 Tsioropoulos played college basketball at the University of Kentucky under legendary coach Adolph Rupp.As a sophomore in 1951, he was a member of Kentucky's NCAA Championship team, which defeated Kansas State 68-58 in the Championship game.In the fall of 1952, a point shaving scandal involving three Kentucky players (a fourth player, Bill Spivey, a teammate of Tsioropoulos on the 1951 National Championship team, was alleged to have been involved in the scandal but denied the charge) over a four-year period forced Kentucky to forfeit its upcoming season, which would have been the senior year for Tsiroropoulos and future Hall-of-Famers Frank Ramsey and Cliff Hagan.