Longest NBA Game: Royals vs. Olympians 6 Overtimes

On January sixth, nineteen fifty one, basketball fans witnessed something that had never been done before and has never been done since, when the Indianapolis Olympians took on the Rochester Royals in an NBA battle with two teams that fans today had never heard of. Went a total of six overtimes, lasting seventy eight gruelly minutes, etching itself in NBA lore, and it is something that will never happen again as the NBA has changed so much since this time. How did it all unfold, Who was victorious? And what makes this game so unforgettable? That's what we're going to talk about today on Daily Sports History, and that's what we're going to talk about today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reeves, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. Day's trivia question to listen out for is who won the nineteen fifty one NBA Championship. Now, the average NBA game that you watch today takes about two to two and a half hours to watch, depending on how many fouls, how the offenses and defense are playing. All that goes into it, but one thing we all get very excited for is overtime. Overtime happens in the NBA when two teams finish the fourth quarter at the end of regulation tied and they need to play extra time to finish out the game. They play five extra minutes and usually after that one overtime, one team comes out on top and the game is over. Sometimes they need extra like in twenty nineteen when the Bulls took on the Atlanta Hawks in a four overtime struggle I saw the teams each score over one sixty. Or nineteen eighty nine when the Mochi Bucks took on the Seattle SuperSonics in a five overtime game that saw each of them's score over one fifty, where the Seattle super Songs won by one point and then we gotta go way back to win. The Anderson Packers and the Syracuse Nationals, yes those were two NBA teams in nineteen forty nine, went to five overtimes, with the Nationals winning one twenty five to one twenty three. But none of those were the longest game. That happened in nineteen fifty one, when the Indianapolis Olympians took on the Rochester Royals going six overtimes, and how did this happen? First, let's figure out who the Indianapolis Olympians are, because chances are you've never heard of them, as I grew up near Indianapolis and have never heard of this team. They were founded in nineteen forty nine and they folded in nineteen fifty three, which is why you never heard of him. But they did play in an iconic location. They played in the Butler field House where Butler University plays, which is now known as Hinko field House, but became famous in the movie The Hoosiers where they won their championship game in the final scene. Now, that year they were founded, they were actually supposed to join the NBL, the National Basketball League. However, that league merged with the Basketball Association America to make the NBA that we know today, and so they started that way. Their team colors were red, white, and blue, making them look very much like the Hartle Glovetrotters, and they were part of the Western Division at the time, and that first season they actually finished first in the Western Division, winning thirty nine games and making it all the way to the divisional round, where they lost to the Anderson Packers. In nineteen fifty one. Two of their best players, Alex Gorza and Ralph Beard, who won gold medals with the US team in nineteen forty eight and both played at University Kentucky, were suspended from the NBA for the life when they admitted to point shaving during their college careers. So it was very challenging for the Indianapolis Olympians and this caused them to have a losing record of thirty one in thirty seven. On January sixth, they would go on to make a record in the NBA that still stands despite the fact that the team would not, and they would go on to face the Rochester Royals, who actually were founded in nineteen twenty three as the Rochester Seagrams. They were actually sponsored by a Canadian distiller called Seagram, where they got their original name, and they would play teams as a semi professional league and work their way up to the NBL in nineteen forty five and they changed their name to the Rochester Royals and they would keep that name even joining the NBA in nineteen forty eight, which was a huge jump for them as they needed to pull together twenty five thousand dollars to join were over four hundred thousand dollars a day to go from a semi pro team to a professional team in the NBL, and in the nineteen fifty to fifty one season they had a great year, led by Arnie Risen, a sixty nine to two hundred pound center who was nicknamed Stilts as that was pretty tall for back in the nineteen fifties, and they also had two other big man and Artie Johnson and Jack Coleman, with a backcourt manned by Bob Davis and Bobby Wisner. Coming into the game, both teams were actually playing pretty good. The Indianapolis Olympians were about a five hundred team and the Rochester Royals were nineteen and ten, and both these teams were in the Western Division. I know it sounds weird that a team in Indiana and a team in Rochester was in the West despite being in New York, but there were five other teams just a little bit more east than Rochester, so they got put in the West. And this