Jon Collins is a former American

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

player, best known for his collegiate career at

Eastern Illinois University Eastern Illinois University is a public university in Charleston, Illinois. Established in 1895 as the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, a teacher's college offering a two-year degree, Eastern Illinois University gradually expanded into a co ...

between 1982–83 and 1985–86. At the time of his graduation, Collins scored a then-school record 1,702 points, was one of five players to have been an All-Mid Continent Conference First Team honoree three times, and was twice named the Mid-Continent Conference Player of the Year (later named

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). In each of Collins' final three seasons he averaged over 18 points per game and scored over 500 total points. During that span, he reached double figures in 87 of 90 games, including a school-record 53 straight. As a

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in 1984–85, he led the team to a 20–10 overall record and their first Mid-Continent Conference championship. Both the

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and ''

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'' named him an honorable mention All-American that year. As a

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, Collins garnered another honorable mention nod by the ''Sporting News'' as he earned his second consecutive conference player of the year award, becoming the first player in conference history to do so. The

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team was founded as the D ...

selected Collins in the fifth round of the 1986 NBA draft, but he never played in the league. After a professional basketball career he worked for

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insurance. Eastern Illinois inducted him into their athletics hall of fame in 1993.

References

# # # # 1960s births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball players from Illinois Denver Nuggets draft picks Eastern Illinois Panthers men's basketball players People from Cahokia, Illinois Sportspeople from St. Clair County, Illinois Shooting guards {{1960s-US-basketball-bio-stub