The Gary Steelheads were a professional basketball team. They played in the International Basketball League (IBL), Continental Basketball Association (CBA), and the United States Basketball League (USBL). They were based in Gary, Indiana , United States, and played their home games at the Genesis Convention Center . The Steelheads were the 2006 CBA Eastern Conference champions.
7-555: Gary was awarded a franchise in the CBA in 2000. The league folded so the Steelheads joined the IBL. Former CBA franchise owners purchased the CBA name from the bankruptcy court. The IBL and IBA combined to reform the CBA in 2001. After playing five seasons in the CBA the team announced on July 21, 2006, that they would be sitting out the 2006–07 CBA season. During that time former owner Jewell Harris Sr.
14-651: The Albany Legends became the first team in the Northeastern United States to join. The IBL also sometimes featured teams from China and Japan which temporarily relocated to the United States for the IBL season. The IBL season typically ran from the end of March through July. Founded by Portland area sports promoter Mikal Duilio, the league featured rules designed to create a fast-paced, high-scoring brand of basketball . Duilio first began planning for
21-573: The 2008 season. The Steelheads sat out the 2009 season and eventually ceased operations. This article about a basketball team in Indiana is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . International Basketball League The International Basketball League ( IBL ) was a semi-professional men's basketball league featuring teams from the West Coast of the United States . In 2010
28-504: The NBA record for points per game by a team in a single season, set by the Denver Nuggets in 1981–82. In 2010, the league launched a winter season which saw nine different teams compete. Four teams played an entire schedule and thus made them eligible for the playoffs. In July 2011, Duilio sold the league to Vancouver , Washington , businessman Bryan Hunter. Sharleen Graf was appointed as
35-692: The league with a series of test games in Portland and Seattle in November 2003. These games featured a mixture of traditional college and NBA rules, plus two rules created specifically for the league: The test games proved popular and resulted in the founding of the IBL in August 2004. Founded with eight teams, the league expanded to 17 by the start of the season in April 2005. Each team played approximately 20 regular season games, most of them centered on their home region, with
42-477: The teams with the two best records playing in a championship game at the end of the season. The Battle Creek Knights won the inaugural title by going undefeated in the regular season and beating the Dayton Jets in the finals. In the league's first year, the up-tempo rules resulted in the average team scoring 126.9 points per game, nearly 30 points more than the NBA team average in 2004–05, and slightly higher than
49-507: Was indicted on federal extortion and other charges unrelated to the team. He resigned from the team pending a sale. On October 24, the new ownership, Showtime Sports and Entertainment, LLC (headlined by Jewell Harris Jr.), announced they would be moving to the USBL for 2007. After one season in the USBL, which included multiple teams folding, the Steelheads joined the IBL (unrelated to the former IBL) for
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