Wisconsin basketball fans mourning loss of beloved former Badger

On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Badgers announced the passing of former basketball center Kim Hughes. 

Hughes was a three-year letterman from Freeport, Illinois, where he averaged 13.6 PPG and an impressive 11.2 RPG from 1971 to 1974. According to John Steppe of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Hughes is among Wisconsin’s top 10 career rebounders with 806 boards. 

Badgers legend Kim Hughes, an ABA champion has passed away

As a United Press International (UPI) All-Big Ten nominee, Hughes was drafted in the third round of the 1974 NBA Draft by the Buffalo Braves but began his professional basketball career in Italy with Olimpia Milano. After one year overseas, Hughes returned to the States, where he played with the American Basketball Association (ABA) with the New York (later New Jersey) Nets. When the ABA merged with the NBA, Hughes continued with the Nets and played in five NBA seasons with the Nets, Denver Nuggets, and Cleveland Cavaliers. 

Hughes went into NBA coaching after his playing career ended. After serving various scouting and assistant coaching roles with various NBA franchises, Hughes served as an interim NBA coach with the Los Angeles Clippers at the end of the 2009-10 NBA season. In 2012, Hughes returned as an assistant coach with the Portland Trail Blazers, where he coached former Illinois Fighting Illini big man Meyers Leonard. 

Leonard posted on Instagram that Hughes was "like a father" and that the former Badger taught him not only "about basketball, but more importantly, about life."

Hughes’ death is the second recent passing of a prominent Wisconsin Badger basketball player. Earlier in August, Clarence Sherrod, who graduated as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,408 points in 1971, passed away at the age of 75.  

Sherrod, a prominent Milwaukee Lincoln High School basketball standout, was a two-time second-team All-Big Ten nominee in 1970 and 1971. Sherrod still holds the program’s single-season PPG record to this day with 23.8 PPG in the 1970-71 season. In addition to his basketball prowess, Sherrod epitomized what it meant to be a student-athlete. A class valedictorian at Milwaukee Lincoln, Sherrod went on to earn his law degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1975. 

Sherrod was elected to the UW Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.