Langston University

One of the Greatest Ambassador for the United States

Marques Haynes led his high school, Booker T. Washington High School (Sand Springs, OK) to a Negro national championship in 1941.
He played basketball for Langston University under legendary coach Zip Gayles from 1942 to 1946. The Lions, led by Haynes and twins Lance and Larry Cudjoe, had a winning record of 112–3, including a 59-game winning streak, two Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and two Negro National Championships in 1944-45.
The trio led the Lions to a 74-70 upset of the Harlem Globetrotters in an exhibition game at Oklahoma City in 1946. Haynes had 26 points and was named MVP of the game.
The four-time All-State, All-Conference, and team MVP and the Cudjoes signed with the Globetrotters after graduation and traveled all over the world playing before dignitaries and global leaders and millions of fans.
In 1948 and 1949, Haynes and the Globetrotters defeated the NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers and George Mikan. 
In 1950, Haynes was deprived of being the first African American in the NBA when the Globetrotters refused to sell his contract.
He created a rival team, the Harlem Magicians in 1953 after declining NBA offers in 1953 and 1955.
Haynes rejoined the Globetrotters in 1972 as a player and coach until 1979.
He toured with the Bucketeers from 1979-81 and played with the Harlem Wizards from 1981-83.
His last nine years of professional basketball were with his recreated Harlem Magicians from 1983-92 and capped his forty-six-year career.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame
Langston Hall of Fame
NAIA Hall of Fame
Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

Prairie View A&M University

Zelmo Beaty was a celebrated 6’9″ center at Prairie View A&M, where he scored a career 2,385 points and led the SWAC in single season rebounding in 1961 and 1965 with a 22.4 rebounding average in 1961. His  2,164 rebounds  in four years was best in the league.
Beatty was second on the SWAC All-time scoring list with 1,053 points and 32.9 average in 1962.
The third pick of the 1962 NBA Draft by the St. Louis Hawks, he went on to be named to the first NBA All-Rookie Team in 1963. After making the NBA All-Star team in 1966 and 1968, he signed with the Utah Stars in the rival American Basketball Association (ABA).
Beatty led the Stars in scoring and rebounding in the 1970 and 1971 regular season and playoffs and set an ABA record with  55.6%. percentage shooting, while leading the Stars to the 1971 ABA championship.
He set a team record with 28 rebounds against the Virginia Squires in 1971.
After three more seasons with the Stars, he returned to the NBA with the Los Angeles Lakers and retired in 1975 with a career 17 ppg  and combined ABA/NBA totals of 15,207 points and 9,665 rebounds.
He served as a coach for the ABA’s Virginia Squires  during the 1975-76 season.
Beatty was named president of ABA Players’ Association and spokesman during the ABA-NBA merger.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame  2016
ABA All-Time Team
Prairie View A&M Hall of Fame
SWAC Hall of Fame

Norfolk State University

Bobby Dandridge starred in basketball at Maggie Walker High School in Richmond, Virginia.
He teamed up with Pee Wee Kirkland at Norfolk State to lead the Spartans to two NCAA Division II Men’s Tournaments and a CIAA title in 1968 with a 25-2 record under head coach Ernie Fears.
The Spartans lost in the second round of the 1968 NCAA Division II playoffs to Ashland College, but came back the next year with after a 21-4 season and lost Old Dominion in the first round of the tournament.
Dandridge was drafted by the Kentucky Colonels in the 1969 American Basketball Association draft and by the Milwaukee Bucks in the fourth round (no. 45 overall) of the 1969 NBA Draft.
He joined Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and Oscar Robinson to capture the 1971 NBA title. Dandridge nearly averaged a double-double for the series. 
In 1978, this time playing for the Washington Bullets, Dandridge averaged 20 points per contest and pulled down seven rebounds playing alongside the great Elvin Hayes and the incomparable Wes Unseld to win the NBA championship.
The four-time NBA All-Star was named All-NBA Second Team and All-Defensive First Team in 1979. Career-wise, he averaged 18.5 points per game in 839 regular season games, and 20 points per game in 98 playoff games.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame  2021
Norfolk State Hall of Fame
CIAA Hall of Fame

