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FAMOUS BASKETBALL PLAYER
YB WEB DESK. Dated: 10/30/2021 3:36:45 PM
Wally Szczerbiak
Walter Robert Szczerbiak is an American former professional basketball player and current color analyst for the New York Knicks on MSG Network. He played 10 seasons for four teams in the National Basketball Association, and was named an NBA All-Star during the 2001-02 season. He played college basketball for Miami University, and is one of five players to have his Miami jersey retired. Early life Szczerbiak was born in Madrid, Spain, to Marilyn and Walter Szczerbiak, a former ABA player who helped lead Real Madrid to three FIBA European Champions Cup championships. While there, he set a Spanish League single-game scoring record, with 65 points. Szczerbiak spent much of his childhood in Europe, during his father's playing career. When Walt retired, he moved his family back to his native Long Island, New York. Szczerbiak played basketball at Cold Spring Harbor High School in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. As a senior in the 1994-95 season he averaged 36.6 points per game and 15.9 rebounds. He was named the winner of the Richard Sangler Award as Nassau County's outstanding boys' basketball player. Szczerbiak competed for the Long Island team in the 1994 Empire State Games. Despite his outstanding high school statistics, the small size of Szczerbiak's school did not win him the attention of East Coast college coaches, and he went unrecruited. College career During the fall of his high school senior year, Szczerbiak and his parents visited the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio. The following Monday, despite Walt's wishes for his son to wait on making a decision, Szczerbiak called coach Herb Sendek and committed to play for Miami. In his first two seasons there Szczerbiak averaged 8.0 and 12.8 points. As a junior in 1997–98, he burst onto the scene as one of college basketball's leading scorers, averaging 24.4 points per game and earning first-team All-MAC honors despite missing several games with a broken right wrist. In his senior season, Szczerbiak averaged 24.2 points per game and led the Redhawks to the Sweet 16 in the 1999 NCAA Tournament as a #10 seed. Szczerbiak scored a career-high 43 points in a first-round win over #7 seed Washington. He followed that with 24 points in a second round toppling of #2 seed Utah, leading the Redhawks to the Sweet 16. Despite Szczerbiak's 23-point performance.