Beloved basketball legend Cliff Hagan passed away at the age of 94 on October 15, 2026. A five-time NBA All-Star, NBA champion, and Hall of Famer, Hagan built a legacy as a player, coach, and administrator that won the hearts of many. Tributes poured in after his close friend Oscar Combs broke the news on X.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
“So, so saddened to hear news former UK All American Cliff Hagan passed away today. Hagan, AD at UK from 1974-89, is in National Basketball Hall of Fame,” wrote Combs. Combs, inducted into the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame, is a longtime Kentucky sports journalist.
Hagan served as UK’s athletic director from 1975 until he resigned in 1988.
“A dear friend, Cliff was a great influence on my career and a vocal supporter of The Cats’ Pause when it was launched in 1976,” Combs wrote. Combs founded The Cats’ Pause, an independent publication devoted entirely to Kentucky athletics.
Hagan was an Owensboro native and a Kentucky darling. He led Owensboro High School to the 1949 state championship, then helped the University of Kentucky win the 1951 NCAA title with a 68-58 win over Kansas State. A two-time consensus First Team All-American, he averaged 19.2 points and 13.4 rebounds in college, and his No. 6 jersey hangs in Rupp Arena.
Kentucky’s 1952-53 season was wiped out by NCAA sanctions following a point-shaving scandal. Hagan graduated in 1953 and was drafted by the Boston Celtics in the third round, but instead of turning pro, he returned for the 1953-54 season.
That season, he set a Kentucky record for the most points in a single game with 51, a mark that stood until 1970.
Boston never got to see him in green. After Hagan’s two years of military service, the Celtics traded him and Ed Macauley to the St. Louis Hawks for the draft rights to Bill Russell, one of the most famous deals in basketball history.
There’s so much about Cliff Hagan that makes him a memorable individual and player. On April 11, 1957, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals against those same Celtics, he hit a buzzer-beater to force Game 7. It’s believed to be the first playoff buzzer-beater in NBA history.
A year later, in 1958, the Hawks defeated the Celtics, making Cliff Hagan an NBA champion. He went on to make five straight NBA All-Star teams from 1958 to 1962 and spent all 10 of his NBA seasons with the Hawks before retiring in 1966. He later returned as a player-coach with the ABA’s Dallas Chaparrals, earning an ABA All-Star nod in 1968.
His signature weapon was the hook shot, which he could hit with either hand.
Interestingly, no one in Owensboro seemed to have a command of the hook shot. So Cliff Hagan taught it to himself. Years later, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said in interviews that watching Hagan succeed with the hook convinced him it could work in the NBA.
His impact reached well beyond the court. In 1993, the University of Kentucky renamed its baseball field Cliff Hagan Stadium in his honor, and he was inducted into the UK Athletics Hall of Fame in 2005. In Owensboro, the Cliff Hagan Boys & Girls Club offers after-school and summer programs for children and teens.
Hagan was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978. He was the first former University of Kentucky player to be honored as such. No cause of death has been announced; however, in a separate post, Combs revealed that Hagan had been “in declining health for some time.”