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Post by Deleted on Jun 23, 2020 13:42:07 GMT -5
Weird coincidence this was tweeted today
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Post by Larrytitanman on Jun 23, 2020 14:32:15 GMT -5
That is the order....top to bottom...Hyatt, Rodwan, Salci, Boyce.....If Boyce had played 3 varsity years, he would be neck and neck with Hyatt.
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Post by ptctitan on Jun 23, 2020 15:14:01 GMT -5
Our teams in the mid-1960s were very skilled and very balanced. Hyatt was a very smooth guard who distributed the ball well and who gets overlooked because there was no 3-point shot and no records of assists and steals were kept while he played here. The balance and depth at each position on those teams causes all of those guys to get overlooked when their stats are compared to players like Frank Russell & Tolbert. IMO, Hyatt was as good as Ray, Jr. Murrey and Hyatt were like Malone and Stockton. But I realize that a lot of posters here never saw them play.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 23, 2020 15:31:05 GMT -5
#25. Dennis Boyd, 6-1 G, 1974-77.
On the pure stats, Boyd probably shouldn’t be rated this high, including ahead of his successor as the Titans’ point guard, Wilbert McCormick. Not that the stats aren’t impressive. Boyd ranks third all-time for assists as a Titan, and he led the Titans in assists for three consecutive seasons, from 1975 through 1977. His 219 assists and 7.6 assists per game in 1977 both rank second for Titan single season marks—one assist short of McCormick’s single season team records set the following year. In that ’77 season, Boyd averaged 10.3 points and shot 50.6% from the floor, both career highs.
I’ve ranked Boyd over his stats because, 43 years later, my “eye test” recollection of Boyd on the floor remains very powerful, and more importantly, he was the guy who seemed to make things work, especially on the great 1977 team. Playing with John Long, Terry Tyler, and later Terry Duerod, Boyd didn’t have to score. But he had a good jump shot that would have made him deadly had they had a three point line, and a neat “shake ‘n bake” move not dissimilar from some of Antoine Davis’s ankle-breaking fakes. Boyd was a great clutch player, which he showed repeatedly during the Titans’ 21 game winning streak in 1977. In game 5 of the streak, Boyd hit a game-winning jumper at the buzzer as the Titans defeated #8 Arizona, 70-68. In game 12, Boyd hit a game-winning 25-foot jumper at the buzzer to stop an upset bid by St. Peter’s. The next night, at St. Francis of New York, Boyd’s bucket with 39 seconds to play sealed an 86-82 win. Finally, at #6 Marquette in February, Boyd got us win #21 with a shot from the top of the key that swished through the hoops as the buzzer sounded. Starting at the 2:00 minute mark of this video, you can watch the final seconds, from Terry Tyler’s crucial steal to set up the final possession, through Boyd’s game winner. That shot alone cements a place for Boyd in the Titan pantheon.
An all-around player, Boyd was also voted “top defender” on that ’77 squad by his teammates, no small honor on a team with shot blocker extraordinaire Tyler.
Boyd was taken in the 4th round of the 1977 NBA draft by New Orleans, but his only NBA action came the next year, when he was signed as a free agent and played a handful of games for the Pistons. He's attended various reunions and events at Calihan in recent years.
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Post by motorcitysam on Jun 23, 2020 16:55:37 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. View AttachmentKeith Gray dunking against DePaul in February, 1984. The Demons won 66-47. My favorite personal pick up basketball memory is an alley oop pass I threw to Keith during a game at Calihan featuring regular students and a few players from the team. Keith dunked it easily with two hands. Easiest assist I ever got.
