SMS Bears' NAIA Championships

   I wrote on this blog a year or so ago about listening to the Southwest Missouri State College Bears' basketball games on KWTO radio in Springfield when I was a little kid. That post was mainly a tribute to Vern Hawkins, the primary broadcaster I remember listening to. I noted in that post that one of the highlights of Hawkins's tenure was the back-to-back national championships that the Bears won in 1952 and 1953.
   This was when SMS was affiliated with the NAIA or National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Actually, it was the NAIB (National Association of Intercollegiate Basketball) in 1952, but the NAIB was transformed into the NAIA during the 1952-1953 school year. The NAIA tournament was always played in Kansas City in those days. Actually it is back in KC now, but there were a few years there for a while when it was played in Tulsa.
   Anyway, those two championship years were a remarkable run for the Bears, because they were underdogs and had to overcome some big obstacles both years. In 1952, 8th seeded SMS upset top-ranked and previously undefeated Southwest Texas 70-67 in double overtime in the semifinals and then beat Murray State 73-64 in the finals.
   If I listened the those games on radio, I don't remember them. I would have been only 5 years old at the time. But I do vaguely remember the 1953 championship. In the semifinals that year, the Bears and Indiana State were tied 72-72 with three minutes to play when the fifth Bears player of the game fouled out, leaving the team with just four players. The ten-man roster was already short one player because Jerry Lumpe, who went on to play Major League Baseball, had been called to minor league spring training camp. With their three leading scorers on the bench and playing with just four players, the Bears took the lead and held on for an 84-78 victory. Later dubbed the Fabulous Four, the four players who finished off the victory were Bill "Jinx" Thomas (later a longtime coach at SMS), Don Duckworth, Bill Price, and Ray Birdsong. Then, in the finals the next night, the Bears won their second championship in a row by knocking off Hamline 79-71.
   The 1952 and 1953 championship teams were both inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2015.