1940–41 Sheboygan Red Skins season

The 1940–41 Sheboygan Red Skins season was the Red Skins' third year in the United States' National Basketball League (NBL), which would also be the fourth year the NBL itself existed.^[1] However, if one were to include their few seasons they played as an independent team under a few various team names involving local businesses like the The Ballhorns (being sponsored by a local florist and funeral parlor), the Art Imigs (being sponsored by a local dry cleaning shop owned and operated by a man named Art Imig with team jerseys saying Art Imig's), and the Enzo Jels (being sponsored by a local gelatin manufacturer known as Enzo-Pac) at various points before becoming the Sheboygan Red Skins due to their promotion up into the NBL, this would officially be their eighth overall season of play as well. For the first time ever in the NBL's history, they would be without divisional play despite starting out the season with only one less team by comparison to their previous two seasons, though this had occurred with the Indianapolis Kautskys deciding to leave the NBL for the purposes of experimenting with themselves as a barnstorming franchise and with the Detroit Eagles initially being considered out as well due to issues with securing a new arena deal alongside a new ownership deal before a last-minute change with them led to them returning to the NBL in time to start out this season properly with seven teams at hand.^[2]

The Red Skins played their home games at the Eagles Auditorium.^[3] Throughout the season, Sheboygan would see themselves compete for either an average record or an above-average record. By the end of the season, the Red Skins would see themselves get a 15–13 record, which would be tied with the two-time defending champion Akron Firestone Non-Skids (who had gotten to that point after a surprisingly slow and poor start on their ends) for a second-place finish, with the Oshkosh All-Stars taking the first-place finish for the season this time around. Because of the divisionless formatting at hand, Sheboygan and Akron's Firestone squad engaged in a coin flip to decide who would be the official second place spot for this season, with Sheboygan gaining it and getting their semifinal round match-up against the Detroit Eagles following the coin flip's results favoring them. While Detroit would upset Sheboygan in the first game with a one-point loss on the Red Skins' end, Sheboygan would end up utilizing their home court advantage to defeat the Eagles to win their semifinal round 2–1 to face off against their cityside rivals in the Oshkosh All-Stars in the NBL Championship series, which would be a best-of-five series this time around. Unfortunately for Sheboygan, Oshkosh would end up sweeping the Red Skins in a quick 3–0 series beatdown, thus giving the All-Stars their first NBL championship. Weirdly enough, Sheboygan would not get a single player earning a single honor despite earning a second-place finish this season. Not only that, but their poor performance in the 1941 World Professional Basketball Tournament would result in another team joining the NBL the following season afterward in the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets joining when they rebranded themselves from their original Toledo White Huts name.