Cooper and Buss selected for Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame
Cynthia Cooper and Dr. Jerry Buss were chosen for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, joining Cheryl Miller, Sam Barry, and Jack Gardner as the only Trojans ever to be selected for the Hall.
Cooper, a part of the 1983 and 1984 women’s national championship teams at USC, played five years in the WNBA for the Houston Comets. From 1997 to 2000 she was an integral component of the team’s four consecutive WNBA championships.
Jerry Buss, who earned a master’s and doctorate degree at USC and then taught chemistry, went on to buy the Los Angeles Lakers in 1979 and still owns the team today. Under his ownership, the team has won nine NBA championships and vastly improved as a franchise altogether.
Cooper and Buss accompany Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Johnson, Bob Hurley, Gus Johnson, Maciel Pereira and the 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic Teams as the 2010 inductees.
The induction ceremony will be held Aug. 13, in Springfield, Mass.
Two more of Sam Barry’s players were inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as coaches — Alex Hannum and Bill Sharman — Bill was also inducted as a player. Tex Winter learned the Triangle Offense from Sam and applied it with great success to the Bulls and Lakers of the NBA. (Sam also coached Rod Dedeaux, and asked him to take over the baseball team when he enlisted in the Navy during World War II.)