Former Illinois men’s basketball standout Efrem Winters died Monday morning, according to the Champaign News-Gazette. He was 61.
The 1984 all-Big Ten Conference first-team selection grabbed a then program-best 853 rebounds during his four-year career, from 1982 to 1986. Winters was living in Arizona after retiring from the Pepper Construction Company.
“He the nicest guy I ever played basketball with,” former Illini teammate Doug Altenberger told the News-Gazette.
Winters was a McDonald’s All-American at Chicago King before he played in 129 of 130 games during four consecutive 20-win seasons with the Illini. The 6-foot-9, 240-pound power forward left Champaign as the No. 3 all-time leading scorer with 1,487 points.
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Winters was instrumental in helping Illinois win the Big Ten Conference championship during the 1983-84 season, ending a 21-year Big Ten title drought as part of the team that help put Illinois on the national radar. That season, Illinois finished one game short of the Final Four, losing to Kentucky, 54-51, in a regional final.
“I always think about the Kentucky game,” Winters said in 2009 when that Illini team was honored during a 25-year reunion. “People bring it up all the time. The Kentucky game? What happened? What if you would have won that game?”
Illinois eventually made the Final Four in 1989 and again in 2005. Winters said his 1984 squad stands alongside. “We’d won the Big Ten,” Winter said in 2009. “We were the thing that got Illinois going again.”
Winters was selected by the Atlanta Hawks in the fourth round of the 1986 NBA draft. He didn’t make the Hawks, and never played in the NBA.
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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Illinois basketball player Efrem Winters dies at age 61