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Post by motorcitysam on Jun 23, 2020 17:00:25 GMT -5
#25. Dennis Boyd, 6-1 G, 1974-77.On the pure stats, Boyd probably shouldn’t be rated this high, including ahead of his successor as the Titans’ point guard, Wilbert McCormick. Not that the stats aren’t impressive. Boyd ranks third all-time for assists as a Titan, and he led the Titans in assists for three consecutive seasons, from 1975 through 1977. His 219 assists and 7.6 assists per game in 1977 both rank second for Titan single season marks—one assist short of McCormick’s single season team records set the following year. In that ’77 season, Boyd averaged 10.3 points and shot 50.6% from the floor, both career highs. I’ve ranked Boyd over his stats because, 43 years later, my “eye test” recollection of Boyd on the floor remains very powerful, and more importantly, he was the guy who seemed to make things work, especially on the great 1977 team. Playing with John Long, Terry Tyler, and later Terry Duerod, Boyd didn’t have to score. But he had a good jump shot that would have made him deadly had they had a three point line, and a neat “shake ‘n bake” move not dissimilar from some of Antoine Davis’s ankle-breaking fakes. Boyd was a great clutch player, which he showed repeatedly during the Titans’ 21 game winning streak in 1977. In game 5 of the streak, Boyd hit a game-winning jumper at the buzzer as the Titans defeated #8 Arizona, 70-68. In game 12, Boyd hit a game-winning 25-foot jumper at the buzzer to stop an upset bid by St. Peter’s. The next night, at St. Francis of New York, Boyd’s bucket with 39 seconds to play sealed an 86-82 win. Finally, at #6 Marquette in February, Boyd got us win #21 with a shot from the top of the key that swished through the hoops as the buzzer sounded. Starting at the 2:00 minute mark of this video, you can watch the final seconds, from Terry Tyler’s crucial steal to set up the final possession, through Boyd’s game winner. That shot alone cements a place for Boyd in the Titan pantheon. An all-around player, Boyd was also voted “top defender” on that ’77 squad by his teammates, no small honor on a team with shot blocker extraordinaire Tyler. Boyd was taken in the 4th round of the 1977 NBA draft by New Orleans, but his only NBA action came the next year, when he was signed as a free agent and played a handful of games for the Pistons. He's attended various reunions and events at Calihan in recent years. "That's all there is! U of D wins 64-63!" Ray Lane on the call. Hoop heaven.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 23, 2020 21:56:00 GMT -5
#26. Wilbert McCormick, 6-1 G, 1977-80.
Wilbert McCormick was Dennis Boyd’s back up at point during the season of the Titans’ 21 game winning streak, 1977, and then the starting point guard on the Smokey Gaines’ teams that went 47-11, with an NIT and an NCAA bid, in 1978 and ‘79. In 1978 he set the Titan single season record for total assists and assist per game, averaging 7.6 per game. His 1979 and 1980 seasons rank 4th and 8th on the Titans’ single-season assists list, and his career total of 611 assists ranks second, 4 behind Kevin McAdoo. His career average of 5.4 per game is the highest of any Titan for whom we have complete data, just nosing out McAdoo. McCormick could score a bit, too, putting up 13.6 points per game in 1980 and 11.4 in 1979. Wilbert’s Titan teams won 86 games in 4 seasons. For the past two decades plus he’s owned a company called MC’s Vending, in Detroit. Update: February 16, 2021: Wilbert appeared with Dan Hasty on the Titan History Podcast on February 6, 2021. soundcloud.com/user-924664921/titan-memory-podcast-wilbert-mccormick In the podcast he mentions choosing UD over Michigan and Arizona. Nice when we could win recruiting battles like that!
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 24, 2020 6:36:35 GMT -5
#27. Bruce Rodwan, 6-5 F, 1966-68Bob Calihan always played a short bench, but by the mid-1960s it had become a bit ridiculous—Calihan’s starting five were playing almost every minute of every game. The result is that they put up some really good raw stat numbers, and it’s tough to go back and evaluate just how good some of the players were. Since the Titans were an Independent, there were no conference awards or recognition as a sort of substitute “eye test.” And of course no one kept “tempo” stats in those days, or per play efficiency rankings. Forward Bruce Rodwan was a beneficiary of Calihan’s system, putting up some big numbers--three straight years of a double/double stat line. Rodwan averaged 13 points and 11.8 rebounds as a sophomore, 16.4 and 13.4 as a junior, and 15.2 and 11.1 as a senior. Those are pretty good numbers no matter how many minutes you play. Rodwan’s best game was a 39 point effort in an upset of #13 Indiana early in the 1967-68 season. Rodwan is 6th on the Titans’ all-time rebounding list. Captain of the 1968 Titans, in 1969 he was a grad assistant coach for the freshman team. He then obtained his JD from UD, and has had a long career practicing law in the Detroit area. Rodwan was inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame in 1987. Update, February 16, 2021. Bruce Rodwan passed away on the weekend of February 6-7, 2021. Shortly before that, he had been interviewed by Dan Hasty for the Titan History Podcast. The episode aired on February 9, 2021. soundcloud.com/user-924664921/titan-memory-podcast-bruce-rodwan
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Post by Larrythetitan on Jun 24, 2020 8:31:45 GMT -5
Bruce was the original blue collar player......#54.....hustle, sweat, rebound, defend....lay ups, follow ups, tips.....he may have been the last Titan player to shoot free throws underhanded a la Rick Barry. Ferndale HS.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 24, 2020 10:43:12 GMT -5
#28. Dwayne Kelley, 6-4 G, 1990-93
Dwayne Kelley was a member of Ricky Byrdsong’s first full recruiting class at UD, a pretty good one that included Mike Lovelace, Michael Aaron, Canonchet Neves, and Ramsey Nichols, plus transfer Shawn Williams (One national service ranked it the #31 class in the nation). Kelley turned out to be the best of the bunch, starting at #2 guard position all 4 seasons, and winning second team All-Conference honors three consecutive years, from 1991 through 1993. He was remarkably consistent those years, averaging 15.9, 16.1, and 15.4 points, shooting between 42.1 and 45.8 percent from the floor, and hitting between 33.9 and 40.3 percent of his three-point attempts. Kelley ranks 9th on the Titan career scoring list, 5th for three point field goals, and 11th in assists. Yet he was considered a defensive player coming out of Bishop Borgess high, and probably would have made an MCC All-Defensive team had they had that recognition back then.
