Marshall University Athletics
Marshall Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2017
- Class:
- 1973
Bill James started for the 1971-72 NCAA Tournament basketball team as well as the NIT team of 1972-73. James averaged 8.8 points per game in 1971-72, fifth on a 23-4 Herd team that was ranked as high as eighth nationally and finished No. 12 in the final AP and UPI polls, the highest such rankings in school history.
James played in all 27 games that year, hitting 43 percent of his shots, 73 percent at the line and averaged 3.2 rebounds per game. In 1972-73, he was the team’s second-leading scorer with an average of 15.2 points per game. The Herd was 20-7 under first-year head coach Bob Daniels, winning its final nine games of the regular season. With eligibility remaining, he joined the Marshall football team as a receiver in 1973 and caught nine passes for 78 yards, good for fifth-most that season.
The 6-foot, 4-inch native of Scottsburg, Ind., was a two-time All-State selection, the second-leading scorer in his state in the 1968-69 season (36.1 points per game), and once scored 69 points in a single game. He was named to the state’s Basketball Hall of Fame Silver Anniversary team in 1994. He then helped Tyler (Texas) Junior College to two appearances in the National Junior College Tournament before joining the Thundering Herd.
James was inducted into the Indiana Baskeball Hall of Fame in 2009 and into the Marshall Athletic Hall of Fame in 2017.
