UConn’s Calhoun, Hamilton get the call
Two important figures in the history of UConn men’s basketball are part of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022.
Jim Calhoun and Richard Hamilton have been selected for enshrinement into the Kansas Citybased Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony is Nov. 20 and is part of the annual Hall of Fame Classic tournament.
Calhoun, already a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, was part of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame’s founding class in 2006. But he’ll be formally honored this year, along with 2006 class member Roy Williams.
Hamilton and Calhoun are part of a 2022 induction class that includes former players Larry Miller of North Carolina, Frank Selvy of Furman, and the late Jimmy Walker of Providence, along with former coaches John Beilein, Jerry Krause, and Lon Kruger.
Calhoun won NCAA titles in 1999, 2004, and 20011. Hamilton, of course, was a big part of the 199899 title team, earning first-team All-American, Big East Player of the Year, and Final Four Most Outstanding Player.
With 920 victories at Northeastern, UConn, and Saint Joseph, Calhoun is sixth on the current NCAA all-divisions win list. His is one of six coaches with three or more Division I NCAA titles and he reached four Final Fours with UConn.
Calhoun also led UConn to 16 NCAA Tournaments, won 10 Big East regular season titles and seven Big East Tournaments.
He retired in 2012, but returned in 2018 as the first men’s basketball coach at Division III Saint Joseph in West Hartford. Calhoun retired again in November 2021.
Hamilton scored 2,036 points from 1996 to 1999, the second-most in UConn history. Besides leading UConn to the 1999 title, he earned Big East Player of the Year in 1998
and was a two-time All-Big East First Team pick.
The seventh pick in the 1999 NBA Draft, Hamilton was a three-time All Star over 14 seasons in the NBA. He won an NBA title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004.
He also played with the Washington Wizards and Chicago Bulls.
Williams won three national titles and is the only coach in history to win over 400 teams with two schools — 418 at Kansas, 485 at North Carolina.
Walker starred at Providence from 1964 to 1967, averaging 25.2 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.3 assist over three years while leading the Friars to two NCAA Tournaments and an NIT berth.
Beilein won 829 college games spread over stops at Erie Community College, Nazareth, Le Moyne, Canisius, Richmond, West Virginia and Michigan. Krause spent 17 seasons as the head coach at Eastern Washington from 1967-85, winning 262 games and overseeing the Eagles’ transitions from the NAIA to NCAA Division II and ultimately to Division I. .
Kruger was the first Division I coach to lead five different programs to the NCAA Tournament: Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma. Miller scored 1,982 points from 1965 to 1968 at North Carolina.Selvy led NCAA Division I in scoring as a junior (29.5) and senior (41.7), and his three-year career average was , 32.5 points.