New York State Professional League (NYSL or NYSPL)

Going to step back about a decade for a bit here.

In 1946, as the BAA and NBL fought for supremacy in the professional basketball world, the number of minor basketball leagues began to dwindle as the sport became more popular and the best players headed to the big paychecks. There were start-up leagues in the Southern United States (Southern Basketball League) and the Pacific Northwest (Pacific Coast League), as well as the established but dwindling American Basketball League now reduced to the Mid-Atlantic States. A few state leagues existed and tried to compete for the remaining scraps of the pro (or semi-pro or even amateur) game. Three leagues, the Connecticut State League, along with the newly-formed Eastern Basketball League of Pennsylvania and newly-formed New York State Basketball League, formed the Eastern Basketball Association. With this association, the three leagues standardized their rules, but more importantly, agreed to respect each other and not raid each other's league for players and prevent team jumping. The Connecticut State League, which had formed around 1945, would eventually become the Eastern League of Connecticut before disbanding, and the Eastern League of Pennsylvania, would eventually become the Continental Basketball Association. I am going to take a quick run through the New York State League.

Formed in 1946, this is a minor league that was not going to compete with any of the larger established leagues. It seemed like a good area to look into a bit, since so many players from good schools in the East played there. The league only last three seasons, and had multiple teams drop. Surprising to me was still the lack of information available in old newspapers. There are a lot of players that I could not positively identify, but I went on anyway.

This is going to be a quick stop. I am not going to do a blog post for every player, but I did do as good of research as I could to identify the players and their teams. I am definitely not going to do this for every minor league.If someone else wants to pick up where I leave off, have at it. Enjoy!