Kelley spent some time as an assistant coach at Sam Houston State, but left coaching to get off the road and spend more time with his family. He now works in medical and pharmaceutical sales. His oldest son will be a redshirt freshman at Sam Houston this year.
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Post by upbasketballfan on Jun 24, 2020 11:26:08 GMT -5
I keep waiting to see where you put Minnerath who was a great player who had to play out of position and was poorly used by his coach but has since shown that he should have been the #1 option instead of option 3-4.
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Post by nctitan on Jun 24, 2020 12:29:53 GMT -5
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 24, 2020 14:26:17 GMT -5
#29. Jerry Davis, 6-5 F, 1979-82
I can't find it on-line, but I have a vague recollection of Smokey Gaines, around the time the Titans signed Jerry Davis, saying he was the best recruit they’d signed in his time with Detroit (remember, that included Long, Tyler, Kevin Smith, Wilbert McCormick, Dave Niles, Turono Anderson and other highly touted high school players). Maybe that’s just a false memory on my part, but either way, Davis was a big time recruit--known in high school as "the Dr. J. of Coastal Bend," the three-time first-team All-State selection averaged 30 points per game as a junior and 34.9 as a senior, was the #18-ranked recruit in the country per Basketball Weekly, and still holds the 6th highest total for points in a season for Texas high schoolers. Getting him up to Detroit from Corpus Christi was a big catch.
At Detroit, Davis was a good player and a four-year starter, but never quite lived up to expectations. As a freshman, he averaged 11.6 points and 5.8 rebounds; three years later he averaged a very similar 13.6 points and 5.0 rebounds. He probably should have been at least a second team all-conference selection as a junior in 1981, his best year, when he averaged 19.1 points and 6.3 rebounds, but was passed over, perhaps because the Titans played a truncated league schedule of just 6 games in their first MCC season. He even gets treated unfairly in the MCC/Horizon official record books, which record him as having scored just 1278 points in 109 career games, when in fact he scored 1602 points. (The record book apparently ignores his freshman points, but it’s not because Detroit wasn’t a league member that year—they count the games, as they count both games and points for other players who began their careers before the MCC was formed). Davis was, however, the first Titan ever honored as MCC (nee Horizon) Player of the Week, in December 1980, after a week in which he scored 22 points, grabbed 21 rebounds, and set what is still a Titan and MCC record with 10 steals, against John Carroll; and then connected for 20 and 26 points against East Carolina and Duke, respectively.
His solid play over 4 years places him high in several Titan career statistical categories. Davis ranked 6th on the Titans’ all-time scoring list when he graduated, and today ranks 11th. He ranks 10th on the Titan all-time list for blocks and 2nd for steals. He had good shooting percentages and was a good free throw shooter (76.2% career; perhaps paying him back for the total points slight, the MCC/Horizon record book lists him as the league leader in free throw percentage in 1980 at 83.6%, even though Detroit didn't join the conference until the following year). In the end, Davis was a very good player who fell a bit short of expectations and was ultimately outshone by classmate Joe Kopicki.