Virginia Union University

Ben Wallace was All-State in basketball, baseball, and football and lettered in track at Central High School in White Hall, Alabama. He attended Cuyahoga Community College and was a defensive staple as he averaged 17.0 rebounds and 6.9 blocks per game for two years.
He transferred to Virginia Union University and led the Panthers to a 28–3 record and a Division II Final Four appearance. He averaged 13.4 points per game and 10.0 rebounds.
In his senior season, he was named to the All-CIAA First-Team and NABC Div. II All-American First Team.
Ben went undrafted and played in Italy before signing as a free agent by the Washington Bullets in the 1996. He was traded to the Orlando Magic in 1999 and in 2000 to the Detroit Pistons.
In six seasons with the Pistons (2000–2006), Wallace made two NBA Finals appearances (2004 and 2005) and won a NBA championship in 2004.
He won the NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award four times, (2002–2003, 2005–2006), a record he shares with Dikembe Mutombo.
He signed with the Chicago Bulls in 2006, and the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008 and rejoined the Pistons in 2009.
Wallace broke Avery Johnson’s record for most games played by an undrafted player – 1055 since the NBA/ABA merger.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame   2021

Texas Southern University/
Tulsa University

Bob Hughes joined the Army after high school and at 6’6″, he was recruited to played basketball on a special unit that was the first integrated team he ever played on.
After military service, legendary head coach Edward H. Adams offered him a basketball scholarship to Texas Southern University where he became an All-American player.
He joined Marques Haynes’ barnstorming Harlem Magicians in 1954, and was selected by the Boston Celtics as a supplemental draft pick in 1955 NBA Draft but didn’t make the team.
Hughes returned to the Magicians in 1955, but a ruptured Achilles tendon later that season forced him to give up playing basketball.
He returned home to Oklahoma and completed his degree at the University of Tulsa in 1957.
Hughes’ high school coaching career began at I. M. Terrell High School, in Fort Worth, Texas (an all-black high school) during segregation. Hughes led Terrell to three PVIL state championships and one runner up in the five years from 1963 to 1967. After segregation ended, I.M. Terrell was shut down in 1973.
Hughes began coaching at Dunbar High School in the Fort Worth Independent School District and the winning tradition blossomed.
Dunbar, under Hughes, won two state titles, finished as state runner-up three times, and made 12 final four appearances between 1977 and 2003, including ten final fours in the 17-year run between 1977 and 1993.

Texas Basketball Hall of Fame 1993
National High School Basketball Hall of Fame 2003
Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame 2013
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame 2017

Tennessee State A&I University

In the winter of 1954, the Tennessee A&I Tigers rolled into Kansas City, Missouri to play in the first integrated NAIA Christmas Tournament.
The Tigers, coached by John McLendon, a disciple of the game’s inventor James Naismith, represented more than great basketball on the way to winning that holiday tournament that year.
The all-black Tigers represented the future of basketball, and the soul of an entire nation.
Three years later, Tennessee A&I would win the 1957 NAIA national championship, making the Tigers the first historically black college to win a national title in basketball.
Led by Dick “Skull” Barnett and John “Rabbit” Barnhill, Tennessee A&I perfected the fast-break offense and full-court pressure McLendon preached.
No other team in the country could keep pace with the Tigers. The following year, Barnett and Barnhill led the way again as the Tigers, less an underdog than the year prior, steamrolled the field to win a second national championship.
By year three, the Tennessee A&I fast break was the unstoppable force running all the way to a third consecutive national title.
Tennessee A&I was the first team to win three consecutive national championships, and along the way, the Tigers proved that America was ready for change.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame  2019

North Carollina A&T ’50

Evans was a teammate of Al Attles at A&T and was  the 12th round pick by the St. Louis Hawks in the 1962 NBA Draft .
In the 1960s, Evans became a basketball referee in the National Basketball Association and spent 28 seasons, and officiated more than 2,000 games, including 170 playoff games and 35 Finals games. He called games that involved Jerry West, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson and was on the court for Game 6 of the 1992 NBA Finals when Jordan went on his 3-point streak. His final game was Game 4 of the 2001 NBA Finals between Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Lakers.
He worked 1,969 regular season NBA games and 35 NBA Finals games. Evans was ranked the second best official in the league in the 1995-96 NBA season. He worked in his final game in the 2001 NBA Finals.
He serves as an assistant supervisor of officials in the NBA front office.
He was Inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2022.

First Black college team to win a major national championship and first college program to win three consecutive basketball national championships. The Tigers were led by Hall of Fame coach John McLendon (1979 & 2016) and players Dick Barnett and John “Rabbit” Barnhill.