Cedric Hunter was one of the most underrated and best point guards in KU history

In this three-part series on former KU standout point guard Cedric Hunter, I reflect on his high school, college and pro career and his life after professional basketball.

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Cedric Hunter was a high school star out of Omaha South who led the state in scoring his junior and senior years, including 27.3 points per game as a senior. He was named all-metro and all-state, while honored as a Converse All-American. However, he played center in high school and was lightly recruited due to his small stature at just 6-foot.

Despite manning the center position in high school, Hunter’s prep coach Bob Whitehouse had no doubts Hunter could become a great point guard in college.

“There won’t be any trouble with him making the transition to point guard,” Whitehouse said in the KU Media Guide before Hunter’s freshman season in 1983-84.

In one of the smartest decisions of then-KU coach Larry Brown’s coaching career, he offered Ced a scholarship after a track and field meet in Omaha, without ever seeing him play basketball in person. Brown was impressed with Hunter’s supreme athleticism, and thought he could impact the KU program. Hunter was part of Brown's first recruiting class, along with Mark Turgeon and Chris Piper.

Boy, was Brown right about Hunter! All he did in four years at KU (1983-87) was become the school’s all-time and Big Eight assist leader with 684 dimes, a record that stood for 10 years until KU’s Jacque Vaughn broke it in 1997.

Hunter averaged 5.8 assists per game for his career with an impressive 2.14 assist-to-turnover ratio. He also averaged 1.3 steals and 8.5 points per game (career-high 11.6 ppg his senior year in 1986-87) and recorded 1,022 career points in 118 games while averaging 30.2 minutes per contest.

For many people who said he couldn’t shoot, including KU coach Bill Self, who was a graduate assistant during Hunter’s sophomore year, Ced shot a scorching 53.5 field goal percentage for his career, including an eye-popping career-best 56.2 field goal percentage his sophomore season in 1985-86, where the unsung hero helped lead KU to the Final Four and most wins at the time in school history (35-4). That team remains one of the best in KU annals with Hunter at point guard, Ron Kellogg and Calvin Thompson at the wings, Danny Manning at power forward, and Greg Dreiling at center. The team went eight deep with Archie Marshall, Mark Turgeon and Chris Piper serving as instrumental reserves.

Self told the Kansas City Star in January 2019 that Hunter “couldn’t shoot a lick.” No offense to Self and many other detractors who felt the same way, but just look at the stats. No, Cedric didn’t have very good range (1-7 from three-point range his senior year), but he could simply knock down the wide-open 15-to-17 foot jumper. Opponents dared him to shoot, and Ced made them pay. Time and time again. I saw virtually all of Ced’s home games in Allen Fieldhouse in person and watched whenever KU was on TV, and he could shoot it from medium distance. So Self and others were completely wrong.

Hunter actually set a Big Eight record in 1986 by shooting an incredible 73.1 percent from the field in league games and was 8-of-8 from the field against Oklahoma that year, when he scored a season-high 19 points. He also shot 7-of-7 from the field versus Missouri in 1985. Beginning with his senior year, Hunter remarkably shot better than 70 percent from the field in 20 different games during his career.

His only weakness, besides his lack of perimeter range, was his free throw shooting. Hunter shot just 52.1 percent for his career, a very poor percentage, especially for a point guard. Brown said that Hunter looked at the ball while he shot, a no-no for a shooter. However, Brown believed in Hunter so much that he often had him shoot technicals to boost his confidence. More often than not, as I recall, Hunter made his free throws then. What a joy it must have been for Hunter to play for a coach who believed in him to shoot technicals, despite his poor free throw shooting.

Despite Self’s remarks about Ced’s shooting, he had tremendous respect for Hunter’s game. Hunter guarded Self during the KU coach’s career at Oklahoma State.

“I loved Cedric,” Self told the Kansas City Star on Dec. 23, 2019. “Coach (Larry) Brown did as well. He could guard anybody, had unbelievable length (39-inch arms), was explosive. He was not a great shooter, but maybe as good a point guard this place has seen, as good a point guard who doesn’t score the ball. Talk about a pure defender and setup guy, he was as good as anybody. You did not want him guarding you. You’d rather have anybody guard you than Cedric. He could lock you up.”

Self then further gushed about Hunter to the Omaha World Herald:

"Cedric probably was the best non-shooting player I've ever been around."

Self added to the Star on Jan. 28, 2019:

“Gosh was he great. Long arms, best on the ball defender, guys loved playing with him.”

Indeed, Hunter’s teammates deeply “loved playing with him.” 

Just ask Piper.

“Cedric Hunter was probably one of the most underrated point guards, I think, that KU has ever had. He was phenomenal and could really break everything down,” Piper told Mark Stallard in his 2005 book, Tales from the Jayhawks Hardwood.

Hunter drew great respect and admiration from his coaches, teammates and opponents alike. Brown talked on his Hawk Talk radio show during the 1985-86 season about Hunter’s defense against Duke All-American guard Johnny Dawkins in the preseason Big Apple NIT on Dec. 1, 1985.

“He got 20 I believe against us,” Brown said. “He came up to me after the game and said Cedric did the best job as any guard he’s played against since he’s been at Duke, and I thought that was a heck of a testimony. He got a lot on the break against us, and he’s just a tremendous athlete.”

Hunter improved each year, averaging 4.2 points his freshman season (he was declared academically ineligible after semester break), 6.7 points his sophomore year, 9.1 points as a junior, then 11.6 points his senior season. He also averaged a career-high 5.1 rebounds per game as a senior, pretty good numbers for a 6-foot point guard.

The KU Basketball Media Guide wrote in 1985-86 that “Brown feels Hunter is one of the most improved players he has ever coached.”

Hunter, who had a career-high 16 assists versus Oklahoma in the Big Eight postseason tournament in 1986, was the consummate point guard who ran the break as well as any guard in the country. My dad, who played hockey growing up in Toronto, was a huge fan of Ced’s, and said he reminded him of a hockey player on skates with the way he ran and orchestrated the break. Hunter always got the ball in the scorers’ best shooting position, and made the game so much easier for all his teammates.

Indeed, Piper was right. I’ve always thought “Electric” Cedric Hunter was one of the most underrated and best point guards KU has ever seen. He deserves all credit that is due for his remarkable career playing under the shadows of such stars as Manning, Kellogg, Dreiling and Thompson.