One night, I think in the early 1970's, I was driving somewhere and turned on the radio to see if I could find a basketball game. The Indiana Pacers from the ABA were playing someone so I decided to listen. Quickly the name Don Buse became the most used name on the broadcast. He was either stealing the ball or knocking the ball out of the hands of the offensive player. Time after time after time. It was a remarkable defensive performance. At the end of the half, he had 11 steals.
It's hard, thinking about it forty years later, to imagine that someone could actually have 11 steals in half a professional basketball game. I didn't hear the rest of the game. I must have arrived at my destination. I have tried to find proof of this event on the internet, but I haven't found anything.
So all I can say for sure is that, before that night, I had never heard the name Don Buse, and after that night, I never forgot the name Don Buse.
Addendum: Steals became an official statistic in the NBA for the 1973-1974 season and for the 1972-1973 season in the ABA. The record for steals in a game in the NBA is 11. For combined NBA/ABA records, Don Buse ranks 1st for total steals in a single season and 16th for career steals.