happened a lot with pro leagues back in the day. They started mainly on the East Coast, which is kind of interesting to think about. They started very similar to the way America started. We started on the east coast and migrated west, and that's exactly how major League Baseball started, football basketball. They all started east and worked their way west. It was very interesting that they followed the same tradrectory as we followed in this country as we grew from east to west. So the game actually happened in Rochester at Edgington Park Arena where they played their home games, and the Indianapolis Olympians were gonna be led in this game by Don Barksdale, a standout performer who's effectively a scorer, and Hugh Sweet Kereseye as the Royals were led by Arnie Risen and Red Holzman. In the first four quarters were pretty tight. The Indianapolis Olympians took the early lead in the first quarter, leading twenty to ten. I know that score is low. If you listen to a previous episode, we'll put a link in the description about the shot clock that didn't happen until after this. So at this time there was no shot clock, which is hard to wrap our mind around in today's day and age, but it was a lot different back then. And if you want a reference again to that, it is the movie Hoosiers. If you watch movie Hoosiers, they hold onto the ball at the end of the game. That's how a lot of games were finalized back in the day. As a team that was an underdog, they got the lead, they would hold onto the ball as long as they could. Because there is no shot clock. It cost a lot of low scoring. Because this game, despite there being six overtimes, was a very low scoring. But in the second quarter, Rochester came back and made a thirty eight to thirty three halftime score, and each of the teams came out in the second half and into the third quarter fifty seven to fifty three, and the fourth quarter would not be a barn burner that would be not allow of scoring as the Rochester Royals would score twelve points to come back as the Indianapolis Olympians only scored eight points, but the game ended up tied sixty three to sixty three. So come the first overtime, both teams are fatigued. It's been a lot of pressure and not a lot happens in this overtime. I will warn you not a lot happens for most of these overtimes. The first overtime period, each team scores two points, sending it again into overtime. In the second overtime period shows again exhaustion and unwillingness to move the ball as both teams score no points, singing it into a third overtime, where again not much happens as each team only scores two points, making the score sixty seven to sixty seven, going into a fourth overtime where nobody scores again. Even though the excitement over overtime that we think of today is fun, this is one of the most boring things I've ever heard of. I would have hated to watch this. This is why if you listen to the Shotcock episode, they change things because it got bad in some games where their teams would hold onto the ball and not even attempt to score. But luckily, in the fifth overtime, both teams came out with fury looking to score, and they each scored four points, making the score seventy three to seventy three. But in overtime six the Indianapolis Olympians would come out and score a field goal and hold onto the ball, giving them the win, scoring two points to Rochester zero in the sixth overtime, giving them the win seventy five to seventy three, Yes you have that right. In six overtimes, they only scored twelve points, with the Rochester Royals only scored ten points in six over times. It was hard to watch, but despite the Indianapolis Royals winning this, they did make the playoffs barely. They would lose in the first round that year, but the Rochester Royals would go on to have a great season and win the NBA Championship, beating the New York Knicks in four games to win the NBA Finals, and they would later bounce around, becoming the Cincinnati Royals in nineteen fifty seven and then go to Kansas City the Kansas City Omahawk Kings in nineteen seventy two, and would move to Sacramento in nineteen eighty five, where they still are today known as the Sacramento Kings. And sadly, nineteen fifty one is the last time this team, who has been around since nineteen twenty three, has won an NBA championship, and they've only won two total championships, winning won NBL previously. It is sad that they had not won more, but there's lots of reasons for that. But they have been a team part of history in more ways than one. In this overtime game, despite losing it, they had the last laugh as they won the title at the end of the day. And I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you want more NBA content, check out the Dime Droppers podcast where they dive into all things NBA and we'll put a link in the description for you to check them out. And if you enjoy today's episode of Daily Sports History, please make sure you are subscribed wherever you're listening. That way you do not miss a single episode. Come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History and the answer to today's trivia question. Who won the nineteen fifty one NBA Championship And the answer is the Rochester Royals, who are now known as the Sacramento Kings. Nineteen fifty one was the last NBA championship they ever won.