Sheboygan Red Skins
The other league which merged to form the NBA (the Basketball Association of America) had more money, played in larger cities, and generally fielded better teams.
The league contracted after the 1949–1950 season, losing six teams; the Anderson Packers, Sheboygan Red Skins and Waterloo Hawks jumped to the NPBL, and the Chicago Stags, Denver Nuggets and St. Louis Bombers folded.
[5][1] Brothers Johnny and Joe "Scoop" Posewitz, Les Kuplic, Slim Lonsdorf, Carl Roth, Pete and Dugan Norris, and John Cinealis were among the better Sheboygan players during the decade.
[5] After the successful 1937–38 season, the Enzo Jels were admitted to the NBL on June 11, 1938, at the league meeting in Oshkosh, Wisconsin with help from Darling.
The Red Skins were consistent winners under attorney and coach Frank Zummach from 1939 to 1942, including a spot opposite the Oshkosh All-Stars in the 1941 NBL finals.
Sandlotter Otto Kolar, from Cicero, Illinois, was rated one of the Midwest's best guards and ran the Red Skins offense.
The late-season acquisition of Hall of Fame guard Buddy Jeannette, who joined Sheboygan for their last four regular-season games and the playoffs and commuted from his home in Rochester, New York, was a significant factor in the team's 1943 NBL title.
The signing of Lucas, Moschetti and Holm by Basketball Hall of Famer Dutch Dehnert in 1944 was the team's first acquisition of a group of name players from the East Coast.
With holdovers Mike Todorovich (a first-team NBL pick in 1947–48), Wisconsin forward Paul Cloyd, University of Toledo guard Bob Bolyard, Northwestern football and basketball All-American Max Morris and player-coach Suesens (who had starred at Iowa, where he roomed with Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick), the Red Skins finished their 11th season in the NBL with a 35–29 record.
The Red Skins made the NBL playoffs eight times and were invited to appear in nearly every prestigious World Pro Tournament held in Chicago.
The Red Skins, who played in the NBA's smallest arena (and market), competed in the 1949–50 season with Suesens as coach and finished with a 22–40 record: fourth place in the six-team Western Division.
The Red Skins had a 7–2 start with home victories against the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Rochester Royals, and Indianapolis Olympians.
The most spectacular win of the 1949–50 season was on January 5, 1950, when they defeated George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers 85–82 in front of a standing-room-only crowd of 3,800 fans at the Armory.
Four future Hall of Famers were on the floor for Minneapolis that Thursday night: Mikan (who scored 42 points), Jim Pollard, Vern Mikkelsen and Slater Martin.
The victory against that season's eventual NBA champion gave the Red Skins a 13–13 record, after which injuries took their toll and the team faded.
Sheboygan and Waterloo finished first in their respective divisions, but the league did not conduct a playoff and dissolved at the end of the regular season.
[10] In mid-1951, longtime Red Skins president Magnus Brinkman led a drive to form a league which would have been called the Western Basketball Association, consisting of eight to 10 teams and seeking two other NBA castoffs: the Waterloo Hawks and the Anderson Packers.
Bobby Cook, who had scored an NBA-record 44 points in a Red Skins home game against the Denver Nuggets in January 1950, coached the team.
