LA GRANDE — Millions of basketball fans are following the progress of Gonzaga University’s undefeated men’s basketball team as it continues to steamroll its way through this year’s NCAA tournament.

The face of its program is head coach Mark Few, who with a career record of 627-124 in 22 seasons is the winningest coach in Gonzaga history. Few does not have a Eastern Oregon connection but the coach he passed in 2009 to claim the honor, Hank Anderson, does.

Anderson played for Eastern Oregon University, then named Eastern Oregon Normal School, in the late 1930s under coach Robert Quinn, according to a 1985 story in The Observer. Anderson later transferred to the University of Oregon and played basketball there under Howard Hobson.

Anderson, who grew up in Burns, served as Gonzaga University’s head basketball coach from 1951-72, compiling a record of 290-275. Gonzaga played in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics classification during Anderson’s first eight years there before moving into the NCAA Division I category it now is in, according to a story in the Sept. 7, 2005, edition of the Spokesman Review by John Blanchette.

Blanchette described Anderson as “the architect” of Gonzaga’s move into major college basketball.

Anderson, who also served as Gonzaga’s athletic director, left the university in 1972 to become the head men’s basketball coach at Montana State University. He coached at MSU for two seasons before leaving to become North Arizona University’s athletic director, where he worked for 10 years before retiring.

Anderson, who died in 2005 at age 84, was known during his playing career for an unorthodox, leaping, two-handed shot, according to the book “Shooting Ducks” by Howard Hobson. The shot was so successful, Hobson wrote, that Anderson was featured in 1941 in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not,” which then had a syndicated newspaper feature.