Cal Golden Bears basketball legend Gene Ransom fatally shot on I-880

Gene Ransom, a California college basketball Hall of Famer, was shot and killed while driving on a freeway, police said. He was 65.

Ransom was heading north on Interstate 880 in Oakland when his car crashed into the guardrail Friday night just after 5 p.m., prompting an investigation.

California Highway Patrol quickly determined that Ransom, a renowned point guard for the University of California at Berkley’s Golden Bears in the late 1970s, had been shot, according to KPIX.

By Saturday morning, a San Francisco man was in custody for Ransom’s killing.

Juan Angel Garcia, 25, was arrested around 10 a.m., the California Highway Patrol said. The motive for the shooting is under investigation, ABC7’s Bay Area affiliate reported.

The 5-foot-9 Ransom scored at least 30 points in a game multiple times for the Golden Bears, led the team in assists during his three seasons there and once, in 1977, played 63.5 minutes and scored 36 points in a five-overtime win over Oregon, according to Sports Illustrated.

“He did things at his size that other guys couldn’t do,” former teammate Ruppert Jones told SI. “He was able to compete with players much larger than him because had the ability to create space. He was a great ballhandler, he could shoot and he was fearless.”

Ransom’s death is one of several freeway shootings plaguing the area: last month, a sheriff’s recruit was shot and killed driving home from the police academy and in November two people, including a toddler, were killed while traveling on the freeway, KPIX reported.