Eastern Basketball Association (1973-1974)
Tombstone
Born:1973 – The Garden State Colonials relocate to East Orange, NJ
Folded:1974
First Game: November 23, 1973 (L 120-111 @ Wilkes-Barre Barons)
Last Game: March 31, 1974 (L 138-113 vs. Hamilton Pat Pavers)
EBA Championships: None
Arena
Marketing
Team Colors:
Ownership
Owners: Fred Marech, et al.
Editor's Pick
Boxed Out
Remembering The Eastern Professional Basketball League
In Boxed out of the NBA: Remembering the Eastern Professional Basketball League, Syl Sobel and Jay Rosenstein tell the fascinating story of a league that was a pro basketball institution for over 30 years, showcasing top players from around the country. During the early years of professional basketball, the Eastern League was the next-best professional league in the world after the NBA. It was home to big-name players such as Sherman White, Jack Molinas, and Bill Spivey, who were implicated in college gambling scandals in the 1950s and were barred from the NBA, and top Black players such as Hal “King” Lear, Julius McCoy, and Wally Choice, who could not make the NBA into the early 1960s due to unwritten team quotas on African-American players.
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Background
The East Orange Colonials were a minor league basketball outfit that lasted for a single season during the winter of 1973-74. The franchise formed a year earlier as the Garden State Colonials, who played out of nearby Roselle, New Jersey during the 1972-73 season. The Colonials were members of the Eastern Basketball Association, a 7-team circuit of clubs from Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania that played a weekends-only schedule.
One notable player on the roster was former Harlem Globetrotter Vincent White, a 6′ 7″ forward out of New York City by way of Savannah State College in Georgia. White was the EBA’s Rookie-of-the-Year the previous season with the Garden State Colonials. White was one of the team’s top offensive threats, alongside former Florida State star Ken Macklin.
The Colonials played their home games on the campus of the now-defunct Upsala College. The team went 8-19 and folded at the end of the 1973-74 season.
The EBA changed its name to the Continental Basketball Association in 1978, expanded nationwide and into Canada and became the official developmental league of the NBA during the 1980’s and 1990’s. The league went out of business in 2009.
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One Response
Roselle isn’t too close to East Orange, but I never heard of these team. I grew up in NJ and usually knew about old defunct local teams. I do remember the Jersey Pikes of the USBL.