Bo McCalebb
New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame
Basketball, 1998-2019
O. Perry Walker HS/UNO/Europe
Inducted: 2026
First-year-of-eligibility selections to the New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame are not common. But high-scoring Bo McCalebb defied those odds.
McCalebb — a record-setting basketball player at the University of New Orleans from 2003-08 and a 10-year professional internationally — was selected for the Class of 2026 of the Allstate Sugar Bowl’s New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame.
McCalebb, a 6-foot point guard and a 2003 graduate of O. Perry Walker High School in New Orleans, averaged 20.9 points over a school-record 128 games for UNO. His 2,679 career points are records at UNO and in the Sun Belt Conference, and the total ranks 36th all-time among NCAA Division I men. For three years he was the Sun Belt scoring leader and top 10 in NCAA DI. He is UNO's career leader with 250 steals.
His stellar career produced a variety of twists and turns.
As a prep senior, McCalebb dominated the courts; he averaged 32.1 points per game, including one 76-point performance, and was an all-metro and all-state selection. He was verbally committed to Oklahoma State and was ready to sign on day one of the early signing period in November 2002. But OSU never delivered the documents for McCalebb to sign. There was no backup plan, no No. 2 college on McCalebb's list of favorites.
But later that day, UNO head coach Monte Towe and assistant coach Patrick Harrington arrived at McCalebb's home with a letter of intent to sign.
“Patrick Harrington did all our recruiting work on Bo,” said Towe, now retired and living in Gainesville, Fla. “He followed Bo's career. Patrick raved about Bo and said he was great.”
After he arrived at UNO, it took some time for McCalebb to establish his role.
“The coaches had me at shooting guard,” McCalebb said. “I was never a shooting guard. Johnell Smith was ahead of me at that position. I asked the coaches if I could play point. That's my position.”
Towe agreed, McCalebb averaged a team-best 13.1 points and was chosen as Sun Belt Freshman of the Year.
McCalebb was granted a medical redshirt after breaking his right hand in a game at Mississippi State on Nov. 30, 2005 — the fourth game of McCalebb's third UNO season. In retrospect, McCalebb said the injury was a blessing. Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans three months earlier. UNO men's basketball evacuated to Tyler, Texas, and played some home games there. McCalebb admitted he wasn't in good physical shape before the injury, and the coaches allowed McCalebb to return to New Orleans, heal and continue his classwork. McCalebb's home on the New Orleans West Bank escaped major damage from Katrina.
Another boost in his performance came before the start of his junior year, UNO's 2006-07 season. Marlon Jackson, McCalebb's parran (a colloquial term for godfather in Louisiana), worked with him on his shooting, and the results were percentages of .376 on 3-pointers and .739 on free throws during his final two years. In the first three UNO seasons, McCalebb shot .278 on 3-pointers and .632 from the line.
“I was embarrassed by my shooting,” McCalebb said. “My parran is a shot doctor. We worked a lot, and he fixed the things I wasn't doing as well.”
Jackson fixed McCalebb to the tune of 25.2 points per game (sixth in the nation), including six 30-point performances. He also led the Privateers in rebounds (6.8) and steals (2.0) while dishing out 3.3 assists per game.
In his senior season, McCalebb not only became the Sun Belt’s all-time leading scorer (finishing his career ranked No. 21 on the NCAA career list), he was also the first UNO player to be named the Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year. He was also named first-team all-district by the USBWA and the NABC. In addition to setting UNO’s scoring record, he set the school records for career field goals (977), field goal attempts (2,051), free throws (610), free throws attempted (915), steals (250), and games played (128).
Despite his UNO numbers and accolades, no NBA team drafted McCalebb. Later there were two flirtations. The San Antonio Spurs in 2012 were interested in McCalebb, “but I would have been on the bench behind Tony Parker and Patty Mills,” he said. “I wasn't interested.” In 2015 the New Orleans Pelicans had McCalebb in their preseason camp for 10 days — he played in four exhibitions — before releasing him. “My mom made me do that,” McCalebb said. “It was a publicity stunt. I knew they weren't going to keep me.”
Instead, McCalebb carved a niche for himself in European professional leagues. He played for Mersin BB, Partizan, Montepaschi Siena, Fenerbahçe Ulker, Bayern Munich, Limoges CSP, Gran Canaria and Zaragoza. He was All-Euroleague in 2010 and 2013 and won 13 combined league championships and cups between 2010 and 2016. He also led the Macedonian national team to the bronze-medal game in EuroBasket 2011 and was named all-tournament after averaging 21.4 points per game. His teams won four championships in Italy — and a league MVP for McCalebb — two championships apiece in Turkey and Serbia, and his teams made two Euroleague final-four appearances.
McCalebb, with Montepaschi Siena in 2012, became the first Euroleague point guard to receive the Alphonso Ford Top Scorer Trophy. He led Euroleague that season with 16.9 points per game and shot .526 on 3-pointers and .637 on 2-pointers. Euroleague.net's announcement of the Ford award included this: "His first Top Scorer Trophy is mere confirmation for what basketball fans have known; McCalebb has developed into an unstoppable scoring presence. His explosiveness, one-on-one skills and incredible quickness have turned him into a nightmare matchup."
“It was overseas where I learned the bulk of everything I know about basketball,” McCalebb said. “I learned the game — how to read the game and think the game instead of playing. I learned from a lot of excellent coaches over there.”
Like Ervin Johnson — another UNO star and New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame inductee — McCalebb didn't graduate in five years, but he stayed the course and received his bachelor's degree from UNO in December 2024. McCalebb was inducted into the UNO Athletics Hall of Fame in 2023, and UNO retired McCalebb's No. 1 jersey on Dec. 6, 2025. McCalebb and Johnson (No. 40 in 1997) are the only Privateer men with retired numbers.
McCalebb and a UNO star from the 1980s, Ledell Eackles, were inducted into the Louisiana Basketball Hall of Fame on May 3, 2025.
McCalebb returned home in 2018 after the death of his mother, Tara Butler, on Valentine's Day. He never played professionally again. He has lived in metro New Orleans ever since, and he has spent the majority of his time with his parran, training boys and girls to improve their basketball skills.
Now that he has his UNO degree, McCalebb hopes to parlay his experience and knowledge into a college coaching job. “As long as I'm around the game, I'm happy,” he said. “Basically, basketball has been my life. Basketball gave me an opportunity to make connections, build relationships and travel to places I never thought I would go.”
Story submitted by Ed Cassiere of the New Orleans Sports Awards Committee.
