seen yet--but there is a reason he's ranked higher (I'll talk about Earl the Twirl soon enough). Or take Tony Tolbert, the player I've ranked just above AD. AD's 2-year stats are pretty similar to Tolbert's two Titan seasons. Both were mainly known as scorers. Tolbert averaged 22.3 point; AD has averaged 25.2. They're a bit different. Tolbert's main weapon was getting to the rim, and he used the three to set that up. AD's main weapon is the three, and he uses his ability to drive to set up the three. But it's hard to figure how each would have done had they switched teams. For now, I've rated Tolbert higher, mainly because he was facing better competition on the whole. AD will start passing Tolbert and some others on this list as he plays next season.
In any case, you know the story: 3rd in the nation in scoring as a freshman; 4th as a sophomore. An NCAA record for three pointers by a freshman. He already dots the Titan record books: 2nd and 6th most points in a season; 4th and 7th highest scoring averages; 6th most field goals; 2nd and 4th most three pointers; 9th most free throws; 3rd and 7th highest free throw percentages. He’s also already showing up on the career lists: 1st in scoring average (can he hold it?); tied with Josh McFolley for third in three point baskets; second to Archie Tullos in free throw percentage, by the barest fraction of a point. He’s already #13 in total points and could become the all-time leader this year (if the Titans play 32 games, he would need to average 25.2 points--exactly his first two years combined average--to overtake Rashad Phillips for #1.)
Antoine also has a chance to become the first player in Horizon history to be a first team All-Conference selection for four consecutive years. Assuming they play ball this season, and AD plays respectably, he’ll move up this list, and the question is how high he can go.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 21, 2020 10:16:16 GMT -5
#20. Frank Russell, 6-3 G, 1970-72.
Frank Russell played for the Titans during the forgotten years, four seasons from 1970-73 under Coach Jim Harding. I call them the forgotten years because the Titans don't talk a lot about them. Twice the entire Titan team walked out on Harding, a legendary hard-ass and disciplinarian. On another occasion, when the Titans had played in New York, Harding left three players behind when they were late for the team bus to the airport. Attendance plummeted. But Harding did know basketball, and he actually recruited some pretty good talent to UD. After a dismal first season following the unexpected departure of Spencer Haywood, Harding's teams played quite well on the court, compiling a 48-27 record over his final three seasons. Harding resigned in the spring of 1973, as it was apparent that the Titans would not renew his contract, despite decent success on the court.
Russell, whom Harding inherited from Bob Calihan, was the mainstay of Harding's first three teams. He led the Titans in scoring in 1970 (15.5 ppg) and 1971 (15.8 ppg), then capped off a fine career by averaging 16.3 points in 1972. He shot 51.9% from the floor in 1972—at the time the best single season shooting percentage of any Titan except for Haywood and Dorie Murrey, and doubly impressive for a guard.
Russell went 7-7 from the floor for 16 points in the Titans’ stunning 70-49 win over #2 Marquette in February 1972, a game that ended Marquette’s 56 game regular season winning streak. He also led the Titans with 20 points in a win over #20 Duquesne a week later, as the Titans’ reached a #18 ranking in the UPI poll, and he had 15 points in a win over #10 St. Bonaventure in 1971. Russell was the 35th overall pick in the 1972 NBA draft, and played for the Chicago Bulls in the 1972-73 season.
A member of the great Russell basketball family of Pontiac, two of Frank’s brothers, Campy and Walker, and nephew Walker, Jr., all played in the NBA as well. His younger brother Larry didn't make the NBA but played two seasons for the Titans. Frank later got a law degree and has worked in Oakland County Human resources for many years. He is the publisher of the Pontiac News and Oakland Weekly News. Frank was inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame earlier this year.
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Post by motorcitysam on Jun 21, 2020 11:11:36 GMT -5
Lots of good stuff, here, Commissioner, especially the notes about what these players did once their basketball careers were over. Thank you for putting this together.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 22, 2020 7:09:12 GMT -5
#21. Earl Cureton, 6-9 F/C, 1979-80.
When I set about this little project, my presumption was that Earl would rank higher, probably just behind the set of All-Americans. The impression Earl left is very strong, so maybe I've dropped him too far. Earl is very favorably remembered for his long and interesting pro career, his continued involvement with the UD program as an unofficial coach and TV color man on Titan home games, and for his connection to the great Titan teams of the 1970s. But is he among the top 20 Titan greats?
