1946–47 Tri-Cities Blackhawks season

Entering this season, the National Basketball League would utilize their own draft system that would be considered similar to what the NFL has done for the NFL draft. As such, the 1946 NBL draft would be considered the first ever professional basketball draft ever done, even before the 1947 BAA draft that was done by the soon to be rivaling Basketball Association of America. Because of that fact, the Buffalo Bisons (as they were known to be called at that point in time) would participate in the inaugural 1946 NBL draft, which had occurred sometime during the 1946–47 season's offseason period before that season officially began for the NBL. However, as of 2026, no records of what the Bisons' draft picks might have been for the NBL have properly come up (assuming Buffalo would have even be ready for entry by the time the 1946 NBL draft began), with any information on who those selections might have been for the Bisons (especially since the Buffalo Bisons later turned into the Tri-Cities Blackhawks franchise would be considered an expansion franchise for the NBL this season) most likely being lost to time in the process.

Source:^[4]

For the players that were on this roster, only Bob Sims and Dick Starzyk would end up playing for the team during their thirteen games under their original Buffalo Bisons name (while there were also two other players named Bob Daughtery from Virginia Union University (a second African American player) and presumably Mark Marlaire from the University of Illinois that were once a part of the Buffalo Bisons' roster properly, they ultimately failed to play a single proper NBL scheduled game before being waived from the team themselves), while Don Otten, African-American star player Pop Gates, Nick Grunzweig, Billy Hassett, elderly player-coach Nat Hickey, twin brothers Len Rader and Howie Rader, and Stan Waxman played for both the Buffalo Bisons and the Tri-Cities Blackhawks throughout this season, and Paul Anthony, Bob Gauchat, Al Grenert, Ed Lewinski, Ed Moeller, Pat Rooney, Wilbur Schu, Vic Siegel, and Mel Thurston were the only players to play for the team while they were known as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks for the rest of this season.^[5][6][7]

The Buffalo Bisons won its first game 50–39 over the Syracuse Nationals on November 8, 1946.^[8] The team's last Buffalo appearance was a 50–38 loss to the Sheboygan Red Skins on December 16. The Bisons left town for a December road trip with their future in doubt; the team struggled to draw crowds in Buffalo, and two of their scheduled home games were canceled. On December 25, it was announced that the franchise was moving to Moline, where they finished the season as the Tri-Cities Blackhawks. The Blackhawks missed the postseason with a 19–25 record (5–8 in Buffalo and 14–17 in Moline).^[9] The inaugural season they had with the combined losing records of the Bisons and Blackhawks together would still leave the franchise two games shy of a playoff spot over both the Syracuse Nationals and Toledo Jeeps.

• Don Otten – NBL All-Rookie Team^[10]
• Pop Gates – NBL All-Time Team^[11]

For the first time in franchise history, the Tri-Cities Blackhawks (only months after moving from Buffalo to Moline and rebranding themselves from the Buffalo Bisons) would participate in the World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago, which saw the 1947 event being held on April 7–11, 1947 and consisted of 14 teams, most of which was an even mixture of independently ran teams and teams from the National Basketball League alongside the rivaling American Basketball League's defending champion Baltimore Bullets and the Portland Indians from the ultimately short-lived Pacific Coast Professional Basketball League. In the first round, the Blackhawks saw themselves go up against the American Basketball League's defending champions (and future Basketball Association of America/National Basketball Association team) in the Baltimore Bullets. Despite them feeling like they'd be outmatched and overwhelmed by Baltimore's status as a team (especially considering they had finished their season with a 31–3 record), the Blackhawks would end up upsetting the ABL's defending champions with a 57–46 victory in their first ever WPBT game played thanks to the play of Billy Hassett in particular. While this was their first match the two teams would play against each other under such circumstances, they would meet with each other many times afterward years later in the NBA from 1949 until 1954 (which ironically happened due to the Bullets' early defeat in the WPBT that year since they wanted to compete in that year's event, but felt that the ABL was taking too long with setting up their championship series, and by the time the championship series was set to begin for the ABL, the ABL had already considered the Baltimore Bullets forfeited losers of the 1947 ABL championship to the Trenton Tigers (though the Bullets would dispute that and later claim they were the true champions of the ABL that season instead), which later led to the Bullets defecting from the ABL to the newly created BAA in protest of the ABL's results there), though in later years, the Blackhawks would change their names to the Milwaukee Hawks instead.

For the quarterfinal round, the Blackhawks saw themselves go up against the Indianapolis Kautskys, who had oddly earned themselves a bye despite not being considered the best team in the Western Division this year nor having prestige in the WPBT like the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons (to the point where the Kautskys had never won a single game in the WPBT up until this point in time). Despite Billy Hassett and the Blackhawks appearing to have the upper hand following their upset victory over the ABL's Bullets in the first round, the Kautskys would end up finally getting their first victory in WPBT history with the Blackhawks losing 65–56 thanks to the leadership and effort of All-Tournament First Team members Leo Klier, Arnie Risen, and Herm Schaefer eliminating the Tri-Cities franchise from the tournament. This victory by the Kautskys later led to them winning the entire event by beating the Oshkosh All-Stars in the semifinal round and the Toledo Jeeps in the championship round (though Julie Rivlin of the Jeeps won the tournament's MVP award this time around), though Billy Hassett was later named a member of the All-Tournament Second Team.