The six teams who left the NBA were the Anderson Packers, Sheboygan Red Skins and Waterloo Hawks (who jumped to the NPBL) and the Chicago Stags, Denver Nuggets and St. Louis Bombers (who folded).
West Division: Denver Refiners/Evansville Agogans, Saint Paul Lights, Kansas City Hi-Spots and Waterloo Hawks (Former NBA).
[2] The franchise started the season as the Denver Refiners, but they had difficulty in financing the team's long trips to all its eastern and midwestern counterparts.
Butterfield gave the squad the unusual new name of Agogans, apparently derived from the word "agog", meaning "intense interest and excitement."
The team did feature a few players with professional experience (including Blackie Towery, who played for the Fort Wayne Pistons in the 1940s), but it wasn't enough, as Evansville lost all six of its regular-season contests, by an average of 22 points.