BALDWIN CITY, KS - John Ebeling, the 1982 National Player of the Year and Florida Southern's all-time scorer and rebounder, has been named to the inaugural class of the Small College BasketbalHall of Fame.
The 2016 Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held Nov. 17 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, site of the Moccasins' 2015 NCAA national championship win. Tickets are available at www.HoFClassic.com, or by calling 812-421-2212.
The FSC men's basketball team will play two games at the Ford Center that weekend as part of the 2016 Hall of Fame of Fame Classic. The Mocs will face Southern Indiana on Friday, Nov. 18 and then play Bellarmine on Saturday, Nov. 19, in a rematch of the 2015 national semifinals, won by the Moccasins, 79-76.
"It is an absolute thrill to announce the inaugural class for the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame," said Hall of Fame and SCB Founder John McCarthy. "This class represents the best of the best in the history of small college basketball, and it is with great pleasure that we announce this class."
Ebeling was named the 1982 National Player of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and was a three-time NABC All-American, including first-team selections in 1981 and 1982. He led the Moccasins to the 1981 NCAA National Championship by averaging 21.5 points and 10.0 rebounds per game. The following season, he led the nation in scoring with 26.8 points per contest and just missed out on the national rebounding title by .01 rebounds per game, finishing with a 12.81 average. As a sophomore, he was part of FSC's national runner-up team and capped his career with a third straight NCAA final four appearance in 1981-82, finishing third.
He is Florida Southern's all-time leading scorer with 2,514 points and all-time leading rebounder with 1,362 rebounds per contest. He also holds school records with points in a game (50), points in a NCAA tournament game (30), and points in a Sunshine State Conference tournament game (31). Ebeling also holds FSC records with 856 points and 410 rebounds as a senior in 1981-82 as well as field goals made in a season and career. His 19.8 career points per game average is also tops for a Moccasin player as is his 26.8 scoring average in 1981-82.
Florida Southern won the SSC regular season title in each of Ebeling's four seasons and won three SSC postseason and NCAA regional championships. He was named the Most Outstanding Player in the 1981 National Championship tournament and is the only player in Division II history to be named to three national all-tournament teams.
Ebeling is a member of the inaugural classes of the Sunshine State Conference (1992) and Florida Southern (2002) Halls of Fame, as well as the 2012 Polk County Hall of Fame. In 2006, he was named to the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Championships 50th Anniversary Team and was voted the SSC's all-time top player of the first 25 seasons. His jersey number, 31, was retired by Florida Southern.
Following his senior season, he was a fifth-round pick by the Detroit Pistons in the 1982 National Basketball Association draft. He went on to play 20 seasons in the European Leagues and has been a sports director for top level teams in Italy.
Joining Ebeling in the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame inaugural class are players: Dr. Dick Barnett (Tennessee A&I); Bevo Francis (Rio Grande); Travis Grant (Kentucky State); Bob Hopkins (Grambling); Lucious Jackson (Pan American College); Phil Jackson (North Dakota); Earl Monroe (Winston-Salem State); Willis Reed (Grambling); John Rinka (Kenyon) and Jerry Sloan (Evansville); coaches; Clarence Gaines (Winston-Salem State); Arad McCutchan (Evansville); and John McLendon (North Carolina College, Hampton, Tennessee A&I, Kentucky State & Cleveland State), Finally, Dr. James Naismith joins the class in the Contributor category.
"It is important to note the tremendous amount of time and effort put forth from our Hall of Fame Committee," said McCarthy. "This process has taken months and months of research, discussion and exchange of information. Through this committee, we established the criteria, the process and the timeline, and that was before we began the actual selection of this Hall of Fame class. This prominent committee spent a great deal of time with this process, and I am incredibly grateful."
The SCB Hall of Fame committee consists of: Don Landry, former head coach/AD/commissioner (Landry served as the commissioner of the Sunshine State Confernence from 1994-2004); Roy Pickerill, SID Kentucky Wesleyan and NCAA Elite 8 media coordinator; Pat Coleman, owner of D3hoops.com; Doug Palm, NCAA DIII historian; Rick Zvosec, former collegiate head coach; Gary Pine, Azusa Pacific AD; Steve Shepherd, AD and head basketball coach at College of the Ozarks; Gary Stewart, head coach at Stevenson University; Jerry Dunn, head coach at Tuskegee;Matt Simms, executive director of USCAA; Mike Lightfoot, head coach at Bethel (Ind.); Mike Hall, commissioner of Southern States Athletic Conference and former chair of NCAA DII national basketball committee; and Bob Guptil, former SID at Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
"This inaugural class can be best described as 'The Dream Team of Small College Basketball,'" stated Roy Pickerill, Hall of Fame Committee member and longtime Sports Information Director at Kentucky Wesleyan College. "These are the legends from the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's who made an indelible mark at their schools as national renowned collegiate players and coaches."
In terms of criteria for selection into the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame, the committee used the following basic guidelines:
- Must have played, coached or contributed at the small college level (four-year, non-NCAA Division I)
- Focus is on accomplishments/contributions specifically at the collegiate level
- Players must be a minimum of five years removed from their final year of their collegiate career. Coaches must be a minimum of three years removed from their last season of their coaching career. There is no such timetable for contributors.
- The inaugural class will consist of 15 members. Subsequent classes will consist of 8-12 members.
- Each Class will have a minimum of one inductee from each of three categories: Player, Coach and Contributor.
- All players, coaches and contributors that have not been inducted into the Small College Basketball Hall of Fame will continue to be eligible for annual consideration, as long as they meet the above guidelines. There is no timetable whereby candidates rotate off/out of consideration.