Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2021 17:46:37 GMT -5
I didn't see a thread for Dave, possibly the greatest Titan of all time. Well here's a reason to start one (ignore Lenny Wilkens - the 2 tweets were linked, so I had to post both)
|
|
|
Post by nctitan on Oct 21, 2021 21:42:31 GMT -5
Truly great basketball player, baseball player, a fine and faithful Titan.
Dave had many achievements, many records.
|
|
|
Post by uofdfan1983 on Oct 21, 2021 22:17:21 GMT -5
No "possibly" about it. Spencer had the greatest single season but Dave was the best Titan ever. We should be proud of our past. After Antoine passed Dave's scoring total late last year, his Dad called his surviving sisters. That's the kind of respect a basketball junkie like Mike Davis has for the great ones. I have a feeling this'll be one of those special years again that would make Dave and Cal proud.
|
|
|
Post by Commissioner on Oct 22, 2021 9:05:22 GMT -5
Here's from my "100 greatest Titans" thread udtitanbasketball.freeforums.net/post/20762/thread#1. Dave DeBusschere, 6-6 F, 1960-62. More than 60 years after he first suited up, DeBusschere remains the model Titan—smart, handsome, polite, thoughtful, a natural leader, a graceful and superb athlete. In the Titan record books, DeBusschere remains first all-time in rebounds, with nearly 400 more than anyone else. He is third in total points, and his career scoring average was only surpassed last year by Antoine Davis—we’ll see if Antoine can hold the mark. DeBusschere led the Titans in scoring and rebounding all three of his varsity seasons, and they were good years—two NIT bids (turning down the NCAA for the NIT in 1961) and an NCAA bid. In December, 1961 DeBusschere led the Titans to a #3 national ranking, our highest ever. If there had been freshman eligibility then, DeBusschere’s would further dominate the Titan record book.
In 1960 he was voted 1st team All-American by the News Enterprise Assn; 2nd team by Converse; 3rd team by UPI and Helms, and Honorable Mention with the Associated Press. In ’61, he was 2nd team Basketball Coaches; 2nd team News Enterprise Assn; 2nd team Converse; 3rd team UPI; 3rd team Helms, and Honorable Mention with the AP. And in 1962, he was 2nd team All-American with the News Enterprise Assn, Helms, and Converse; and 3rd team AP, UPI, and Basketball Coaches. While he never had a season as good as Spencer Haywood’s 1969 year, for three straight years he was one of the top 15 or so players in college basketball.
Big Dave was 3rd in the nation in rebounds per game in 1960, 1st in 1961*, and 2d in 1962, and his 19.4 career per game average remains 12th all-time in D-1. His 39 rebounds against Central Michigan in January, 1960, remains the 6th highest single game total in NCAA history, and has been topped just once in the 60 years since. He was also in the top 10 nationally in points per game as a soph and again as a senior.
After his Titan days, DeBusschere played both major league baseball (he was 3-4 with a 3.09 ERA in 24 games for the 1963 White Sox) and, of course, in the NBA, where he went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Pistons and Knicks. He was named player-coach of the Pistons at age 24. Can’t say enough good things about Dave DeBusschere. Dave died young, in 2003, at age 62.
*Note that Dave isn’t credited in the NCAA record books as the leading rebounder, because for a handful of seasons in the early 1960s the NCAA ranked rebound leaders by the number or rebounds as a percentage of rebounds available in the game rather than rebounds per game, and DeBusschere finished behind Jerry Lucas by that formula.I also noted in the intro to that thread: how do you decide who are the 100 greatest Titans? Is it based on 1 year? A whole career? One game? The baseball writer/stat guru Bill James solved the problem by creating two lists, one he called “career value” (how much did a player add over his full career) and one for what he called “peak value” (the player’s best 3-4 years). But you can’t really do that with the college game, because players play just 2 or 3 or 4 seasons. Peak is career, unless we define “peak” as a single season, in which case you end up with a list of the top 100 individual seasons—which I might do next year or something, but not what I was doing here.
I never came up with a satisfactory answer to this question. Brian Humes has higher career totals than Spencer Haywood in almost every category, and probably helped the Titans win a bunch more games in his 4 years than Spencer did in his single season in Detroit. Yet any ranking that listed Humes as a greater college player than Spencer would seem absurd. On the other side, Bill Pleas was probably better in his single season in Detroit than Humes was in any season, but does that really place him above Humes’ four-years of contributions?
So I did a little ad hoc balancing. I tried to ask, “were these players roughly in the same category as players?” In that case, an extra year or two weighed as a big plus. I think Spencer Haywood was a better college player than Dave DeBusschere. But Dave was, like Spencer, an elite player, an All-American three years running. So four years of Humes can’t outweigh one of Haywood, but three years of Dave does.
|
|
|
Post by uofdfan1983 on Oct 22, 2021 16:33:54 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by titantarheel on Oct 23, 2021 6:10:04 GMT -5
Awesome he’s on the 75 list after having been on the top 50 list (you fear recency bias when it comes to lists like this).
And…at entrance to calihan hall it should again be unmistakable and unmissable that one of the best players in nba history was a titan. Our history is so dang impressive and should be splashed everywhere and celebrated.
|
|
|
Post by ptctitan on Oct 17, 2022 10:45:58 GMT -5
Yesterday, October 16th, would have been Dave DeBusschere's 82nd birthday.
|
|
|
Post by fan on Oct 17, 2022 16:49:59 GMT -5
When the Knicks beat LA in that great Willis Reed 7th game, the Knicks were invited to meet the Mayor at Gracie Mansion. I lived just up the street from Gracie Mansion, there was a big crowd outside to see and cheer the players. Most of the players came in limos, and Walt Frazier came in a Rolls Royce, wearing a fur coat. Dave DeBusschere showed up in a cab wearing a tan raincoat and stayed with the crowd for maybe 15 minutes shaking hands, and signing autographs, great guy.
|
|
|
Post by nctitan on Oct 17, 2022 23:40:52 GMT -5
If I'm not mistaken, Dave D served as a University trustee.
|
|