The best IU basketball player you've never heard of

David Woods
IndyStar
Don Schlundt shown here in 1951.

He led Indiana University to college basketball’s national championship, requiring four victories in six days.

He led Indiana to its first two undisputed Big Ten championships.

He set a Chicago Stadium record with 41 points in an NCAA regional final, and scored 47 in his last college game.

Only four have scored more points in Big Ten games.

He held the school scoring record for 32 years.

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So why isn’t Don Schlundt, or “Ox,” more well-known in Hoosier hoops lore? As a center variously listed as 6-9 or 6-10, he was a pioneering big man. 

Granted, Schlundt’s career ended more than 60 years ago. He did not make the U.S. Olympic team in 1956. He never played in the NBA. The league simply did not pay enough — he turned down a $5,500 offer from the Syracuse Nationals — so Schlundt left the game.

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“Even then, he was already making that in insurance,” said Gloria Gary, his widow. “He really was actually tired of the traveling and everything that went with it. He was just as happy to retire and sell insurance.”

It is not that Schlundt has been forgotten entirely. In a 2011 Bleacher Report story ranking the top 100 players in college basketball history, he was 75th.  When Sports Illustrated ranked the top 75 in NCAA tournament history in 2014, he was 50th.

Coach Branch McCracken holding up four fingers on one hand and one finger on the other indicating the 41 points Don Schlundt scored to break the Chicago Stadium record.

Tom Miller, former IU sports information director, once told IndyStar that Schlundt was “about 30 years ahead of his time.” He is in the Indiana Basketball and IU athletics halls of fame. Easy call. The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame? Hmm . . .

“I don’t even know if we would deserve to be in there,” said Schlundt’s son, Mark, who operates a Florida car dealership. “What I’ve always wondered is, whoever does that stuff, if his name was ever passed around and considered. I’d just be curious to know if they held that name up.”

Schlundt’s name has not, according to a Naismith Hall spokesman. Not that he would have advocated for the honor.

“He never said blank about it,” his son said.

Schlundt was “not the type of guy to chase the game of basketball,” said Bob Leonard, one of Schlundt's iU teammates. However, Leonard said Schlundt outplayed others – such as Illinois center Johnny “Red” Kerr – who went on to the NBA.

“Let’s put it this way: Don was a great college basketball player and could have been an outstanding pro basketball player, had he so desired,”  said Leonard.

In 1954, Schlundt topped the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ All-America team, receiving 18 more votes than 6-9 Bob Pettit of Louisiana State. Pettit played 12 NBA seasons, 11 for the St. Louis Hawks, and is in the Naismith Hall.

What separated Schlundt from peers, Leonard said, was that his scoring was not confined to the inside. Schlundt could shoot from the outside, even beyond the foul line, as evidenced by his career free throw percentage of .768. In that respect, Schlundt resembled Clyde Lovellette, who also is in the Naismith Hall.

“I played with Clyde in the pro game,” Leonard said. “And Don could do many of the things that Clyde could do.”

College basketball of the 1950s barely resembled that of the 21st century, and not just because there was no ESPN.

The foul lane was six feet wide, allowing posts like Schlundt to get so close to the basket that it was almost impossible to stop them without fouling. Beginning in 1951-52, there were four 10-minute quarters (reverting to two 20-minute halves three years later).  The Big Ten used a double round-robin schedule of 18 games for two seasons, then reverted to 14. There was a two-week break for semester exams. After a point-shaving scandal, the NCAA aimed to “de-emphasize” the postseason, leading to the compressed 1953 tournament. The No. 1 team for most 1953, Seton Hall, skipped the NCAA tournament in favor of the National Invitation Tournament.

Schlundt arrived at IU just as WTTV, using a new $85,000 mobile unit, began televising games statewide. Chesty Potato Chips was the sponsor. Thus began the evolution of Indiana as a “genuine state team,” according to longtime Bloomington sports editor Bob Hammel.

Don Schlundt, left received congratulations from his coach, Branch McCracken March 17, 1953 at Chicago after he scored 41 points to lead the Hoosiers to victory over Notre Dame in the NCAA tournament. Schlundt was honored with the "most valuable player" trophy.

'I owned the ball'

Schlundt was born March 15, 1933, in St. Joseph County, and raised in Clay Township, on the outskirts of South Bend. His father, Martin, was employed at the local Studebaker plant.

According to the book “Mac’s Boys: Branch McCracken and the Legendary 1953 Hurryin’ Hoosiers,” by Jason Hiner, the big man started small. Schlundt was quoted as saying the only reason he got into neighborhood basketball games is because “I owned the ball.”

Schlundt played against older brother Bill on a dirt court by the house, sometimes going so late that the boys could see by moonlight. He was a pudgy kid, and as a 5-9, 170-pound freshman, he was told he would never make varsity.

From spring of his freshman year to the following fall, he grew seven inches to 6-4. Virtually overnight, Washington-Clay coach Herschel Eaton had a center with skills of a guard. Schlundt skipped rope, practiced his hook shot and stayed in the gym until the janitor turned out the lights.