Davis was taken by Washington in the 5th round (112th pick) of the NBA draft, but never made it to the show. Today he lives in Texas and owns an emergency services franchise.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 24, 2020 20:58:13 GMT -5
#30. Lou Hyatt, 6-2 G, 1964-66
Well, here he is. I thought I was ranking Hyatt too high. But PTC writes :
Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
High-scoring Lou Hyatt came out of Lofton Greene’s River Rouge powerhouse at its peak, playing on the first two of five consecutive state champions in the 1960s. At UD, Hyatt teamed with Dorie Murrey to give the Titans a couple of their best teams of a good decade. The 1965 version finished 20-8 and played in the NIT (fun fact—the Titans turned down an NCAA bid for the NIT, as they had also done in 1961), while the 1966 team, on which the two were co-captains, beat Indiana, Villanova, and Notre Dame on the way to a 17-8 finish. Hyatt put up big points: a respectable 9.5 per game as a soph, a team-best 17.6 as a junior, and 16.4 as a senior. He was recognized as a key player on the team.
Players from the 1960s and 70s were some of the toughest to rank because of the lack of data and reference points. The Titans weren’t in a conference, so there are no conference awards to serve as a proxy for how people viewed them at the time. Stats are relatively few—it was still the era of points and rebounds and that’s about it. Even assists, usually considered the third most basic stat, wasn’t an official stat and rarely calculated. Press coverage (at least for free, on-line) is hard to find. And no, I didn’t see Lou Hyatt (or Dorie Murrey or Dick Dzik or others) play. (Aside: PTC, I always pictured you as younger than that). So no, I don’t have a personal “eye test.”
Now, I’m well aware of things that don’t always show in the stats—see the listing for #25, Dennis Boyd, for example, or the very next listing after this one. But what I’m always pointing out to people is that stats are an “eye test” of sorts. They are the recorded observation of what went on in a game. The problem with basketball—again, especially pre-1980s—is that we don’t have a enough stats—a lot of stuff that went on is missing, especially from those earlier days (this is much less true in baseball, for example, where we have the play by play for virtually every major league game going back decades). OTOH, we often don’t have enough “eye testing” either. Did anyone here see all 75 of Lou Hyatt's Titan games? Memory is tricky. We recall certain things that made an impression on us that may or may not represent the whole. We miss a lot of games, and when we are watching, we’re often watching other things and other players on the court. I’m generally a believer that if a player is good, he’ll have good stats.
Hyatt does have good stats, but not overwhelming ones. If you average 17 points a game, that’s impressive in any season. OTOH, Lou Hyatt’s teams played fast and furious. The Titans averaged 96, 86, and 86 points in his three seasons. Frank Russell (whom PTC specifically mentions, and whom I did see play) averaged about 16 points a game, and Russell did it three years running, not just twice, like Hyatt did his 17. But while Hyatt played in the run and gun Calihan era, Russell played in the much slower moving Harding era. Hyatt played on teams that ranked 1st, 23rd, and 26th (of 182 teams) in the nation in scoring. Russell’s teams averaged 73 points (153 of 196 teams), 77 (112 of 203) and 77 (117 of 212). Russell’s teams also played, on the whole, tougher schedules. And Harding played a deeper bench, leaving fewer minutes for starters. In that context, and adding a better sophomore season, Russell’s number don’t look about equal or slightly inferior, but definitely better. Russell also grabbed more rebounds in a period when there were fewer rebounds to grab. This isn’t a knock on Hyatt—the Titans had Dick Dzik, Dorie Murrey, and finally Bruce Rodwan to grab rebounds during his years—but it is a small plus for Russell. Hyatt’s shooting percentages were also OK, but nothing special. Among players with enough attempts to qualify for the leaders, he was just 6th on the team in 1964, and 5th the next two years. Yet he took more shots than anyone else on the '65 and '66 teams, including Murrey. Arguably, the Titans would have been better if Hyatt had shot less. His shooting percentage was below the national average two of those years—the exception being his junior year, when he made 43.2% of his shots vs. a national average of 43.1%. The guys ahead of him in these rankings were all better shooters, sometimes by a lot, both in absolute and relative terms. Hyatt was, though, a superb free throw shooter.
As PTC points out, we don’t have numbers in important categories, like steals and especially assists. But In the categories we do have, Russell (& Tony Tolbert, whom he mentions, and also Derrick Hayes and Keith Gray and pretty much every guard I’ve ranked above Hyatt) have a clear edge on Hyatt. And guys like Tolbert, Hayes, and Gray had some pretty good assist and steal numbers—I’m not sure Hyatt would have surpassed them by much, if at all, even if we had those numbers. And no, Hyatt doesn’t get extra credit because there was no 3-point shot in his day. As I noted in the introductory post to this list outlining the "rules" and process of selection, your skills are only as good as the rules governing play.
