Bill Thieben

[Wags]

Rest In Peace, Bill Thieben, who passed away at the age of 86 last week, on 4/15. May his memory be a blessing.

Thieben put up some crazy numbers for HU back in the '50s, including a single-game school-record 48 points that stood alone until that was eventually tied by JWF.

He also once had 43 rebounds in a game and averaged 26.9 ppg 24.2 rpg over his career. He had 2,045 points and 1,837 rebounds in just 76 career games.

https://twitter.com/HofstraMBB/status/1 ... 6640962562

[HUSID80]

Amazing player for that era...RIP big guy,,,

[triplec2195]

TY for the memories and you should RIP of course in basketball heaven!!

[stuball888]

RIP big guy

[fiftiespride]

When I went to Hofstra Hall for my admissions interview in 1955, there was one other person in the room; Bill Thieben. I was too shy to approach him. I had seen him play a number of times before entering Hofstra thanks to older friends that drove. We went to our Christmas tournament faithfully and to occasional other games. He was a rugged 6 6' and had a 6 6' team mate, Dick Pidgeon. Pretty impressive size for the mid fifties for any level. Butch VBK brought his Lafayette team and won our tourney and won it next year with Hofstra. Thieben was an NBA rebounder, a beast on the boards that people just bounced off of. He was an accurate shooter who used the backboards a lot and hooked from either side but was slow and deliberate to set up so wasn't a scorer in his brief pro career. He was a man among boys at Hofstra, hustled and despite his stats, unselfish. He provided a lot of great memories for our fans in tiny but often packed Calkens sp? gymnasium. RIP Bill.

[Jojogunne]

Thanks for sharing your memories of Bill Thieben, fiftiespride.

I saw Bill at one or two games over the years, but was too young to have seen him play. A couple of my older HU alumni friends did see him in the 1950s and share your opinion of him as a rugged rebounder. One friend who played some pickup ball with Bill says he was "all elbows."

I did get to see Pat Kaemmerer and John Irving play in the 1970s. They were also strong rebounders.

Too bad Hofstra did not get a chance to conduct one of those in-depth interviews with Bill, like the one they did with Steve Nisenson a few weeks ago. I'm sure we all would have enjoyed his recollections of Hofstra and the NBA.

[fiftiespride]

Thanks for the links on Davis Jojogunne, let's hope we get him. The Nisenson interview was fun. I enjoyed his relating after a guy in the bar was telling him how great a player he was not knowing he was talking to him until Steve says I hear he's not that good. Also that Butch had Carl Braun in the back of the car when he went to pick him up at the Hempstead train station. Good thing Butch persisted and got him to visit despite his having committed to Harry Litwack at Temple. Butch played for the knicks for some of the time Braun was a star for them. A Garden City high product, which inspires a new thread: the top 10 or so players to come out of Nassau/Suffolk.

[Polito]

Sorry to hear this - obviously wasn't around during his time, but know the name and he was clearly a true Hofstra all-time great - Blessings and prayers to him and his family / friends.