“There was hardly a day in Don’s last three years in high school that he didn’t shoot a basketball for at least an hour,” Eaton said in “Mac’s Boys.”

There was one problem: the gym. It had bleachers for 80 spectators, with one basket by a stage and the other basket right up against a wall. After a breakout sophomore season, Schlundt was widely assumed to be transferring to South Bend Central, where Bill had enrolled.

Except Schlundt lived two blocks from school, liked it there and had a close relationship with Eaton. There was one change: There was so much interest in the games that Washington-Clay moved its homecourt to nearby Adams High School, which seated 2,000.

As a 6-9 senior, Schlundt scored 52 points in one game and led the school to its second sectional championship. Before that, he developed a calcium deposit in his left thigh that required offseason surgery, and he sometimes played with a football thigh guard taped to his leg. Opponents tried to exploit that by hitting him in the tender spot, and once he retaliated by chasing another player.

“Even in college, they hit him on that leg all the time,” Bill Schlundt said in “Mac’s Boys.”

Some colleges supposedly offered cash to Martin Schlundt to lure his son – recruiting could be as sleazy then as it is now – but the process was otherwise conventional. Kentucky became an early favorite after coach Adolph Rupp arranged to have Schlundt, his parents and then-girlfriend Gloria fly to Lexington. Rupp personally took them on a campus tour and introduced Bill Spivey, the All-America center Schlundt was being recruited to replace.

Hometown team Notre Dame gave Schlundt a job selling football programs, which at the time was an allowable way to earn cash. Jim Schooley, a 6-5 center who had led tiny Auburn High School to the 1949 state finals, was host on Schlundt’s visit to Bloomington. Schlundt stayed with the IU player at the Beta Theta Pi house, and took such a liking to Schooley that he told McCracken he would come if he could room with Schooley and join that fraternity.

McCracken enrolled Schlundt in summer school because he did not want to lose him at the last minute, as he did when Lovellette committed to Indiana and flipped to Kansas.

Because of the Korean War, freshmen were eligible in 1951. Schlundt’s debut was inauspicious – he scored six points on 1-of-5 shooting in a 68-59 win over Valparaiso at IU Fieldhouse – but he went on to have a splendid freshman season. He scored 29 in an 82-77 win at Purdue, and he averaged 17.1 in setting a school record of 379 points.

For the only time, he ran afoul of McCracken’s strict rules when he and a team manager traveled to Indianapolis to see 6-10 George Mikan, his hero, play for the Minneapolis Lakers against the Indianapolis Olympians. The Hoosiers were to play St. John’s the next night, and players were to be in bed early. Indiana lost to St. John’s 65-55. McCracken learned of the curfew violation a week later. Schlundt was called into the coach’s office for a rebuke, and nothing like that ever happened again.

If there were tensions on the team between veteran and new players in 1951-52, those evaporated the next season. Everyone accepted roles. Backup center Lou Scott, also 6-10, was to rough up Schlundt in practice. Schooley offered to give up his scholarship,but McCracken valued him for his leadership.

Illinois, coming off two Big Ten titles and third place in the NCAA tournament, returned five of its top six players. The Fighting Illini were No. 1 in preseason. Yet Indiana was optimistic, too, even after losing at Notre Dame 71-70 and at Kansas State 82-80 on successive Saturdays in December.

Schlundt scored 39 – on hooks, tip-ins and 17-of-20 free throws -- as Indiana beat Michigan 88-60 to open the Big Ten season. Minnesota’s zone defense was effective, but Schlundt scored 17 – on seven baseline shots and three free throws – in Indiana’s 66-63 win.

Don Schlundt, Indiana University center in 1955.

“I figured we’d get Schlundt off the pivot, but I didn’t think he would shoot as well as he did from the corners,” Minnesota coach Ozzie Cowles said.

The Hoosiers’ showdown against Illinois jammed nearly 10,000 into IU Fieldhouse. Indiana was 6-0 in the Big Ten and Illinois 5-1, so stakes could not have been higher in January. The Hoosiers won 74-70 in double overtime, led by Schlundt, who scored 22 points and helped limit Kerr to 6-of-30 shooting.

By the Feb. 28 rematch at Champaign, the Hoosiers had won 15 in a row and were coming off a 113-78 demolition of Purdue, the most points ever scored in that series. Including four wins at the end of the 1952 conference season, Indiana’s Big Ten winning streak had reached 18, the longest in 40 years.

It was the only road game televised by WTTV, which used a transmission originating on Chicago’s WGN. Although the Hoosiers had virtually secured the title, the game drew such interest that it was on TV in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, with an estimated audience of 5 million. By contrast, ESPN’s most-watched game of 2017-18 – North Carolina at Duke -- had 3.37 million nationwide.

The Illini had won 32 in a row at tiny Huff Gym but fell behind by 20 early in the fourth quarter. Schlundt outscored Kerr 33-19, and the Hoosiers won 91-79 to build their Big Ten record to 15-0. They could not achieve perfection – a 65-63 loss at Minnesota left them 17-1 – but no Big Ten team had a better record until Indiana was 18-0 in 1975 and 1976.

