Other than Kurt Rambis, have any other SCU alumni won NBA rings as a player? (I believe Nash won one as an assistant coach with the Warriors)
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Dennis Awtrey in 1979.
Mark McNamara, who started at SCU but graduated from Cal, in 1983.
If you want to go super deep - Stan Patrick won the NBL championship in 1947, if that counts (he didn’t graduate from SCU, nor was it the NBA).
None others come to mind, but there may have been.
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Ooh, McNamara winning a ring probably irked Rambis. They did not get along at SCU. At least Rambis won his first ring a year before MM.
I forgot about Awtrey on that Supersonics squad.
Pretty cool that SCU program players won 3 rings in 4 years.
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I hope Jalen gets a ring this year. He’s certainly established himself as a legitmate star in the Association.
Regarding NBA rings won by WCC alums, its safe to say no one, including that school in Eastern Washington, is going to catch the Dons with 25 (Russell - 11, Jones - 8, Cartwright - 3, Phil Smith - 1 ('75 GSW), Joe McNamee- 1, Eric Fernsten -1). Russell, Jones, and Cartwright collectively have 6 more as head or assistant coaches, for a total of 31.
Their 25 player titles ranks 4th among all schools, with UCLA and UNC at 37, and Kentucky at 26. The Ohio State is tied for 4th with USF.
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This sort of question was made for you.
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Buckets was kind enough to groove one for me and I turned on it and drove it over the left field wall. 
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There WILL be a Bronco earning a NBA championship this year.
Overlooked in this discussion…Lloyd Pierce is the Indiana Pacers’ top asst.
The Hawks gig didn’t work out for Lloyd but he is highly respected in NBA circles and immediately landed on his feet with Carlisle hiring him to the Pacers’ staff. I expect Lloyd will get a 2nd head coaching opportunity at some point.
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Hopefully the broadcasters mention this trivia nugget. Would be nice to hear “Santa Clara Broncos” during the game.
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it’s a cool thing for them to mention if they are tracking on anything: two former santa clara guys battling for the nba championship..
Hopefully our Sports Info staff as well as University PR/Marketing staff are on the ball and wise enough to try to get some publicity and mileage out of this. Get pre- or post-game pics of the two.
The story should be pushed out on SCU’s social media (both athletic and Univ) and PR staff should be pitching the story to the Merc, Chronicle and all local TV and should work whatever channels they can to get it in front of the TV broadcast folks.
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Someone needs to alert all these folks to the potential story here..Great thinking!
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Might get a Lloyd Pierce/JDub SCU connection mention. But I’m sure we’ll get countless references to Holgrem & Nembhard being teammates at Gonzaga.
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The men’s basketball Twitter account posted about both of them. I’m not very optimistic that there will be much more than that.
Would be a great WCC story - except Gonzaga bailing on the conference makes this angle less interesting.
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