He was never on any all-conference teams. He never led his team in scoring. But if you polled 100 Kansas fans in the early 1990’s and asked those folks who their favorite Jayhawk was, you would hear plenty of people say Richard Scott’s name. He was a hard worker, and Kansas fans appreciate a guy who goes 100% all the time. Richard Scott was just such a player, especially on the glass.
The six foot seven forward from Little Rock, Arkansas was never going to wow you with his array of post moves or the distance from which he shot. In fact, if he wasn’t in the paint, he was probably outside his range. But, what he lacked in range and shooting skill, he more than made up for with positioning and determination. Richard Scott ranks 18th on the all time rebounding list at KU with 607 and is number two as far as shooting percentage goes. Scott made 59.6% of his baskets in his four years on Mount Oread.
Scott arrived in Lawrence in the fall of 1990. As a freshman, he averaged 5.9 points and 2.1 rebounds in about 12 minutes of action per game. That was the season that KU made its improbable run to the NCAA title game beating Indiana, Arkansas, and North Carolina before bowing out to Duke in the championship game. Scott scored 14 in the win against the Tar Heels and over the course of the tournament, he averaged 6.5 points coming of the bench.
In his sophomore season, his minutes doubled and so did his scoring and rebounding averages- up to 10.1 and 4.7 respectively- and his junior season was more of the same. In 1992-93, he scored at a 10.6 PPG clip while hauling in 5.3 RPG. Kansas again made a deep run in the NCAA tournament, and Scott was even better this time around averaging 10.8 points in KU’s five NCAA games. He scored a team high 16 points in KU’s win over Indiana that clinched a berth in the Final Four.
Richard Scott was named team captain for his senior campaign and he averaged 13.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game, but imagine how many points he would have tallied if he had been an even somewhat competent free throw shooter. Over his career, Scott took 531 free throws but only converted 45.8% of them. If he had shot 66%, he would have added 110 points to his already impressive 1,375 points.
After his career at Kansas, Richard Scott made his way overseas to play basketball. He played the majority of his career in Spain for CB Granada and CDB Sevilla. In his four seasons with Sevilla, Scott averaged 17.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per contest. He played for the championship twice (1996 and 1999*) in the Andalucían capital, both times coming up short.
*I personally love this line from the 1998-99 season recap on the CDB Sevilla website: Volvía Richard Scott, que había dejado un gran recuerdo en Sevilla- Richard Scott returned, who had left a great memory in Seville. It’s great to have Jayhawks remembered so fondly in foreign cities.
He twice played in the over-arching European competitions because his team had done so well domestically. Scott had an especially good European campaign in 2000-01 when he averaged 19.5 points per game and six rebounds per game in that competition. Over the course of his career in Europe, he also played for a team based in Madrid and for one in Ankara, Turkey.