Toledo Jeeps

Toledo Jeeps
Leagues	NBL: 1946–1948
Founded	1946
History	1946-48
Arena	University of Toledo Field House
Location	Toledo, Ohio
Head coach	Jule Rivlin
Championships	none

The Toledo Jeeps were a professional basketball team that played in the National Basketball League from 1946 to 1948. As with many other NBL teams, they owed their name to an industry of their hometown, in this case the Willys-Overland Jeep Plant. They played their games at the University of Toledo Field House.

The 1946–47 team featured players such as Chips Sobek, Hal Tidrick, Jule Rivlin and rookie Paul Seymour. Rivlin served as the player-coach. It went 21–23 and qualified for the playoffs, where it lost to the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons. It would, however, be invited to the 1947 World Professional Basketball Tournament, where it finished 2nd behind the Indianapolis Kautskys.

In the 1947–48 NBL season, Sobek, Tidrick and Rivlin returned, and were joined by Dick Mehen and Harry Boykoff. The team finished with a record of 22–37 and missed the playoffs. On May 10, 1948, the Jeeps joined the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, Indianapolis Kautskys, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, and Oshkosh All-Stars as one of six NBL teams to at least try and switch from the NBL to the Basketball Association of America (BAA), though like the All-Stars, the Jeeps failed to switch leagues that year and joined the aborted BAA Buffalo team and cities of Louisville, Kentucky and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania as failed teams and locations to have teams enter the BAA that year. The 1947-48 season later proved to be the Jeeps' last; they were replaced for what became the NBL's final season with the Waterloo Hawks, who inherited Mehen and Boykoff from Toledo.