With the basketball season having come to an abrupt and incomplete end and spring sports still officially on hold, I decided to jump into my basketball version of the Wayback Machine and see if I could find some interesting historical tidbits.
It worked and I found some interesting information.
The futility of the Bucyrus basketball program is well-documented. The Redmen have never won a sectional title under the current format developed back in the mid-50s. They have not been to a district tournament since 1948.
Though the program that measures successes by decades, many people don’t realize that Bucyrus once made a state tournament appearance in hoops. It happened in the second OHSAA sanctioned tournament in 1924.
To be sure, the early tournaments were very different from today’s formats. The first two — 1923 and 1924 — had 16 teams in Class A and Class B (only eight were invited to Class B in 1924). From then on, between eight and 16 teams were invited to state in both classes (it varied from year to year) until 1943, when the current Final Four concept was adopted.
But I digress. Bucyrus was one of 16 Class A (big schools) to make the trip to the old Fairgrounds Coliseum in Columbus in 1924. The Redmen were led by Harold “Pup” Smith and Howard “Ike” Nussbaum.
The nine-man roster also included a freshman whose name might sound familiar, Alex Kish, though he did not appear in the state finals game. Nussbaum came back to his alma mater as coach from 1931-38 and is still the longest-termed head basketball coach in school history with seven years. Ironically, 1924 was the only year for Floyd Yeager at the helm.
The Redmen went 12-3 in the regular season, 5-1 in the North Central Ohio League, sharing the league title with Ashland. They then won three district tournament games at Norwalk — beating Tiffin Columbian, Sandusky and Galion — and got the call to go to Columbus.
Though they lost their first-round game to East Cleveland, 32-17, this edition of the Men of the Red and White (they weren’t officially called Redmen until years later) made school history.
The other 14 teams to make the trip were Marion Harding, Lakewood, Marietta, Wauseon, Kenton, Nelsonville, Dayton Stivers, Youngstown Rayen, Springfield, Toledo Waite, Columbus East, New Philadelphia, Canton McKinley and Chillicothe. Stivers beat Columbus East, 30-16, in the title game. As an interesting side note, Bucyrian Fred Trautman was listed as one of just two officials for the Class A tournament.
In Kish’s senior year of 1927, Bucyrus went 16-4 and won three what were then termed regional tournament games at Tiffin, including a 46-30 win over Mansfield Senior. A rematch in what was called a district game went in Mansfield’s favor, 35-20, and the Tygers got a spot in the eight-team state field. The Redmen just missed a second state appearance in four years.
Fittingly the 1924 basketball team was inducted into the Bucyrus Hall of Fame with the third class in 2017. The team is also recognized on a banner at Alex Kish Memorial Gymnasium, one of only two team state tournament participants. The other — the 1990 softball state champion team — is also in the BHS Hall of Fame.
Ninety-six years later, the Redmen are still searching for success on the hardwood. Someday, the ghosts of Alex Kish, Pup Smith and Ike Nussbaum might reinvigorate the program. In the meantime, hard work and dedication can move the current crop of Bucyrus cagers closer to that ultimate goal.