Bilas was a consensus Top 50 recruit at
Rolling Hills High School, in
Rolling Hills Estates, California, where he averaged 23.5 points and 13.5 rebounds per game in 1982. That season, Bilas was named First Team All-CIF, First Team All-South Bay, MVP of the Bay League, and Best in the West by the
Long Beach Press-Telegram. Bilas was a four-year starter for
Mike Krzyzewski at
Duke University, on the
men's basketball team, from 1982 to 1986, and helped lead Duke to the
Final Four and National Championship game
in 1986. Krzyzewski's 1982 recruiting class of Bilas,
Johnny Dawkins,
Mark Alarie and
David Henderson still ranks as the highest scoring single class in
college basketball history. In his college career, Bilas scored 1,062 points and grabbed 692 rebounds, while shooting over 55% from the field. In 1985, Bilas represented
USA Basketball, on the U.S. National Select Team, in the
Jones Cup in Taipei, Taiwan. Bilas graduated in 1986, with a degree in political science, and was selected in the fifth round of the
1986 NBA draft by the
Dallas Mavericks but never played for them because he chose to play professionally in Europe (Italy and Spain) for a few years, where he earned substantially more money than he would have in the NBA at that time. He played professionally overseas in
Italy's 2nd Division and in
Spain's 1st Division. ==Coaching career==