Bradley #1 NBA draft pick Gene "Squeaky" Melchiorre passes

[Mikovio]

Former Bradley and college basketball great Gene Melchiorre passed away yesterday at the age of 92.

https://www.pjstar.com/sports/20190927/ ... dies-at-92
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/spor ... ction.html
https://www.pjstar.com/news/20190319/lu ... in-tourney

He played at Bradley from 1947-1951, was a 2-time All-American, a 3-time All-MVC, and the only Bradley player and one of only 2 Missouri Valley Conference players ever drafted #1 overall in the NBA Draft. After a great career at Bradley in which he lead the Braves to the championship game of both the NCAA and NIT as a junior in 1950, Melchiorre was drafted #1 overall in the 1951 NBA Draft by the Baltimore Bullets, but never played in the NBA. The only other MVC player to be drafted #1 overall was Oscar Robertson of the University of Cincinnati in 1960, by the Cincinnati Royals (now the Sacramento Kings).

3x 1st team All MVC
2x All American (1951 consensus, 1950 Helms Foundation 1st team, UPI 2nd team)
1950 MVC champion (runner up was Oklahoma State)
NCAA Runner up
NIT Runner up
#1 in 1950 final AP poll
#1 Pick in 1951 NBA draft

Kentucky legendary coach Adolph Rupp called him “the greatest small man in the history of basketball.” He ended up being college basketball's Shoeless Joe Jackson because in 1951 a gambling scandal rocked college basketball, hitting top programs like Bradley, CCNY (NCAA champ) and Kentucky. The only top draft pick to be banned by the NBA and never play. Bradley presidents have been lobbied since to retire his jersey but none ever would. He also has been overlooked by the MVC hall of fame. Now it's going to have to be posthumous.

In an interview with Look Magazine in 1953, Melchiorre admitted to taking bribes from gamblers. But he denied trying to manipulate the point spread.

“Why did we do it?” Melchiorre said in the 1953 article. “Well, none of us had any money. We justified ourselves, I guess, by saying the colleges were making plenty out of us. We argued to ourselves that what we were doing was wrong, but not too wrong, because we weren’t going to throw any games.”

RIP