Evansville Agogans


The Evansville Agogans were a professional basketball team who played in Evansville, Indiana, in 1951 and were a member of the Western Division of the National Professional Basketball League.

History

The National Basketball Association contracted after the 1949–1950 season, dropping from 17 teams to 11. The six teams who left the NBA were the Anderson Packers, Sheboygan Red Skins and Waterloo Hawks and the Chicago Stags, Denver Nuggets and St. Louis Bombers. Midway through the 1950–1951 season, the Washington Capitols ceased operations as well, bringing the number of teams in the league down to ten.
The National Professional Basketball League was formed around the former NBA teams, with teams added in new larger markets. The charter teams were the East Division: Sheboygan Red Skins, Anderson Packers, Louisville Alumnites and Grand Rapids Hornets. West Division: Denver Refiners/Evansville Agogans, Saint Paul Lights, Kansas City Hi-Spots and Waterloo Hawks.
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. Bill Butterfield, an office supply store manager in Evansville, bought the franchise and moved it to Indiana in January 1951. Butterfield gave the squad the unusual new name of Agogans, apparently derived from the word "agog", meaning "intense interest and excitement."
The Agogans featured former local high school athletes and others from the local Evansville Bosse High School state championship team. The team did feature a few players with professional experience, but it wasn't enough, as Evansville lost all six of its regular-season contests, by an average of 22 points.
The team and league folded after 1951. Evansville would not be home to another professional basketball team until the Evansville Thunder of the Continental Basketball Association was formed in 1984.

The arena

Games were played at the Evansville Central High School gym, now home to the downtown Evansville YMCA.

Notable alumni

Norm McCool
  • '''Ollie Shoaf'''