Basketball Hall of Fame

A 6-foot-10 1/2 forward from Greenville, Texas, Freiberger helped the United States basketball team win seven games without a loss to capture the 1952 Olympics gold medal in Finland. He had 16 points in the Peoria Cats' Olympic Trials title-game victory over Kansas, then scored in double figures against Chile and Argentina at Helsinki.

Freiberger lettered at the University of Oklahoma, where he was the Sooners' tallest player of all time up to then, in 1949-50-51, leading OU in scoring (15.1 average) as a senior. An all-conference pick, he possessed defensive quickness and finesse normally associated with much smaller athletes that limited high-scoring opponents Jack Shelton of rival Oklahoma A&M and Clyde Lovellette of Kansas to career lows.

Freiberger scored 46 points against Amarillo, Texas, in the third-place game of the state tournament playoffs before being recruited out of high school to play on the same Oklahoma teams as future Kansas coach Ted Owens.