Former OU basketball standout Brandon Hunter dead at 42
COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Former Ohio University power forward and Cincinnati native Brandon Hunter died on Tuesday.
Hunter, 42, starred in the Bobcats frontcourt from 1999-2003 and led the NCAA with 12.6 rebounds per game during the 2002-03 season. He earned All-MAC first-team honors in 2001, 2002 and 2003, averaging 21.3 points per game in his final season. Hunter ranks fifth all-time at Ohio with 2,012 points and first in rebounds with 1,103.
He was selected 56th overall in the 2003 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics and averaged 3.5 points and 3.3 rebounds in his first season. The Celtics did not protect Hunter in the 2004 expansion draft, which saw the Charlotte Hornets select him, but he was traded mid-season to Orlando, where he averaged 3.1 points and 2.2 rebounds over 31 games.
Hunter had brief stints with Milwaukee, Cleveland and New Jersey summer league teams before traveling overseas to play in Greece, Italy, Puerto Rico and France. He returned to Cincinnati in 2013 to pursue careers as a real estate broker, a sports agent and most recently founded Hunter Athlete Management in 2021.
OU coach Jeff Boals posted on X Tuesday on Hunter’s death, as did former guard T.J. Ford:
Hunter, a 1999 graduate of Winthrow University High School in Cincinnati, where he was also a star player, was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2017. Last year, he was enshrined into the Ohio University’s Kermit Blosser Ohio Athletics Hall of Fame.
Former coach Tim O’Shea paid tribute to Hunter and shared on his Facebook page that Hunter died at the end of a yoga class. His cause of death is not immediately known.