WVU Sports Hall of Fame

Inducted: 2016

Written by Bryan Messerly

Damian Owens was a four-year starter for the men’s basketball team from 1995-98.

Owens played in 116 games as a Mountaineer, scoring 1,616 points and grabbing 868 rebounds. He is one of six Mountaineers in school history to score more than 1,600 points and pull down more than 800 rebounds, joining Jerry West, Rod Hundley, Da’Sean Butler, Kevin Jones and Rod Thorn in that group.

At the end of his career in 1998, Owens ranked 10th in scoring, ninth in rebounding, ninth in assists, second in steals and sixth in blocked shots in the WVU record books.

A native of Seat Pleasant, Maryland, Owens averaged double figures all four seasons as a Mountaineer, including a team-high 16.5 points per game as a senior in 1998. He led the team in rebounding as a freshman and sophomore, pulling down a career-high 8.3 rebounds per contest in 1996.

Owens scored a career-high 33 points against Dayton on Nov. 30, 1997. His top rebounding performances included 14 boards in games against Duquesne on Feb. 28, 1995 and versus St. John’s on Feb. 24, 1996. Owens recorded a career-high 10 assists against Syracuse on Jan. 16, 1996, and posted eight steals versus Georgia on Dec. 20, 1997.

Owens is tied for fifth all-time at WVU with 87 games in double figures while posting 22 games of 20 points or more. He helped lead the Mountaineers to the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 in 1998, scoring 14 points in the second-round upset of Cincinnati.

The 1998 Big East Defensive Player of the Year is WVU’s all-time career steals average leader with 2.1 per contest. He finished his career with 244 steals and ranks 16th all-time at WVU with 336 assists, the most assists ever recorded by a non-WVU guard.

Owens was the first WVU player to be named to the All-Big East First Team in 1998 and was named to the All-Big East Third Team in 1996 and 1997. He earned Big East Player of the Week honors six times during his career. Owens tallied an Atlantic 10 Freshman of the Week honor in 1995.

Also a standout in the classroom, Owens was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-America Second Team in 1998. He was a three-time Big East Academic All-Star.

A member of the 1996-2005 WVU All-Time Basketball Team, Owens graduated cum laude in business management in 1998. Owens, who played 10 seasons of professional basketball, now owns a business in Maryland. He and his fiancée, Alicia Williams, will marry June 11, 2016.