Danner had some back problems. Still, we were good enough to win the championship more than just that first year." He averaged 8.3 ppg and 9.3 ppg those years, and although he was not a consensus selection, Wilkinson earned his second and third consecutive Helms Foundation All-American honors. When Herb Wilkinson's college basketball career ended after the 1946–47 season, he had become Iowa's only three-time First Team All-Big Ten and three-time All-American honoree in addition to having won a national championship as a freshman while at Utah. He finished his Iowa career with 489 points in 53 games. He scored a career-high 22 points against Indiana on February 22, 1947. Wilkinson would later be named to the University of Iowa All-Century Team. Later life For the first year after graduation, Wilkinson was studying in an anesthesiology program, deciding to forgo a professional basketball career. Then, the Minneapolis Lakers of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) made him such a good offer that he decided to give it a shot. Being a very religious and devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he agreed to play on the condition that he had Sundays off. Wilkinson said: "One Sunday I wasn't there and the owner asked where I was. The coach said he doesn't play on Sundays, and the owner sent me a note saying I had to play on Sundays or he would release me. I'm not sure he was serious, but I quit basketball and went off on a mission for two years." After his mission for two years in the United Kingdom, Wilkinson finished his schooling and became a dentist instead. Wilkinson chalked up his personal success in life to his national championship season with Utah as a freshman. "Anything like that gives you more confidence to do other things in life," he says. "You think, Gee, if we won the NCAAs and weren't expected to, we could probably do a lot of other things we didn't think we could do." References 1923 births Living people All-American college men's basketball players American dentists American men's basketball players Basketball players from Salt Lake City College men's track and field athletes in the United States Guards (basketball) Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball players St. Louis Bombers (NBA) draft picks Utah Utes men's basketball players People from Hurricane, Utah Latter Day Saints from Utah American Mormon missionaries in the