FAYETTEVILLE — Former Arkansas guard Sidney Moncrief has been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the highest lifetime achievement honor in the sport.
Moncrief, 61, was elected in his second time as a finalist. Inductees must receive 75 percent of the votes from the 24-member Naismith voting panel.
The 2019 Naismith class was announced Saturday prior to the Final Four in Minneapolis. Other inductees include Vlade Divac, Paul Westphal, Jack Sikma and Teresa Weatherspoon.
Moncrief was a finalist for the first time in 2017, more than a quarter-century after his playing career ended. He will be inducted Sept. 6 in Springfield, Mass.
"They finally realized the value of players who played both sides of the ball, and that's good," Moncrief said during ESPN2's telecast of the announcement. "I think it represents more than me - all the players I played with, the fans, the coaches certainly had an impact. I'm elated to be a part of this elite group."
Moncrief is the first former Arkansas player to be elected to the Naismith Hall of Fame. Nolan Richardson, the Razorbacks' winningest coach, became the first Arkansas-affiliated individual to be inducted in 2014.
Eddie Sutton, who coached at Arkansas for 11 seasons, was not elected to this year's Hall of Fame class in his sixth time as a finalist. Moncrief played for Sutton at Arkansas and called him a "future Hall of Famer" on Saturday.
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Along with guards Ron Brewer of Fort Smith and Marvin Delph of Conway, the Little Rock-native Moncrief formed Arkansas' famed "Triplets" in the late 1970s and helped the Razorbacks to a pair of Elite 8 appearances, and the 1978 Final Four.
Moncrief said his best basketball memory was Arkansas' 74-70 victory over UCLA in the second round of the 1978 NCAA Tournament in Albuquerque, N.M.
"UCLA was so well respected," Moncrief said. "It was the first time we had played a major university. We were up by 20-something points. We were so fired up for that game and it set the tone for the University of Arkansas going forward because we won that basketball game. It put us on the map. That's probably the most vivid memory I have."
The 1978 Razorbacks were the first team in school history to win 30 games, finishing the season with a 32-4 record. Arkansas was ranked No. 1 for the first time on Feb. 13, 1978, the same day Moncrief was featured dunking the ball on an iconic cover of Sports Illustrated.
"At that time, I had your Sports Illustrated cover of you going in with the ball cocked behind your head going in for a dunk," ESPN commentator Jay Bilas told Moncrief during the announcement telecast. "That was up on my wall."
Moncrief scored 2,066 points, a school record at the time. He is one of four Razorbacks to score more than 600 points in two separate seasons.
Moncrief is sixth all-time at Arkansas with a career scoring average of 16.9 points per game, second in career field goal percentage (60.6) and holds the school record for career rebounds (1,015), free throws made (588) and free throws attempted (752).
He led the NCAA in field goal percentage (66.5) during his freshman season in 1976.
He was a consensus first-team All-American and Southwest Conference player of the year as a senior in 1979 when he averaged 22 points and 9.6 rebounds in 38.6 minutes per game.
Moncrief was chosen with the fifth pick of the 1979 NBA Draft, the only Razorback ever picked that high. He spent 11 seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks before finishing his career in Atlanta in 1990-91.
In Milwaukee, Moncrief was named NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1984 and 1985, and was a five-time all-star.
Moncrief said his passion for playing great defense began at Little Rock Hall High School under coach Oliver Elders, and continued at Arkansas for Sutton, considered to be one of the game's all-time greats teaching man-to-man defense.
"I had scored 20 or 30 points in a high school game and gotten rebounds and Coach (Elders) called me in the gymnasium," Moncrief said. "I thought he was going to compliment me on my great game. He watched tape - back then it was film - and he said, 'You played horrible.' He started picking out everything I did wrong on the defensive end.
"Coach Sutton if we practiced four hours, we practiced three hours of defense. We played the game the right way.
"(Sutton) had a big influence on my life and my teammates, how you play the game and how you prepare for the game. I was ready when I went into the NBA."
The Bucks retired his No. 4 jersey in January 1990 and the Razorbacks retired his No. 32 jersey later that year.
In 2018, Moncrief was elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City, Mo., to become the first former Arkansas player to be elected to that hall of fame.