What about contemporaneous observations? Clearly Hyatt was considered a key man on the Titan team. Reading contemporary press reports I could find, that much is obvious. Maybe even the #2 man, after Murrey, although that is not so obvious, even in 1965. Like I said, there were no all-conference teams as reference points. What few points we have don’t really boost the case for Hyatt. Hyatt was not voted team MVP, though with Murrey on the squad that would have been tough. He was named co-captain with Murrey in 1966, an honor that usually, though not always, went to one of the best players on the team. It’s also interesting that Hyatt has not been inducted into the Titan Hall of Fame. In these rankings, I didn’t put much weight on Titan Hall selection, because there seems to be a considerable bit of internal politics involved. Still, it's one of the few reference points we have, and his teammates Dzik, Murrey, Larry Salci, Rodwan, Al Cech, and Terry Page were all inducted. The fact that Hyatt’s been overlooked isn’t a plus.
The problem with the eye test is that, in the end, you can’t prove it. Yeah, the eye test would almost certainly tell me that Hyatt was not as good as Spencer Haywood, but definitely better than Gabriel Dos Santos. As a measure for sorting out the players between about 15 and 50 on this list, however, it becomes a bit of an “was too”/”was not” argument.
In summary, Hyatt ranks as high as he does precisely because of the “eye test,” as I’ve been able to glean it from contemporary reports. Absent that, he'd be ranked lower--perhaps by a fair amount--going on stats and honors received. He was an exciting player and team leader on winning teams, and he put up a lot of points. That’s a pretty good resume. But I don’t think the overall record, going beyond the "eye test," supports a higher ranking, and I'm pretty sure I'd think that even if I'd seen him play and shared PTC's evaluation.
And I say all this not to avoid criticism of these rankings or to cut off discussion, but to foster both, and to explain why I ranked Hyatt where I did. If there were a strong consensus that Hyatt was better (in the sense of accomplishing more as a Titan) than the guys above him, I’d reconsider.
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Post by Commissioner on Jun 25, 2020 13:13:10 GMT -5
#31. Owen Wells, 6-7 F, 1972-74Freshmen weren’t eligible for varsity play when New England native Owen Wells arrived at UD, and Wells’ sophomore season was nothing special—4.4 points and 3.0 rebounds per game. But Wells’ junior season was very good, and his senior year was superb. Wells--who was nicknamed "Magic" years before anyone had heard of Ervin Johnson--made a huge impression on this teenager in the fall of 1973, when he led Dick Vitale’s first team out to a 11-1 start. That start included a thrashing of Michigan, and wins over Michigan State and Minnesota, the Gophers first non-conference home loss in over 3 years. So this is largely an eye-test ranking, or perhaps a little hero worship, and if you think I’ve overrated Wells, then don’t complain about my heavy use of stats in most of these evaluations. Of course, as usual, the stats are pretty darn good, too. Wells averaged 14.2 points and 9 rebounds as a junior, and 20.6 points and 8.8 rebounds—plus over 2 blocks per game—as a senior on the 1974 squad. To me, Wells really helped set the tone for the Vitale/Gaines era on December 8, 1973, when he hit 15 of 25 shots and 8 of 9 free throws for 38 points as the Titans blasted a Campy Russell-led Michigan squad, 70-59. The final score doesn’t do justice to the Titan performance, and Wells was pulled late with the game in hand, to a big hug from Vitale and a thunderous ovation from the Calihan crowd of 7485. Over that 11-1 start, Wells tended to be at his best when he faced the best. Besides outplaying Russell, he also outplayed Canisius’s Larry Fogle (the nation’s leading scorer, whom Wells outscored 36-30), and two-time Big 10 scoring champ Mike Robinson of Michigan State (Wells also hit the winning bucket with 10 seconds left in overtime in that one). Wells was good for 20 points in a win over Fairfield for the Motor City title, a game featured in Sports Illustrated, another 20 in the win over Minnesota, and a team-best 18 in a January win over Dayton (unranked at the time, but ranked both earlier and later in the season). Wells was a 5th round pick of the Houston Rockets in the 1974 draft, made the team, and played in 33 games during the 1974-75 season. He then played professionally in Holland, Italy, and Australia, where he was MVP of the Aussies' National Basketball League in 1983. Off the court, Wells defied the sterotypical athletic profile. He enjoyed playing chess, liked obscure, progressive jazz music, and majored in Ancient History and Classics. Sadly, Wells died young, passing away after a stroke in 1993, age 42. Owen Wells
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