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Lewis played college basketball at Southern Methodist, As a freshman he wore No. 42 for Dave Bliss and broke into the Mustangs’ Southwest Conference rotation in 1982-83, appearing in 16 games with 3 starts while SMU finished 19-11 overall and 9-7 in league play for fourth place in the SWC.

In that 1982-83 season he averaged 8.7 minutes, 2.7 points, 1.2 rebounds, and 0.6 assists per game while shooting 33.9 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from the free throw line, and his season totals were 139 minutes, 20 field goals, 3 free throws, 19 rebounds, 10 assists, 9 turnovers, 2 blocks, 4 steals, and 43 points.

As a sophomore in 1983-84, Lewis moved into a full-time starting role and started all 33 games for an SMU team that went 25-8 overall and 12-4 in the SWC, finishing third in the conference and reaching the NCAA tournament.

He averaged 24.4 minutes, 7.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 2.3 assists that season while shooting 47.7 percent from the field and 73.5 percent at the line, and he finished with 806 minutes, 112 field goals, 36 free throws, 135 rebounds, 76 assists, 64 turnovers, 5 blocks, 20 steals, and 260 points.

That 1983-84 postseason run saw SMU enter the NCAA tournament as a No. 9 seed, beat Miami (Ohio) 83-69 in the opening round, and then push top-seeded Georgetown to a 37-36 loss in the second round in one of the lowest-scoring NCAA tournament games of the era.

Lewis remained a major piece of the rotation as a junior in 1984-85 and played in all 33 games with 2 starts for a Mustangs team that finished 23-10 overall and 10-6 in the SWC, good for second place in the conference and another NCAA tournament berth.

His junior-year numbers were 19.2 minutes, 5.6 points, 3.2 rebounds, and 0.9 assists per game with a 51.9 field-goal percentage and a 63.0 free-throw percentage, and his totals were 633 minutes, 83 field goals, 17 free throws, 104 rebounds, 30 assists, 30 turnovers, 1 block, 13 steals, and 183 points.

SMU opened 1984-85 with a 9-0 start, climbed as high as No. 2 in the AP poll during February, beat Old Dominion 85-68 in the first round of the NCAA tournament, and then fell 70-57 to Loyola Chicago in the second round.

By his senior season in 1985-86, Lewis had become the focal point of the offense and started all 29 games for SMU as the Mustangs went 18-11 overall and 10-6 in the SWC, finishing fourth in the conference before earning a place in the NIT.

He averaged 37.7 minutes, 18.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.2 assists per game that year while shooting 49.7 percent from the field and 76.1 percent from the foul line, and his season totals were 1,094 minutes, 235 field goals, 70 free throws, 155 rebounds, 34 assists, 54 turnovers, 10 blocks, 29 steals, and 540 points.

His 540 points in 1985-86 stand among the top single-season scoring totals in SMU history, and that season he earned first-team All-Southwest Conference honours while teammate Butch Moore made the second team.

Among his notable senior-year scoring efforts, Lewis had a game-high 23 points against Kansas in January 1986, scored 22 points in a 61-57 win over Baylor in February, scored 20 points in a 61-57 win over Texas Tech, and poured in 27 points in the NIT first-round loss to BYU.

Across four varsity seasons at SMU from 1982-83 through 1985-86, Lewis played 111 games and made 67 starts while the Mustangs compiled a combined 85-40 record, reached two NCAA tournaments and one NIT, and developed into one of the stronger SWC programs of the mid-1980s under Bliss.

His college career totals were 2,672 minutes, 450 field goals made on 927 attempts for 48.5 percent shooting, 126 free throws made on 176 attempts for 71.6 percent shooting, 413 rebounds, 150 assists, 66 steals, 18 blocks, 157 turnovers, and 1,026 points.

Those numbers gave him career averages of 24.1 minutes, 9.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.4 assists per game, and his 1,026 career points made him a 1,000-point scorer at SMU and kept him on the program’s all-time scoring list decades after his final season.

Lewis finished his Southern Methodist career as a senior leader on a roster that also included Terry Williams, Butch Moore, Scott Johnson, John Colborne, Johnny Fuller, Randy Jones, Glenn Puddy, Terry Thomas, Kato Armstrong, and Reginald Muhammad, and he left the program as an NBA draft pick when San Antonio selected him in the sixth round of the 1986 draft after his final college season.