Nazr Mohammed’s reaction to Kentucky Hall of Fame induction? ‘I was shocked.’
When Nazr Mohammed came from Chicago to Kentucky in 1995, he was not heralded as the next great player in UK’s crowded pantheon of basketball stars.
“Some people considered me a project,” he said.
Mohammed was overweight, which raised questions. “Was the style of play suited for a guy my size?” he said.
At the time, Coach Rick Pitino’s signature style was full-court pressing and up-tempo bombs-away three-point shooting.
From that humble beginning Mohammed became a player on Kentucky’s national championship teams of 1995-96 and 1997-98. He was the second-leading scorer (12 ppg) and leading rebounder (7.2 rpg) for the latter.
So, Friday marked a formal recognition of this transformation from question mark to exclamation point as Mohammed was among those recognized as 2021 inductees into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame.
Mohammed acknowledged being surprised when UK Director of Athletics Mitch Barnhart told him he would be among this year’s inductees.
“I was shocked . . . ,” he said in a news conference prior to UK’s exhibition game against Miles College. “So, he kind of caught me off guard. I usually can see things coming before they get there.”
When asked what memories from his UK basketball playing days remain vivid, Mohammed spoke of the 1996 national championship team.
“I tell people all the time I think that’s the greatest college basketball team of all time,” he said. “I mean, so many great players. We were such a good team. Well-coached. . . . We always looked at games as our days off because practices were so intense and so hard.”
The transformation from perceived “project” to player who was voted to the 1998 All-Southeastern Conference regular-season and tournament teams was not easy.
“Coach PItino almost broke me a couple times,” he said. “At the end of the day, I appreciated it. When I left here, I was ready. There was nothing I was going to tackle that was going to be hard. The NBA was pretty much — I hate to say easy — but it was kind of easy in the sense of work. I was ready for work.”
Mohammed had an 18-year NBA career in which he played more 1,000 games, scored almost 6,000 points and grabbed almost 5,000 rebounds.
Mohammed now works as the general manager of the Oklahoma City Blue, the G League team of the Oklahoma City Thunder. He said he enjoys the challenge of putting a team together, but has no desire to coach.
As a player, he was always early to the gym and late to leave, he said. He noticed coaches were there before he arrived and remained after he left.
“After putting my wife through 18 years of the NBA, there was no way I could get back on a coach’s schedule,” he said.
Besides Mohammed, other 2021 inductees were Bettie Lou Evans (women’s golf coach for 23 seasons), Kendra Harrison (world record holder in the 100-meter hurdles in women’s track and field), Larry Warford (football offensive lineman), Bob Whelan (cross country, plus indoor and outdoor track who won the NCAA indoor mile) and Arin Gilliland Wright (two-time All-American in women’s soccer).
Because COVID caused the cancellation of last year’s induction ceremony, 2020 inductees were also recognized. They were Chanda Bell (68-game winning pitcher in softball), Sawyer Carroll (2008 All-America baseball player), AJ Reed (consensus national player of the year for baseball in 2014), Danny Trevathan (two-time All-America linebacker in football) and two of Mohammed’s UK men’s basketball teammates: Wayne Turner and Ron Mercer.
This story was originally published November 6, 2021 at 9:04 AM.
