Answers: Day 21
1. Dave DeBusschere is the only player to post the highest-scoring game in a single tournament and also play major league baseball. He scored a tourney-high 38 points for Detroit in a 90-81 defeat against Western Kentucky in the first round of the 1962 Mideast Regional. DeBusschere, elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982 after an 11-year NBA career with the Detroit Pistons and New York Knicks, compiled a 3-4 pitching record for the Chicago White Sox in 1962 and 1963.
2. Steve Pauly, the second-leading rebounder and third-leading scorer for Oregon State's 1963 Final Four team, was the AAU national champion in the decathlon the same year after finishing third in the event the previous year.
3. Fred Sheffield, the starting center for Utah's 1944 national championship team, is the only Final Four player to finish among the top two high jumpers in four NCAA national track meets. Sheffield, the first athlete to place in the NCAA high jump four consecutive years, was first in 1943 with a best jump of 6-8, second in 1944, tied for first in 1945 and tied for second in 1946.
4. Bill Self is the only coach in NCAA history to reach an NCAA Division I Tournament regional final in back-to-back years with different schools (2000 with Tulsa and 2001 with Illinois). He also reached a regional final in his first season with Kansas in 2004.
5. The school gaining the sweetest revenge against a top-ranked team was St. John's in 1952. Defending NCAA champion Kentucky humiliated the Redmen by 41 points (81-40) early in the season. But St. John's, sparked by center Bob Zawoluk's 32 points, avenged the rout by eliminating the Wildcats (64-57) in the East Regional, ending their 23-game winning streak. The Redmen, who then defeated second-ranked Illinois in the national semifinals, lost against Kansas in the NCAA final.
6. Jerry Adair played in the NCAA Tournament before setting several major league fielding records for a second baseman (highest fielding average and fewest errors in a season and consecutive errorless games). He was the second-leading scorer for Oklahoma State's 1958 NCAA playoff team that reached the Midwest Regional final. One of his teammates was Eddie Sutton.
7. Lineman Warren Amling, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, was a starting guard in basketball for Ohio State's 1945 and 1946 Final Four squads. He is one of the few athletes to earn consensus football All-American honors at two positions (guard in 1945 and tackle in 1946).
8. Sam Mele, an outfielder with six different major league teams from 1947 through 1956 and manager of the Minnesota Twins from 1961 to 1967, was NYU's leading scorer with a total of 18 points in the 1943 NCAA Tournament (losses against Georgetown and Dartmouth). Mele led the American League with 36 doubles for the Washington Senators in 1951 and drove in six runs in one inning in a 1952 game for the Chicago White Sox. He managed the Twins in 1965 when they won the A.L. title.
9. Illinois State is the only university to win at least two games in four different postseason national tournaments - NAIA, NCAA Division II, NIT and NCAA Division I. The Redbirds have an overall record of 20-26 in national postseason competition after they were eliminated by eventual 2012 NIT champion Stanford.
10. Oklahoma A&M, now Oklahoma State, won back-to-back NCAA basketball titles in 1945 and 1946. Twenty-six different players appeared in A&M's 33 games in the 1946 championship season. The school's football team participated in the Cotton Bowl in 1945 and Sugar Bowl in 1946. Oklahoma A&M finished national runner-up in 1949 in its third playoff appearance.