KANSAS CITY – Their careers and lives have been so tied together ESPN is working on a special movie about their relationship.
It seems only fitting that Sunday night LSU player-icon Shaquille O’Neal and LSU legendary Coach Dale Brown will be inducted together into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in ceremonies at the historic Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midlands.
They are part of a star-studded induction group that includes All-Americans and NCAA Champions Grant Hill of Duke and Darrell Griffith of Louisville, NAIA star Zelmo Beaty from Prairie View A&M, Final Four Coach Gary Williams of Maryland and contributors Howard Garfinkel and Glenn Wilkes, Sr.
The Hall of Fame is located in the College Basketball Experience (CBE), a world-class entertainment facility adjacent to Sprint Center in Kansas City. The CBE Hall of Fame Classic will take place November 24-25 at Sprint Center.
O’Neal played three years for Brown at LSU (1989-92) and averaged 22 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks. He was a first-team All-American and national player of the year as both a sophomore and junior.
Brown won 60 percent of his games during his 25-year career at LSU (1972-97). He took the Tigers to the NCAA Final Four in 1981 and 1986 and was the national coach of the year in 1981.
“The Class of 2014 has a unique identity with a player-coach tandem, along with three outstanding players and a coach who led their teams to national championships,” said Reggie Minton, deputy executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and chair of the Hall of Fame selection panel. “With the addition of two men devoted to developing basketball skills at summer camps for close to a half-century, we look forward to celebrating them at the induction in Kansas City in November.”
In 2006 the first class was inducted into the newly formed National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. That class included the game’s inventor, James Naismith, and possibly its greatest coach in John Wooden, along with Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell and Dean Smith. Since that time, seven more classes have been inducted and have included the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Danny Manning, Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
LSU is already represented in the Hall by Bob Pettit, Pete Maravich, Tex Winter and Joe Dean, Sr., the last to go in two years ago as a contributor.