From the 1916 BHS AEGIS:
Immediately after the close of the football season Mr. Earl McClure issued his call for basket ball which was answered by about fifty candidates. This number was soon thinned out until about fifteen or twenty of the most promising were left. Three team members would eventually be named All-Staters. Bloomington won the district tournament and two weeks later fulfilled all hopes and expectations by defeating three of the strongest teams in the state tournament and took the State Championship.
The State Championship title now rested between Bloomington and Robinson. It was up to Bloomington to make good. They did, 25-16. They played basket ball from the first whistle to the last, such as only a state championship team could play. Mace, Greiner and Bean shot difficult baskets all through the game while the guards broke up Robinson's plays time and time again. The southerners would not give up and fought desperately to the very last, but the gritty determination of Bloomington could not be downed. Bloomington led at the end of the first half 13-6, but Robinson came back stron in the second period and at one time the score stood 18-16. Capt. McMurry was removed at this time due to fouls, and Bloomington rooters began to worry, to say the least, but Mace relieved the anxiety by making two of the cleanest long shots of the game. This took the pep out of Robinson, as they failed to score again while Bloomington cinched it when Greiner made a free throw and Jennings a field basket. So Capt. McMurry received the shield which not only meant that his team was the winner of the state tournament but the best High School team in Illinois.
The team finished with a 13-6 record and included the following members: Harry McMurry (all-stater), George Morrison (all-stater), Theodore Bean, Layard Mace (all-stater), Vergne Greiner, Mevise Jennings, Norton Richardson, Delmar Gottschalk, Clarence Bean and Russell Strange.