The Hoosiers’ four-wins-in-six-days journey to the national championship began in Chicago against DePaul and coach Ray Meyer, who developed Mikan and understood the damage someone like Schlundt could do. The defensive assignment went to 6-4 Daniel Lecos, who “elbowed, pushed, held, kicked, clawed and vocally insulted” Schlundt, the Bloomington Daily Herald Telephone reported. Lecos fouled out midway through the third quarter, and by then Schlundt had nine points. He finished with 23 in an 82-80 victory by the Hoosiers, who nearly blew a seven-point lead in the last minute.

The day before his 20th birthday, Don Schlundt came of age.

 In the regional final against Notre Dame, he scored 30 points by halftime and finished with 41, breaking the Chicago Stadium record of 37 set by Mikan against Indiana in 1944. IU Archives has a photograph of McCracken handing the regional MVP trophy to Schlundt.

In the NCAA semifinal three days later at Kansas City, Mo., Schlundt scored an efficient 29 points – 8-of-13 field goals, 13-of-17 free throws – as Indiana beat LSU 81-67. Pettit also scored 29, but on 10-of-24.

Don Schlundt, shown here in 1952.

The championship was a rematch of 1940, won by the Hoosiers over Kansas, in what was a veritable home game for the Jayhawks. Kansas center B.H. Born apparently fouled out in the third quarter. But referees conferred and decided he had just four fouls, prompting an outraged McCracken to pound his first on the scorer’s table and shout, “You’re robbing us!”

The chippy nature of the game was reflected in technicals called on three Indiana players: Leonard, Schlundt and Charlie Kraak. Leonard was fouled with 27 seconds left, and, famously, made the second of two free throws for a 69-68 lead. Kansas’ rushed shot at the buzzer missed, and the Hoosiers were national champions.

Municipal Auditorium had no locker rooms, so Hoosier players walked across the street to shower and change clothes. There was no Final Four MVP trophy to carry because that went to Born instead of Schlundt, who scored 30 of Indiana’s 69 points.

The snub “ticked him off,” son Mark Schlundt acknowledged.

Schlundt’s scoring average was 25.4, and he won the Chicago Tribune’s Silver Basketball as Big Ten player of the year. He was even better as a junior, shooting 50 percent (24.1 ppg), becoming a consensus first-five All-American and outpolling Pettit. But the Big Ten award went to Kerr.

In 1954, the Hoosiers climbed to No. 1 and repeated as Big Ten champions. But they lost to Notre Dame 65-64 in the NCAA first round at Iowa City, Iowa.

 Schlundt averaged 26.0 as a senior but, without the supporting cast, played for an 8-14 team. He went out with 47 points against Ohio State on March 5, 1955, including 25 free throws, still a record for a Big Ten game.

Schlundt was married while in college and became a father. The NBA was iffy.

“I think he had had his fill of it, to tell you the truth,” his widow said.

His son didn’t know until elementary school that his father played college basketball. It was years later – long before Google searches — before the son knew Schlundt was an All-American.

His son recalled that his father’s lingering thigh injury inhibited mobility. After a stint with the Peoria Caterpillars of the National Industrial Basketball League, Schlundt tried out for the U.S. team going to the Melbourne Olympics. Center for that team was Bill Russell, and the United States won the gold medal by outscoring eight opponents by an average of 99-46.

“That’s where everything ended at that point,” Mark Schlundt said.

Don Schlundt was characterized as open and friendly, and Gloria recalled countless occasions in which fans cornered him to talk basketball. He was a “quiet, gentle giant,” according to Nancy Leonard, wife of Bob and a friend of Gloria.

If there was one thing that could rankle Schlundt, it was Bob Knight’s dismissiveness toward teams of his era. Leonard said it was if Knight were trying to erase Indiana basketball history. Hoosiers like Schlundt were not treated well by the former coach, Leonard said.

“Don never forgot it," Leonard said. "He never forgot it.”

Gloria said Schlundt thought Knight was not a good image for Indiana basketball.

“He just never liked him. Period,” she said.

After Schlundt’s death, Gloria eventually remarried, to Mike Gary, a Korean War veteran who died last Dec. 14 at 92. Gloria, of Port Charlotte, Fla., was married to Schlundt for 31 years and to Gary for 30.

Schlundt lived in Carmel near Leonard, who was in his former teammate’s bedroom the day before he died Oct. 10, 1985, from osteogenic sarcoma. It is a rare form of cancer more often found in teenagers.

IU coach Branch McCracken awarding Don Schlundt the Most Valuable Player Award in 1953.

There are eight men from Indiana high schools in the Naismith Hall for playing careers: Lovellette, Charles “Stretch” Murphy, Oscar Robertson, Fuzzy Vandivier, John Wooden, Larry Bird, Louie Dampier, George McGinnis. There are 15 in all, including Leonard and McCracken, who were inducted more for coaching or contributions to basketball.

There is a direct-elect veterans committee, established in 2011, that can enshrine a nominee who has been retired for 35 or more years. Players do not merit inclusion for what they might have achieved. So while Schlundt’s candidacy can be debated, his legacy cannot.

Email David Woods at david.woods@indystar.com or call (317) 444-6195. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.