Michael Kent Benson (born December 27, 1954 in New Castle, Indiana) is a former collegiate and pro basketball player. He played college basketball for coach Bobby Knight at Indiana University. With Quinn Buckner and Scott May, he led Indiana University to the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship in the 1975-1976 season. That season, they were undefeated throughout the entire regular and post season. They were the last team to accomplish that in Division I Men's Basketball. After graduating from Indiana University in 1977, he was the number one draft pick of the 1977 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks. He was the last white number one draft pick until Andrew Bogut in 2005. He spent 11 solid, but not particularly remarkable, seasons in the NBA.

Trivia

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In his 1990 autobiographical book The Story of My Life, Larry Bird describes how Kent Benson taught him to be nice to freshmen. In 1974, Larry Bird entered Indiana University on a basketball scholarship when Benson was a sophomore at Indiana. Kent Benson was one of the players at Indiana who consistently ribbed on Bird; so much so that in conjunction with other reasons, Bird left Indiana University before the basketball season ever began and never returned. In the book, Bird described how he would try extra hard to defeat an NBA team if Kent Benson was playing.

1954 births | American basketball players | Cleveland Cavaliers players | Detroit Pistons players | Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball players | Living people | Milwaukee Bucks players | People from Indiana | Utah Jazz players | Sports-related flops