FAYETTEVILLE — Sidney Moncrief, the second-leading scorer in Arkansas basketball history, has been elected to the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Moncrief was one of eight new inductees announced Wednesday. Moncrief's class also includes Arizona’s Sean Elliott, Houston’s Otis Birdsong, North Carolina’s Sam Perkins, Morgan State’s Marvin Webster and Southern Cal's Paul Westphal, as well as former coaches John Kresse of Charleston and Danny Miles of Oregon Tech.
The 2018 class will be inducted during a ceremony Nov. 18 at the hall of fame in Kansas City, Mo.
Moncrief is the first former Arkansas player to be inducted into the hall. Former Razorback coaches Nolan Richardson and Eddie Sutton were inducted in 2008 and 2011, respectively.
Moncrief, Richardson and Sutton all have their names on banners hanging in the rafters of Bud Walton Arena. Moncrief's No. 32 jersey was retired during a March 3, 1990, ceremony at halftime of a game between Arkansas and Rice at Barnhill Arena. It is the only jersey number ever retired at Arkansas.
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.
The 1978 Razorbacks were the first 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.
Moncrief scored 2,066 points, a school record at the time. He is one of only four Razorbacks to score more than 600 points in two separate seasons.
Moncrief is sixth all-time at Arkansas in scoring average with 16.9 points per game, second in field goal percentage and holds the school record for total rebounds (1,015), free throws made and attempted.
He led the NCAA in field goal percentage (66.5 percent) during his freshman season and was a first-team All-American as a senior in 1979.
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 twice and was a five-time all-star. The Bucks retired his No. 4 jersey in January 1990.
In 2017, Moncrief was a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, but was not elected into the hall located in Springfield, Mass.