Not that Earl wasn’t a very fine player, because, of course, he was. But remember that Earl only played two seasons in Detroit after transferring from Robert Morris. His first season, 1979, he averaged 11.9 points and 9.0 rebounds, connecting on 51.1 percent of his shots. That’s a real good year, but it’s also a typical Eli Holman season, and though we like to think that the Titans played a considerably tougher schedule then, it did include games against the likes Colgate, New Hampshire, East Carolina and Long Island, and rates about the same as the 2011 and 2012 Titan schedules. The Titans were 22-6 that year with a peak national ranking at #16 in the polls, and drew an at-large NCAA bid.
Earl’s senior season, 1980, was very good, averaging 19.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game, while shooting 52.7%. And though I fear affection for Earl may cloud the memory, in the good old “eye test” he does rank extremely high. So maybe he is too low.
A word on that professional career of Earl. Cureton was drafted by Philadelphia in the 3rd round of the 1980 draft. Never a regular starter (during 9 full seasons in the league, Earl started 130 games, only once starting more than half his team's games), Cureton was a muscle off the bench—a powerful rebounder and defensive player for 15 to 25 minutes a game. After 8 seasons in the NBA, he spent nearly a decade playing in Italy, Argentina, and in the minor leagues, but during that time he resurfaced long enough to play a few games for Chicago in 1991, and then was signed by Houston in April of 1994. He played in the last 2 regular season games for the Rockets, and then appeared in 10 playoff games as Houston won the NBA championship. Finally, in 1997, at age 39, he popped up one more time to play in 9 games for Toronto. In addition to the 1994 championship Houston squad, Cureton was also a member of the 1983 NBA Champion Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers, where he had a bit more important role than with Houston, appearing in 73 games. Not a bad career at all.
As an aside, I really enjoy Earl as the Titans color man on broadcasts. He's got a very laid back style, and though he doesn't directly criticize the players, he has a way of conveying what's going wrong when the Titans don't do well. I always have a sense nothing would please Earl more than to have the Titans be part of the national conversation again, as in 1979-80.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 22, 2020 10:00:20 GMT -5
#22. Lee Knorek, 6-7 C, 1943, 1947.
There were two players on this list I wasn’t quite sure what to do with: Knorek and Art Stolkey. This is a post-WWII list, and Knorek and Stolkey each played just one season post-WWII. But both also played for the Titans before being called up to military duty in the war. So do I give them credit for their pre-1946 playing time? I ultimately decided sure, why not?
Lee Knorek played his first season at Toledo’s DeSales College, but when that school shut down after 1942, he transferred to Detroit. In ’43, he led the Titans in scoring at 12.1 points per game, scoring the second most points in Titan history to that time, behind only Bob Calihan’s 1939 consensus All-America season. That 1943 squad was one of the Titans’ better ones, going 15-5 and leading the nation in scoring defense. By all accounts, Knorek was an excellent all-around player on both offense and defense. Coach John Shada said of Knorek, “He is a tremendously important player to us because of his ball-handling and passing, and because he's good enough under the backboards to enable us to control the ball a large part of the time." A 6-7 guy handling the ball, almost 30 years before Bobby Wilkerson.
Knorek entered the army after the ’43 season, and was one of the later post-war discharges, so he didn’t resume his career until the 1947 season. (During the war he was trained as an underwater demolitions expert. While in training, he played in 1943-44 for Great Lakes Naval Station and for Denison College in Granville, Ohio, where he received some of his training). He was a big enough name that after his discharge in June, 1946, there was public speculation on where he might play: would he return to Detroit, go to his home town University of Toledo, or maybe just turn pro. In the end, of course, he returned to the Motor City. He was team captain and leading the 1947 Titans in scoring at a school record clip of 13.9 points per game when, 15 games into the 25 game season, he turned pro, signing with the New York Knicks. Knorek scored 21 points in his second NBA game on February 12, 1947.
