The University of Idaho's most celebrated basketball alumnus is joining the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The late Gus Johnson will be one of eight players to be inducted in August, it was announced Monday.

Johnson played at Idaho for a single season, 1962-63, before achieving NBA fame with the Baltimore Bullets. His No. 43 jersey was retired at UI in 1987, the year he died. He holds UI single-season records for rebounds (466) and rebound average (20.3), which ranked second in the NCAA in 1963.

Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss, high school coaching great Bob Hurley, Sr., and WNBA star Cynthia Cooper also were in the class announced at the Final Four. NBA veterans Dennis Johnson and Gus Johnson and international star Maciel (Ubiratan) Pereira will be honored posthumously.

The 1960 and 1992 U.S. Olympic teams, which both won Olympic gold medals, will be part of the induction ceremony on Aug. 13.

The 1960 team, led by Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, won eight games by an average of 42.4 points in the Rome Olympics. The Dream Team, the first Olympic team made up primarily of NBA players, was even more dominant, with an average margin of victory of 43.8 points in sweeping eight games in Barcelona.

"Playing for your country is the ultimate," said Larry Bird, who represented the team at Monday's ceremony. "Our team was pretty special. We had some pretty good players."

Bird also was thrilled by Dennis Johnson's inclusion in the hall of fame.

"It's very special. We've been waiting for this day for a long time," he said. "He's the best player I ever played with."

Dennis Johnson, a one-time Seattle SuperSonics and three-time NBA champion, was the MVP of the 1979 Finals with Seattle before taking over as the point guard on the Bird-led Boston Celtics teams of the mid-1980s. He died of a heart attack in 2007 at age 52.

"This is a very emotional time for me - I'm trying not to cry," his wife, Donna, told the crowd. "This is such a great end to a great career."