I will always feel the Bellamy is the best rebounder at IU. Same for Maravich playing 60 less games than Antoine Davis for all time scoring. It will need an asterick by Davis' name. A 44 point average a game for 3 year career with no 3 pointers or time clock is simply amazing. Unfortunately if Henderson hadn't gone down with knee injury,IU would have another banner.
I agree Bellamy was probably our best rebounder ever. But, to put matters in better perspective, we do need to keep in mind that in those days there were more rebounds to be had. As an example, Jerry Lucas averaged 17.2 rebounds over his career, which was from '60-'62, whereas Walt averaged 15.5.
I always thought Lucas had the best career of any BT basketball player ever. He was 6'8" and 230 lbs. For his
career, he shot .624 from the field, .777 from the line, and averaged 24.3 points and 17.2 rebounds. Now, again, there were more points scored in those days......so those #s might translate to something like 20/13 these days. But he played on a team that won 3 BTCs and probably could have won 3 NCs, and he was the best player on that team. Bellamy, , 6'11" 250 lbs, who was undoubtedly a great player, and who had a better NBA career, averaged 20.6/15.5 while shooting .517/.654.
I read a lengthy article once about Lucas that was really interesting. He was a brilliant, somewhat eccentric, guy. What I remember most was what he said about blocking out. He said coach Taylor would talk to him about blocking out and he never paid much attention. He said instead he studied angles of where the shot came from and would then just camp out at the most productive spot and collect the rebounds.
One other thing about that era.............the 1959-60 IU team was a truly great team that no one knows about. OSU that year went 13-1 and 25-3 and won the NC. IU was 2nd in the BT and went 11-3 and 2-4 overall. Their losses were by 4 pts at MO, by 3 at W. Lafayette, by 4 at Northwestern, and by 1 (96-95) at OSU. In the return game in Bloomington, IU won by 99-83. And that team never played in the NCAA tourney. At that time, only conference champions went.
