Continental Basketball Association (1995-1996)
Tombstone
Born: April 24, 1995 – The Shreveport Crawdads re-brand as the Shreveport Storm1Wallace, Robert. “Storm rolls in as Crawdads change name”. The Times (Shreveport, LA). April 25, 1995
Folded: September 6, 19962Saul, Tom. “CBA pulls plug on Shreveport Storm”. The Times (Shreveport, LA). September 7, 1996
First Game: November 17, 1995 (L 101-94 @ Florida Beachdogs)
Last Game: March 24, 1996 (L 145-125 @ Sioux Falls Skyforce)
CBA Championships: None
Arenas
Hirsch Memorial Coliseum (8,400)31995-96 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Opened: 1954
The Gold Dome
Opened: 1970
Marketing
Team Colors: Gold, Green & Purple41995-96 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Radio:
- 1994-95: KLKL (92.1 FM)
Radio Broadcaster:
- ?
Ownership
Owner: Eli Jacobson
Attendance
Tilting your mobile device may offer better viewing.
Sources:
- Re-built from multiple sources including game summaries in the 1996-97 CBA Official Guide & Register and newspaper box scores and game stories (1995-96 Crawdads figure)
- 1996-97 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register (1995-96 CBA figure)
OUR FAVORITE STUFF
Continental Basketball Association
Logo T-Shirt
This Old School Shirts release is strictly for the hardcore hoop heads.
Before the NBA had the G-League, it had the CBA with teams stretched from Puerto Rico to Honolulu. During the CBA’s 1980’s and 90’s heyday, the league provided a launching pad for future NBA All-Stars such as John Starks and Michael Adams as well as coaching legends Phil Jackson and George Karl.
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Background
The Storm were the second of two short-lived Continental Basketball Association (CBA) clubs that played in Shreveport, Louisiana during the mid-1990’s. At the time, the CBA was the Official Developmental League of the NBA.
Team owner Eli Jacobson moved the team from Columbus, Ohio to Shreveport’s Hirsch Memorial Coliseum for the 1994-95 CBA season. The team was originally known as the Shreveport Crawdads and finished the 1994-95 campaign in last place with a 17-39 record.
During the team’s debut season, Jacobson got embroiled in a trademark dispute over the name “Crawdads” with the owners of the popular Hickory Crawdads minor league baseball team from North Carolina. Shortly after the 1994-95 season ended, Jacobson announced that that the team would re-brand as the Shreveport Storm for the 1995-96 CBA season.
New Name, Same Game
Name change aside, the Storm offered local basketball fans essentially the same product that the Crawdads served up a year earlier. A losing purple-and-gold clad basketball team playing before small crowds at Hirsch Memorial Coliseum. The 1995-96 Shreveport Storm finished with an carbon copy 17-39 record and last place finish as the 1994-95 Crawdads.
On the positive side, the Storm’s 30-year old guard Tracy Moore led the CBA in scoring for the 1995-96 season at 25.8 points per game. Moore earned a call-up to the NBA and appeared in 8 games for the Houston Rockets that winter.
The Storm announced plans to move to Centenary College’s smaller and cheaper Gold Dome arena for the 1996-97 season. But the CBA seized the club from Eli Jacobson in August 1996 due to financial shortfalls. After an attempt to sell the team to a group of out-of-town CBA executives and former owners fell through, the league terminated the Shreveport franchise membership that September.
Shreveport Storm Shop
In Memoriam
Coach Mauro Panaggio (Storm ’96) passed away on April 11th, 2018 at the age of 90 of diabetes-related complications. Rochester Democrat & Chronicle obituary.
Links
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