Basketball
Bob Buis was quite simply the finest pure shooter to ever play basketball for the Knights, at least according to the magical statistical line he generated for the 1952-53 season. That year, Buis was the most accurate shooter among all small-college basketball players; he finished first in the nation with a field-goal percentage of 60.6 percent, hitting 149 of 246 shots. He was also ninth in the nation that year in free throw percentage, connecting at an 80.5 percent clip. The following year, he enjoyed similar success; four games into the season he was connecting on 63.6 percent of his shots. Because Buis was a transfer student from Hamline University, he was limited to two seasons in a Carleton uniform, but he still managed to shatter a Carleton scoring record with 422 points during the 1952-53 season. In an article from the Minneapolis Morning Tribune from December of 1953, Buis was described by then-coach (and Carleton Hall of Fame member) Mel Taube as having “an uncanny knack for getting into position where he can take a pass and score easily.” Carleton’s 1952-53 squad captured the Midwest Conference championship, and finished fourth in the nation in team field-goal percentage, hitting 393 of 876 shots (44.9 percent). The following season, the team opened with a road win over a powerful Drake squad, behind 18 points from Buis. A newspaper account of the game wrote the following: “Bob Buis doesn’t look much like a basketball star- but he is one.”