The Press Break College Basketball 101: The Prologue
I love rankings and I love lists. Had I kept any of my spiral notebooks from high school or college, I could show you pages upon pages of lists and rankings scrawled of everything from my all-time favorite films, sorted by year or genre; to what I considered the greatest wrestling matches of all-time; and breakdowns of the best athletes in my most closely followed sports.
Of these, sharing a top 1001 college basketball players of all-time ranking has long been a goal of mine. How best to put such a compilation together, however, held me back.
Let’s start with a hard reality, and perhaps the primary reason I kicked this topic around for years without following through: Rankings are inherently subjective and thus open to (oftentimes harsh) criticism.
Yes, you can apply as much objective criteria as possible, but even determining what objective data to apply and how it should be weighted is itself subjective.
For example, I devised a methodology to reach the selections for The Press Break College Basketball 101 that awarded players points based on major individual awards (National Player of the Year, conference Player of the Year, All-American selections, NCAA All-Regional and All-Tournament); all-time rankings in major statistical categories; and team success like conference titles, national championships and Final Four appearances.
Of course, the evolution of the NCAA Tournament2 since its inception in 1939 and accelerating in the mid-1970s further complicates matters. Is it fair to stack up the national championships Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won at UCLA evenly with say, Christian Laettner’s repeat at Duke in a 64-team field?
And, because the NCAA Tournament has become such a central part of college basketball’s identity since the postseason’s metamorphosis into March Madness, it’s necessary to give particular weight to Tournament appearances of the modern era in order to truly reflect a player’s impact on the history of the game.
Ultimately, the purpose of The Press Break College Basketball 101 is a celebration of the sport’s history. Acknowledging long-lasting impact is a cornerstone of this idea, and “impact” is a subjective measure.
How one interprets impact will vary based on their perspectives, and that’s OK. Really, it’s better than OK! It’s awesome and makes discussing sports fun.
No two such rankings like this are going to look exactly alike, and that’s a good thing. I hope following The Press Break College Basketball 101 inspires friendly conversation about the game’s history.
No. 101 drops on Monday, June 19. Subscribe before then to receive the complete Press Break College Basketball 101 right from the jump.
Before the first installment, allow me to share a few dozen of the names up for consideration that did not quite make the final cut. Some noteworthy shoutouts are bolded.
***
Mike Bibby, Arizona
Sidney Moncrief, Arkansas
Bonzi Wells, Ball State
The two-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Year averaged north of 22 points per game 3-of-4 seasons at Ball State, 7.3 rebounds a game for his career, and was an elite on-ball defender with three steals per game over 116 games.
He was arguably the preeminent player of an era in which the MAC produced some top-flight performers (spoiler: Expect to see a dive into ‘90s MAC basketball in the not-distant future here at The Press Break).
Troy Bell, Boston College
Gene Melchiorre, Bradley
Danny Ainge, BYU
Jason Kidd, Cal
Paul Hogue, Cincinnati
Nick Van Exel, Cincinnati
Terry Cummings, DePaul
Danny Ferry, Duke
Shane Battier, Duke
One of the more difficult exclusions, both in terms of awards he earned (various 2001 National Player of the Year honors, national championship winner) and for his media presence. Shane Battier was a considerably more toned-down precursor to college football’s Tebowmania a few years later — and he was also the second-best player on an outstanding Duke team, as we’ll explore in The Press Break College Basketball 101.
Joakim Noah, Florida
Frank Selvy, Furman
The Furman guard highlighted an All-American 1953-54 campaign with the only 100-point game at what would today be considered Div. I level.
Dennis Scott, Georgia Tech
Clyde Drexler, Houston
JoJo White, Kansas
Nick Collison, Kansas
Frank Mason III, Kansas
Bob Boozer, Kansas State
Mitch Richmond, Kansas State
An All-American in 1988, Mitch Richmond averaged almost 23 points per game and was an NCAA All-Regional selection for a K-State team that very nearly derailed Danny & The Miracles in the Elite 8.
Ralph Beard, Kentucky
Alex Groza, Kentucky
Jamal Mashburn, Kentucky
Len Bias, Maryland
Julius Erving, UMass
Rick Barry, Miami
Wally Szczerbiak, Miami (OH)
Jalen Rose, Michigan
Greg Kelser, Michigan State
Mateen Cleaves, Michigan State
Mychael Thompson, Minnesota
George Glamack, North Carolina
A two-time Helms Foundation Player of the Year in the brief pre-War era after inception of the NCAA Tournament.
James Worthy, North Carolina
Tom Burleson, NC State
Gary Bradds, Ohio State
Jim Jackson, Ohio State
Evan Turner, Ohio State
An irony of the social-media age, in which instant reaction captures thousands (even millions) as prisoners of the moment, is that the constant quest for the Next Big Thing prevents the Last Big Thing from really sinking in. Evan Turner was perhaps the first great player of the social-media age, routinely flirting with triple-doubles and averaging 20/9/6 for the season, yet his 2009-2010 rarely comes up any more.
Stacey King, Oklahoma
Bryant Reeves, Oklahoma State
Gary Payton, Oregon State
Ernie DiGregorio, Providence
Steve Nash, Santa Clara
Walter Dukes, Seton Hall
The Seton Hall big man averaged 26.1 points and 22.2 rebounds per game for the Pirates in 1953, the peak of a career in which he posted better than 19 points and 19 rebounds a contest.
Walter Berry, St. John’s
Dave Bing, Syracuse
Derrick Coleman, Syracuse
T.J. Ford, Texas
Acie Law IV, Texas A&m
Kurt Thomas, TCU
Led the nation in both scoring (28.9 points per game) and rebounding (14.6 points per game) in the same 1994-95 campaign. TCU having never made the NCAA Tournament in his tenure with the Horned Frogs kept Kurt Thomas off the 101.
Walt Hazzard, UCLA
Gail Goodrich, UCLA
Keith Van Horn, Utah
Harold Miner, USC
“Hot” Rod Hundley, West Virginia
Fennis Dembo, Wyoming
The final product is actually 101.
The Tournament is my baseline starting point for which players to include in this ranking so as to avoid wrestling with how to rank players from before 1939 like Paul Endacott or Gilmore Kinney. Even some of the early NCAA Tournament players were difficult to accurately evaluate due to limited available information and context, as college basketball really exploded as a national sport with extensive coverage post-World War II.