K-State star Bob Boozer enters College Basketball Hall as winner at every level

Don Matuszak could talk about Bob Boozer for hours. They played basketball together at Kansas State in the late 1950s and remained close friends until the day Boozer died at age 75 a little more than four years ago.

Together, they made countless memories that Matuszak will always cherish.

But one thing sticks out above everything else for him when it comes to Boozer, and he is quick to point it out.

“Winning,” Matuszak said. “That’s what I remember most about Bob Boozer. We did a lot of it. We won the Big Eight as juniors and went on to the Final Four. We beat a whole bunch of Hall of Famers – Wilt Chamberlin, Oscar Robertson, Walt Bellamy – and great teams, not the cupcakes teams play today.

“There is not a game that went by without us having a lot of fun, because we were winning all the time. And Bob Boozer was our horse.”

Boozer led K-State to some of its best seasons from 1956-59. The Wildcats won two conference championships, reached the Final Four in 58 and won 21 straight games in 59. Coached by Tex Winter, K-State was ranked in the top five throughout that era, and occasionally rose to No. 1.

Boozer, a 6-foot-8 forward that scored with both power and finesse, was the main reason why. He could make the tough basket inside and grab a physical rebound, but he also stepped outside and made jump shots. He averaged 21.9 points and 10.7 rebounds in three seasons, making him the only player in school history to twice earn consensus first-team All-American honors.

“He is the greatest basketball player in Kansas State history,” Matuszak said. “There is nobody, ever, that had the consistency and longevity that Bob Boozer had.”

Boozer will be posthumously inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday with a 2016 class that features Dominique Wilkins at Kansas City’s Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland.

He will join fellow K-Stater’s Rolando Blackman and Winter in the Hall.

“He was Tim Duncan before Tim Duncan, the epitome of what a power forward was,” current K-State basketball coach Bruce Weber said. “He knew how to play and how to use his body. He had great touch on it, and he played the game the right way. That is what I really appreciated about watching him.”

Boozer used those skills to his advantage beyond K-State.

He teamed up with Jerry West, Jerry Lucas and Oscar Robertson in the 1960 Olympics and helped the Americans win a gold medal, dominating the international competition with an undefeated run that featured eight victories by an average of 42.4 points.

That team was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. Boozer held off joining the NBA for a season in order to retain his amateur status in order to play on that squad.

But he was also a star in the NBA, playing for 11 seasons as a professional. The Cincinnati Royals drafted him No. 1 overall, and went on to play for six teams. He retired in 1971 after helping the Milwaukee Bucks win a championship.

When his basketball career ended, Boozer returned to his hometown of Omaha, where he worked as an executive for Bell Systems. He also volunteered at Boys Town.

Matuszak can’t think of a more deserving person than Boozer to enter the Hall of Fame. He only wishes it would have happened sooner.

“Bob Boozer was a great teammate, person and citizen,” Matuszak said. “He did everything the right way, and we all loved playing with him. He was the guy we would go to when we needed a bucket. No one could stop him.”

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 12:54 PM with the headline "K-State star Bob Boozer enters College Basketball Hall as winner at every level."