Duane W. "Skip" Thoren (born April 5, 1943) is an American former professional
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
player. At a height of 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) tall, he played at the
center
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...
position.
High school
A native of
Rockford, Illinois, Thoren attended
Rockford East High School
Rockford East High School (sometimes referred to as East) is a comprehensive four year high school of Rockford Public School District 205 in Rockford, Illinois. Opened in 1940 to replace Rockford High School, East opened simultaneous to Rockf ...
from 1957–58 to 1960–61 and led the E-Rabs to the ''"Elite 8"'' of the
Illinois High School Association
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) is an association that regulates competition of interscholastic sports and some interscholastic activities at the high school level for the state of Illinois. It is a charter member of the National Fe ...
state basketball tournament, losing to the eventual
state champion Collinsville High School
Collinsville High School (CHS) is a four-year public high school in the Collinsville Community Unit School District 10 in Illinois. In 2011, Collinsville High School had an enrollment of 1,985 students.
Academics
In 2015, 85% of the senior clas ...
in the quarterfinals of the 1961 tournament. Thoren led the E-Rabs to consecutive regional championships and 20 win seasons.
As a junior his team finished the season with an overall record of 21 wins and only 5 losses and a
Big 8 Conference
The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...
record of 7 wins and 3 losses, finishing in second place. Ironically this team would lose in the state tournament to conference opponent,
Freeport in the IHSA sectional on March 9, 1960. In his 24 games as a junior, Thoren scored 513 points, averaging 19.7 points per game and was named second team all-conference at center.
As a senior, Thoren's team dominated the conference, losing only to
East Aurora High School
East Aurora High School, (also known as EAHS or Aurora East High School), is a public, four-year high school located in Kane County, at the corner of Smith Boulevard and Fifth Avenue in Aurora, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois. ...
mid-season and finish the conference portion of the campaign with a 9–1 record. In the 28 games played during the season, Erickson played in 27 and lead the team in scoring at 632 points, averaging 23.4 points per game and he would be named first-team all-conference at the center position. When the conference portion of the season ended, the E-Rabs compiled an overall record of 20 wins and only 1 loss. During regional and sectional play, Thoren's team defeated all of the competition until the ''"Elite-Eight"'' where they lost to eventual champion Collinsville on the evening of March 17, 1961 at
Huff Gymnasium in
Champaign
Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...
. Even though the E-Rabs only played two games in the tournament, Thoren was the ninth leading scorer with 43 points and Rockford East finished with an AP ranking of number 3. In his two years of varsity basketball, Thoren scored 1,145 points in 53 games, averaging 21.6 points per game. After the season, Thoren was
named to the All-State team.
College career
Thoren chose to play
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
at the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
after high school and was a member of the freshman basketball team for the 1961–62 season. He played in every single game during his three-year career and was the starting center for the final two seasons, replacing
Bill Burwell. As a sophomore during the
1962-63 season, Thoren joined fellow sophomore,
Tal Brody
Talbot "Tal" Brody (Hebrew: טל ברודי; born August 30, 1943), nicknamed Mr. Basketball, is an American-Israeli former professional basketball player and current goodwill ambassador of Israel. Brody was drafted #12 in the National Basketball ...
and future
Illini hall of fame athlete,
Dave Downey, on a team that would finish with an overall record of 20–6 and a
Big Ten
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
record of 11 and 3, placing them in a tie for the
conference championship. At the end of the regular season, Illinois would advanced to the
NCAA tournament, playing in the
Mideast Region. The Illini would defeat
Bowling Green
A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls.
Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...
in the second round to earn a berth in the ''"Elite Eight"'', but would lose to eventual national champion
Loyola, 79–64 at
Jenison Fieldhouse
Jenison Fieldhouse (alternately referred to in university publications as Jenison Field House) is a 10,004-seat, later reduced to 6,000-seat, multi-purpose arena in East Lansing, Michigan. The arena opened in 1940 and was named for alumnus Freder ...
.
In his junior season of
1963–64, the Fighting Illini would start the season with 10 wins and only 3 losses, however, the team would falter and lose seven of its next eight games, dropping them in the conference standings. During the season, on December 28, 1963 in a game versus
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, Thoren set the all-time single game rebounding record for Illinois with 24 rebounds. The Illini would finish the season 13–11 overall and 6–8 in the conference. After the season, Thoren was named second team All-Big Ten and was dubbed an
Honorable Mention All-American team MVP as well as captain for the following season.
During Thoren's senior season, the Illini returned to their winning ways for
1964–65. Overall Illinois would finish the season with an 18–6 record while finishing third in the Big Ten with a 10–4 record, losing twice to top-ranked
Michigan
Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
. During the season the team would win the
Kentucky Invitational Tournament and finish the year with a Coaches ranking of number 16. After the season, Thoren would be named team MVP as well as 1st team All-Big Ten and 1st team All-American. During his playing time at Illinois, Thoren's teams would win 51 of 74 games and win the
1963 championship.
Thoren is recognized as a notable member of the athletic fraternity
Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House (Champaign, Illinois)
The Beta Theta Pi Fraternity House was a historic fraternity house located at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in Champaign, Illinois. Built in 1912, the building served as a house for the university's Sigma Rho chapter of the ...
.
Professional career
Thoren played three seasons (1967–1970) in the
American Basketball Association (ABA), as a member of the
Minnesota Muskies
The Minnesota Muskies were a member of the American Basketball Association, born with the league's creation on February 2, 1967. L.P. Shields and Fred Jefferson were the owners after paying a franchise fee of $30,000. The team then played one seaso ...
and
Miami Floridians
The Miami Floridians, later in their history known simply as The Floridians, were a professional basketball franchise in the original, now-defunct American Basketball Association. The Miami Floridians played in the ABA from 1968 through 1970 when ...
. He averaged 13.2
points per game and 11.0
rebounds per game, in his career, and appeared in the
1969 ABA All-Star Game.
Before playing in the ABA, Thoren played in Italy, with
Simmenthal Milano
Pallacanestro Olimpia Milano, commonly known as Olimpia Milano or as EA7 Emporio Armani Milan after its title sponsor, is an LBA Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy. Its colors are white and red, and the team is sometimes ...
, along with
Bill Bradley, and he won the 1965–66 season
FIBA European Champions Cup (EuroLeague) championship.
Honors
Basketball
* 1964 - Team MVP
* 1964 - 2nd Team All-
Big Ten
The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...
* 1964 - Honorable Mention
All American
* 1965 - Team Captain
* 1965 - Team MVP
* 1965 - 1st Team All-Big Ten
* 1965 - 1st Team
All American
* 1974 - Inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association's Hall of Fame as a player.
* 2004 - Elected to the "
Illini Men's Basketball All-Century Team".
* 2008 - Honored as one of the thirty-three
honored jerseys which hang in the
State Farm Center to show regard for being the most decorated basketball players in the University of Illinois' history.
Statistics
College
Sports-Reference.com
/ref>
ABA career statistics
Regular season
Playoffs
All-star game
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thoren, Skip
1943 births
Living people
All-American college men's basketball players
American expatriate basketball people in Italy
American men's basketball players
Baltimore Bullets (1963–1973) draft picks
Basketball players from Illinois
Centers (basketball)
Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball players
Miami Floridians players
Minnesota Muskies players
Olimpia Milano players
Parade High School All-Americans (boys' basketball)
Sportspeople from Rockford, Illinois