Over the years, I have seen some reports that Knorek played in the first ever game of the Basketball Association of America—forerunner to the NBA—in November 1946, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, and he doesn’t appear in that game box score, or any team box scores until February, when he left the Titans. He played three years for the Knicks before his contract was sold to the Baltimore Bullets. He played just 1 game for the Bullets before quitting the team, apparently not wanting to live in Baltimore, and tired of the travel (the Bullets also didn’t travel in the style of the Knicks, which irritated Knorek). The Bullets sued him for Breach of Contract, a suit eventually resolved when Knorek agreed not to play professional ball with any other team. And thus ended the NBA career of Lee Knorek. It gives you the sense of how different the money was then that a player in his prime would so readily do that. He went on to a long management career as a distributor for Schenley Distillers, which owned many American bourbon brands.
Knorek was also something of a character. Though born in Rossford, Ohio, his NBA records say he was born in Warsaw, Poland, because that’s apparently what he told the Knicks, as a joke, when he signed his contract. Raised in an immigrant family, Knorek did speak fluent Polish, and on one Knicks’ road trip pretended to be the Polish Ambassador to the U.S. in order to get better hotel service.
I don’t really know if Knorek should be rated this high. It's very hard to rank some of the players from the late 40s/early 50s, as I never saw them play, there are very few stats from the era, and no all-conference teams to look at. Press reports--at least free ones available on-line, which is what I'm reliant on, are relatively few as well. But my sense, from those few reports and stats, is that Knorek was a very similar player, in quality and for his time, to Earl Cureton 30 years later, and both played just two seasons for the Titans. So I've placed Knorek here.
Knorek died at age 82 in 2003, and was added to the Titan Hall of Fame in 2014.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 22, 2020 23:12:24 GMT -5
#23. Keith Gray, 6-2 G, 1984-85.An article earlier this year in Michigan Live called Keith Gray the greatest dunker in Flint’s illustrious high school basketball history. Gray went from Flint to Northern Illinois, where he averaged 8.4 points as a freshman. He then transferred to Wabash Valley CC, where he averaged over 24 points, including a 59 point game, before arriving in Detroit in the fall of 1983. In the 1983-84 season he averaged 17 points and 3.9 assists while shooting 51.3%, and was named to the MCC all-conference first team. In 1985, he averaged 17.5 points and was placed on the all-conference second team. Gray scored 21 points in the Titans win over 4th-ranked Memphis at the end of February, 1985. For his Titan career he made over 50% of his shots and averaged 3.6 assists per game. Gray was drafted by the Washington Bullets in 1975 but failed to make the team. Instead he spent seventeen years playing professionally in Europe and Asia, then coached for several years in Europe. He returned to Flint in 2012 to coach at his alma mater, Flint Southwestern, but resigned after two seasons. He was assistant at Great Lakes Christian College for a time. Keith Gray dunking against DePaul in February, 1984. The Demons won 66-47.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 23, 2020 9:06:33 GMT -5
#24. Derrick Hayes, 6-5 G, 1997-98.
Derrick Hayes was a sophomore on Perry Watson's last team at Detroit Southwestern, the 1991 Michigan state champs. He headed off to Iowa State, and made the Big 12 All-Freshman team. Although he started 24 games as a soph, he decided to come home to play for Watson at UD. His 44.4% three point shooting in 1998 is the 4th best season mark in Titan history. He was Horizon Newcomer of the Year in 1997, was the MVP of the Detroit’s 1998 NCAA tournament team, and a First-Team All-MCC player both seasons.
After playing a couple years in Europe, Hayes returned home and joined the Detroit Police Department. In 2005, he was shot 6 times in the line of duty. He was honored as “Officer of the Year” in 2005, and retired due to his injuries. He received his M.A. in Education Administration from UD in 2015, and became a police chaplain in 2018.
I kept going back and forth on whether to rank Hayes or Keith Gray higher. I finally put Gray. As I write this, I think that may have been in error.
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Post by ptctitan on Jun 23, 2020 9:26:46 GMT -5
Clearly, you never saw Lou Hyatt play or you would rank him higher than some of these players.
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Post by Xlarrytitans on Jun 23, 2020 11:10:12 GMT -5
Two for Lou Hyatt....he is one of my starting five from 65-66 that I referred to earlier. The others are Rodwan, Salci and Boyce. Waiting to see if all are in Top 100.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 23, 2020 13:22:16 GMT -5
Two for Lou Hyatt....he is one of my starting five from 65-66 that I referred to earlier. The others are Rodwan, Salci and Boyce. Waiting to see if all are in Top 100. So what would be your order for Hyatt, Rodwan, Salci and Boyce?
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