1942–43 Oshkosh All-Stars season

The 1942–43 Oshkosh All-Stars season was the All-Stars' sixth year in the United States' National Basketball League (NBL), which was also the sixth year the league existed.^[1] However, if one were to include the independent seasons they played starting all the way back in 1929 before beginning their NBL tenure in 1937, this would officially be their thirteenth season of play. Five teams started out the 1942–43 NBL season due to the rising tides of World War II's impact before the Toledo Jim White Chevrolets dropped out after playing four games in their season (all of them being on the road against each of the other four NBL teams, including the Oshkosh All-Stars), leaving only a lowly four teams left for the rest of the NBL's season and they did not use divisions for their third straight season in a row.^[2] (An exhibition game Oshkosh had against the Clintonville Truckers on November 7, 1942, had the Clintonville squad in Clintonville, Wisconsin wanting to join the NBL themselves similar to what the new Chicago Studebaker Flyers team had done this season, but due in part to their location (with them being 40 miles away from both Oshkosh and Green Bay, Wisconsin for the nearby Green Bay Packers NFL team), the notion of that team entering the NBL was almost seen as laughable by comparison.^[3]) The All-Stars played their home games at the South Park School Gymnasium in the South Park Middle School within the Oshkosh Area School District.^[4]

Due to the ever-growing presence of World War II, the Oshkosh All-Stars would see themselves enter some serious strife throughout the season, which would first be foreshadowed by them starting their season with a 3–3 record following two straight losses to the inner state rivals in the Sheboygan Red Skins. While Oshkosh would follow that period up with six straight wins in a row to get a 9–3 record (to the point of being named first place in the entire NBL at one point^[5]), the complete roster instability they had in relation to World War II's presence alongside serious injury issues like an infected leg for Gene Englund and a punctured eardrum for Lou Barle (Oshkosh would only have three total players (Leroy Edwards, Charley Shipp, and Ralph Vaughn) competing in at least 18 regular season games when every other surviving team had at least five players that played at least 18 games themselves, with eleven players playing at least five games and six others playing only one game total^[6]) would see Oshkosh faltering up on their positioning by the second half of the season. Not only that, but after getting nine wins at what would be considered the halfway point of their season, the All-Stars would only get two more wins for the rest of the regular season (with one being on January 16 against Sheboygan and the other being on February 6 against the Chicago Studebaker Flyers), which not only led to Oshkosh finishing their season without a first place divisional finish for the first time in NBL history, but also with a losing record as well (albeit barely), though they would still qualify for the NBL Playoffs this season due in part to the limited, competitive formatting of the NBL season on display. For the first round, the All-Stars would compete against the Sheboygan Red Skins once again, this time without having home court advantage to help themselves out, though the lack of home court advantage wouldn't matter this time since Sheboygan would end up sweeping Oshkosh 2–0, with the Red Skins later winning their first and only NBL championship in an upset series victory over the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons 2–1. Following the season's conclusion, both Charley Shipp and Ralph Vaughn were named members of the All-NBL First Team, while Leroy Edwards was named a member of the All-NBL Second Team (which was the first time his honor was given a downgrade in performance).

The Oshkosh All-Stars would also later compete in the 1943 World Professional Basketball Tournament, as they sought to shake off the bad second half of the NBL season away from them in this tournament after they already had some previous successes in a different (mid-season) tournament held in Memphis, Tennessee involving two other NBL teams alongside the Toledo White Huts.^[7][8][9] After being given a first round bye in the WPBT this time around due to their prior success in the previous year's event, Oshkosh would mercilessly beat down the Detroit Eagles for the last time in that franchise's history in the quarterfinal round before upsetting the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons in the semifinal round, though they would not find a way to defeat the all-black Washington Lichtman Bears (who had been suggested to be the all-black New York Renaissance competing under a different name that were also seen as either completely undefeated or had only one loss to their names by that point in time to their season after 50 or so games they played in by this point in time) in the championship round, thus failing to repeat as WPBT champions for this season while effectively providing the last independently ran team the championship for that tournament in its history. In terms of the Oshkosh franchise making a profit this season while in the NBL, however, the All-Stars (alongside the newly crowned NBL champions from Wisconsin in the Sheboygan Red Skins) would operate in a manner similar to that of the nearby Green Bay Packers NFL team with community members owning a share of the team.^[10] While they operated in a manner similar to that of the Sheboygan Red Skins, the Oshkosh All-Stars were seen as the more popular franchise between the two teams both at home and on the road (despite playing at a smaller venue in a middle school setting), meaning those factors combined with them winning their mid-season tournament over Sheboygan in Memphis earlier in the season (with Oshkosh receiving $1,000 in payment for their victory over Sheboygan, while the Red Skins received $500 as payment for their defeat, as well as Oshkosh receiving an extra $1,000 in their second-place finish at the 1943 WPBT) would have given them a higher profit margin in the process than the Red Skins squad had received throughout the season.^[11]