Wave Staff Report
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Walt Hazzard, who led the UCLA Bruins to their first basketball national championship in 1964 and later coached the Bruins, has been selected for induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2026.
The Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 will induct Hazzard, alongside national championship coaches Jay Wright and Tubby Smith, longtime Kansas coach Ted Owens, former BYU standout Danny Ainge, and former Michigan scoring ace Glen Rice. An induction celebration presented by UMB Private Wealth will take place Oct. 22, at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.
A national champion and Olympic gold medal winner, Hazzard was a three-year starter at UCLA’s from 1962-64. He twice secured All-America honors (1963, 1964) under head coach John Wooden.
Wooden recruited Hazzard out of Overbrook High School in Philadelphia, the same high school that produced Wilt Chamberlain. In Hazzard’s three years at Overbrook, his teams went 89-3. He was named the city’s player of the year as a senior.
At UCLA, as a senior co-captain in 1963-64, Hazzard helped lead UCLA to its first-ever NCAA men’s basketball title and undefeated season (30-0 record). He averaged a career-best 18.6 points per game as a senior (1963-64), securing Most Valuable Player honors at the NCAA Final Four. He secured Player of the Year accolades from the Helms Athletic Foundation and the USBWA.
Hazzard becomes the second former UCLA standout in the past three years to earn induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Kansas City, Mo. Dave Meyers, who excelled at UCLA from 1973-75, was posthumously inducted in the class of 2024.
Hazzard, who died in November 2011, served as UCLA’s head coach for four seasons — from 1984-85 through 1987-88. His first UCLA squad, in 1984-85, won the program’s first-ever NIT championship. In 1986-87, he helped UCLA win the Pac-10 regular-season crown and tournament title in what had been the first year of the Pac-10 Tournament (hosted in Pauley Pavilion).
He guided UCLA to the NCAA Tournament’s second round in 1987, having secured Pac-10 Coach of the Year acclaim that season. Hazzard was inducted into the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame as a charter member in 1984. He was a 2004 Pac-12 Hall of Honor inductee.
In addition to his success at UCLA, Hazzard enjoyed a strong professional career after his college seasons. He helped lead the U.S. Olympic Team to the gold medal at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Hazzard was selected in the first round of the 1964 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers, and he enjoyed a 10-year NBA career. He played in at least 65 NBA games in his first eight seasons, having averaged 12.6 points and 4.9 assists per game, across 724 total contests.
Hazzard is one of 10 former UCLA standout basketball players to have had his jersey number retired inside Pauley Pavilion. He will become the 10th former UCLA men’s basketball player, or head coach, to earn induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
Other former UCLA men’s basketball players who have been inducted include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (2006), Gail Goodrich (2006), Bill Walton (2006), Sidney Wicks (2010), Marques Johnson (2013), Jamaal Wilkes (2016), David Greenwood (2021) and Dave Meyers (2024). UCLA’s 1963-64 men’s basketball team was inducted in 2020, and Coach Wooden was inducted in 2006.
Each induction class is selected by a blue ribbon selection committee comprised of college basketball executives and respected leaders around the country, and administered by the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation.
