after the completion of his senior season, sunderlage was named the most valuable player of the big ten conference and honored with the chicago tribune silver basketball award. he was also a helms 2nd team all-american, a sporting news 2nd team all-american, a united press international 3rd team all-american, a converse 3rd team all-american and an associated press honorable mention all-american. in addition to his other honors, sunderlage was the first illinois player to score more than 400 points in a season (471 in 1951). in his three years of varsity basketball, sunderlage played in 74 games while scoring 777 points for an average of 10.5 points per game. his teams would win 57 games while losing only 17 (win pct=77.0%).