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
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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 Associatio AppareL
Royal Retros CBA apparel is coming soon!
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
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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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