The Cal 100: No. 53 -- Darrall Imhoff

Imhoff was the best player on the Bears' best basketball team, but his NBA career is remembered for a very tough night.

We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.

No. 53: Darrall Imhoff

Cal Sports Connection: Imhoff was an All-American center on Cal's 1959 NCAA championship team and 1960 national runner-up.

Claim to Fame: He played on the gold-medal winning 1960 Olympic team then was a solid NBA player for 12 seasons, although he's best remembered by some for being on the other end of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game.

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A non-scholarship walk-on from southern California, Darrall Imhoff became the best player on the best basketball team in Cal history.

The 6-foot-10 center, who checks in at No. 53 in The Cal 100, was the defensive centerpiece of coach Pete Newell’s team that arrived at Louisville, Kentucky for the 1959 national semifinals as little more than an afterthought.

The event wasn’t even called the Final Four in those days, but the favorites were Cincinnati with Oscar Robertson and West Virginia with Jerry West.

“We were totally the dark horse,” Imhoff, a junior on that team, told me in a 2009 interview. “They figured West Coast basketball was out where the stagecoaches were.”

Darrall Imhoff / Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics

The Bears did not consider themselves underdogs but understood the challenge. 

“It was like looking down two barrels of a shotgun,” Imhoff said. “We had Oscar one night, Jerry the next.”

The Bears overcame the two future Hall of Famers, beating Cincinnati 64-58 in the national semifinals then West Virginia 71-70 in the title game, with Imhoff scoring the game-winning basket.

The Bears finished that season 25-4, with Imhoff earning all-conference honors after averaging 11.3 points and 11.0 rebounds. 

As a senior in 1959-60, Imhoff expanded his role, contributing 13.7 points and 12.4 rebounds, earning consensus first-team All-America honors and leading Cal to a 28-2 record. He averaged more than 17 points in five NCAA games, but the Bears were steamrolled 75-55 in the national championship game at the Cow Palace by an Ohio State team led by Jerry Lucas.

Imhoff’s 140 points and 100 rebounds remain Cal career records in NCAA play more than six decades later.

He was bound for the NBA but not before helping a star-powered U.S. Olympic team crush eight opponents on the way to a gold medal at the 1960 Games. With Newell as coach, a roster that included Robertson, West, Lucas and Walt Bellamy outscored its foes by more than 41 points per game. Imhoff produced 4.8 points per game in Rome.

Imhoff’s amateur career has been repeatedly honored. He was twice an All-Final Four selection, was voted into the Cal Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998, was Cal’s 2005 inductee into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor, and had his jersey No. 40 retired by the program in 2009.

In 2011, he and his Olympic teammates were voted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Imhoff’s pro career was less spectacular, but spanned 12 seasons — no small feat.

Picked third by the New York Knicks behind the Big O and The Logo in the NBA draft, Imhoff averaged 7.2 points and 7.6 rebounds for his career.

He earned All-Star honors in 1966-67 while contributing 10.7 points and 13.3 rebounds to a Lakers team that featured West and Elgin Baylor. Three times he helped the Lakers to the NBA Finals, but each time they lost to Bill Russell’s Boston Celtics.

Three years later, he put up 13.6 points and 9.5 rebounds with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Wilt Chamberlain scores against Darrall Imhoff / Photo by Darryl Nohrnberg, USA Today

Unfortunately for Imhoff, his NBA career is remembered by many fans for a single game — March 2, 1962, when the Philadelphia Warriors’ Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points against the Knicks at Hershey, PA.

Imhoff was New York’s starting center, in the lineup that night because Phil Jordon was out sick.

Chamberlain was a mismatch for everyone in 1961-62, when he averaged 50.4 points. Imhoff, in foul trouble from the start, at one point barked at the ref, "Well, why don't you just give the guy a hundred now and we'll all go home!”

By the time Wilt reached the century mark, Imhoff had fouled out after playing just 20 minutes.

Imhoff, who died in 2017 at age 78, always kept a sense of humor about his famous duel with Chamberlain.

"What everybody forgets is that we played Philly again two nights later in New York, and Wilt wanted to score another 100," Imhoff said. "I held him to (58) and got a standing ‘O'."

-- No. 54: Marcus Semien

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Cover photo of Darrall Imhoff (40) and Cal's 1959 national championship team courtesy of Cal Athletics

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo