Month: January 2022

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: No

Bob Sura’s freshman year was Florida State’s first year in the ACC.  They had been a pretty good program in the old Metro conference, but nobody expected much from them coming into the big, bad ACC.  The schedule didn’t do them any favors; their first ACC game was in Chapel Hill against fifth-ranked UNC, and to make matters worse, FSU was shorthanded, with Douglas Edwards suspended.  No problem.  All they did was breeze in and dominate the Tar Heels in the game that drew the infamous “wine-and-cheese crowd” comment from Sam Cassell.  Sura fit into that team perfectly. He had that Eminem swagger right from the start.  He had a tremendous year and was voted Rookie of the Year over James Forrest of Georgia Tech.

In 1993, everyone was back, and expectations were high.  The Seminoles didn’t disappoint, finishing 12-4 in the ACC and making a run to the Elite Eight, where they were destroyed by Jamal Mashburn and Kentucky.  You could see that kind of beatdown coming; they were one of those teams that tried to outscore you, and that only takes you so far, but it sure was fun to watch.  Sura, Edwards, and Cassell were all great, and all three made second team All-ACC.

That was the end of the glory days for the Pat Kennedy Seminoles.  The next year, Edwards and Cassell were gone, and the Seminoles fell all the way to 6-10 in the ACC.  But individually, Sura had a tremendous year as the focal point of the offense.  He was the third-leading vote getter behind Grant Hill and Randolph Childress for first team All-ACC.  In 1995, Sura’s scoring and FG% were down a bit.  You get the sense that the roster had been thinned out so much at that point that defenses were really able to key on him.  It was also the year of Stackhouse/Duncan/Smith/Wallace, and Sura found himself back on second team All-ACC.  He went on to have a fine NBA career.

Since 1993, there have been only 4 seasons in which an ACC player averaged 15+ points, 5+ rebounds, and 5+ assists.  Greivis Vasquez did it twice, in 2008 and 2009; Grant Hill did it in 1994; and Sura in 1995.

Sura, Julius Hodge, and Danny Ferry are the only ACC players with 2000 points, 700 rebounds, and 400 assists.

All-Time ACC Seven-Letter Name Team:

• Len Bias, Maryland
• Rick Fox, UNC
• Kyle Guy, UVa
• Sean May, UNC
• Doug Moe, UNC
• Bob Sura, FSU
• Joe Wolf, UNC

Random fact: there have been 64 players in ACC history who played 4,000+ career minutes.  Sura (and Duane Ferrell) had 3,999.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: No

This one surprised me.  I don’t remember thinking of Jon Scheyer as a great player while he was active.  Since then, I think my brain had subconsciously lumped him in with Steve Wojciechowski and Greg Paulus.  I certainly wasn’t looking for opportunities to heap further recognition on Krzyzewski-era Duke players; I’m as tired of hearing about them as anyone.  But I have to follow where my methods lead; and they lead me to the conclusion that Jon Scheyer deserves to be on this list.

First of all, let’s talk about the year he had in 2010.  He was the best player on the best team in the country – a national championship team, no less.  He was unanimous first team All-ACC.  He was runner up for ACC Player of the Year.  He was a named second team All-America by all the major services.  Like advanced metrics?  According to kenpom, Scheyer had the third highest offensive rating in the nation in 2010 among players who used at least 20% of their team’s possessions.  According to sports-reference.com, he led the nation in win shares.

OK, so he had a great year.  What else did he do?  Well, for one thing, he scored a lot of points.  Would you believe that Scheyer ranks 32nd in ACC history in career points?  He scored more career points than Shane Battier, Grant Hill, and John Lucas.  He is one of just six players (the others are Johnny Dawkins, Greivis Vasquez, Danny Ferry, Bob Sura, and Julius Hodge) with 2000 points, 500 rebounds, and 400 assists.  He was MVP of the ACC Tournament in 2009, when he had 29 in the final to lead Duke over Florida State. 

The biggest argument against him is that he wasn’t named All-ACC, not even third team, prior to his senior year.  And I admit, that’s pretty compelling.  There are going to be very few guys on this list who only made All-ACC once.  But I think he should have been on in 2009.  Gerald Henderson made first team and Kyle Singler second team, but Scheyer was the best offensive player on the team, looking at the advanced metrics.  He just didn’t score quite as many points as they did, and the leading scorers tend to be rewarded in All-ACC voting.  He should have been second team.  Keep in mind also that All-ACC voting happens before the ACC Tournament, which he was the MVP of, so that probably would have changed things too.

When you consider the total package – the great senior year, the national championship, the sneaky good junior year, the ACC Tournament MVP, the advanced metrics, and the impressive career totals – for me, it’s too much to ignore.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: No

Eric Montross is a difficult player to rank.  I always felt that he was overhyped.  A prized recruit from Indiana, he steadily improved through his first three years and had a great year for the 1993 national championship team.  Montross and George Lynch both made first team All-ACC, and they deserved it.  But nationally, Montross got the attention.  He made second team All-American along with Rodney Rogers, while Lynch made nothing.  Montross finished ahead of Rogers in Wooden Award voting.  He wasn’t better than Rodney Rogers on the best day of his life.

The hype train was at full speed heading into the 1994 season.  Montross was the top vote-getter on the preseason All-America team – ahead of Grant Hill, Glenn Robinson, and Jason Kidd.  Instead, he took a step backwards, averaging only 13.6 points and regressing significantly in FG% and FT%.  Late in the season, he had a stretch of nine ACC games in which he scored a total of 82 points.  When the votes were tallied, Montross wound up on second team All-ACC, finishing behind teammate Derrick Phelps and Clemson’s Sharone Wright in the voting, among others.

But nationally, the voters didn’t get the message.  Montross made second team AP All-America, first team (!) NABC All-America, and finished 9^th in Wooden Award voting.  It’s a perfect illustration of the difficulties with national voting, where votes are often cast based on reputation rather than performance.  I’m sure most of the voters take their responsibilities seriously, but their day jobs require them to focus locally.  It’s natural they won’t know players from across the country as well, and so they vote on reputation.

“It’s hard to say North Carolina center Eric Montross has had a bad season.  He’s second on the team in scoring at 13.7 points per game and first in rebounding at 8.1.  He’s hitting 54.3% of his shots.  OK, you can say he’s a bad free-throw shooter, courtesy of a 57.3% mark from the line, but that’s about it.  Still, it was more than a mite surprising to see Montross listed as one of the five finalists for the Naismith Award as college basketball’s player of the year.  It made you wonder if they’d been watching film of last year’s NCAA Tournament instead of this year’s games.  Admittedly Montross has battled some oppressive zone defenses, but he has not had an All-American year.  He hasn’t even been the best center in the ACC with Maryland’s Joe Smith emerging for that honor.  It makes you wonder if those nominations are by reputation only.” – Lynn Zinser, The Charlotte Observer, 3/5/1994

In Montross’ defense, the 1994 Tar Heels were not a good perimeter shooting team.  Donald Williams had a disappointing year, and there were some injuries in the backcourt.  Teams did collapse inside and challenge the Heels to make perimeter shots.  Montross’ offensive game lacked the variety to adjust to the way he was being defended.  Additionally, the team had chemistry problems which had nothing to do with Montross.  As the season went on, seniors Brian Reese and Kevin Salvadori found themselves sitting and watching freshmen Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace take more and more of their playing time.  It seemed to create a negative vibe.  The Heels still won the ACC Tournament and received a 1 seed, but somehow it wasn’t that big of a shock when they were upset by Boston College in the second round.

The other thing that happened to Montross in 1994 is that he simply got leapfrogged by younger, better players.  Joe Smith, Tim Duncan, even Cherokee Parks – these guys were more athletic and had more complete games than Montross.

But he was what he was – a two-time All-American and a first team All-ACC player who made huge contributions to a national championship team.  He deserves to be on the list.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: No

Tom Hammonds was a four-year starter for the Georgia Tech teams of the mid-1980s.  He was the bridge between the Mark Price/John Salley teams (Price and Salley were seniors when Hammonds was ACC Rookie of the Year in 1986) and the 1990 “Lethal Weapon 3” Final Four team.  Along with Danny Ferry, Hammonds was a unanimous 1989 All-ACC selection.  He even snuck onto NABC Third Team All-American.  He is one of 14 ACC players with 2000 career points and 800 rebounds (spoiler alert: all 14 are in the Top 100).

In Hammonds’ first ACC Tournament, the Jackets made a great run to the final, losing to Duke 68-67.  After that, Hammonds never won another ACC Tournament game.  And his NCAA Tournament experiences weren’t much better:

• 1986: #2 seed, upset by #11 LSU in the Sweet 16
• 1987: #7 seed, upset by #10 LSU (again!) in the first round
• 1988: #5 seed, upset by #13 Richmond in the second round
• 1989: #6 seed, upset by #11 Texas in the first round

The next year, when Hammonds was gone, the Jackets went to the Final Four.  But I don’t knock him for the tournament results.  He played well in his tournament games.  It was just one of those things.  The 1990 team took a step forward in spite of Hammonds’ departure, not because of it.  In fact, if Hammonds had been on that team, I think they would have been right up there with UNLV as the best team in the country.  As great as their perimeter players were, they were just too weak defensively on the interior.

It’s an interesting observation that of the Top 25 ACC players in career minutes played, six played for Bobby Cremins.  Mark Price, Travis Best, Matt Harpring, Hammonds, Brian Oliver, Bruce Dalrymple, Kenny Anderson – these guys just never came out of the game.  Kenny Anderson in his two years averaged 38.3 minutes per game, the highest career average I’m able to find.  I think it’s safe to say that Cremins didn’t have an equivalent of the Dean Smith “tired signal”… most of the rest of the career minutes played leaders played for Krzyzewski, where it’s more about sheer volume of games played, although he plays his guys a lot of minutes as well.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: No

Do you remember how good Walt Williams was?  He was the only reason to watch those early Gary Williams teams.  His 1992 season was truly incredible.  Only the greatness of Christian Laettner kept Williams from being ACC Player of the Year, and even then, he still got 23 votes.  Think about that – here’s a guy on a team that finished next-to-last in the ACC up against one of the greatest players in the history of college basketball – and 23 voters said Williams was better.  He just missed being first team All-America, finishing 6^th in AP voting.

On the year, Williams averaged 26.8 PPG, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists.  Try to find another season in which a major conference player averaged 25 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists.  I couldn’t.  And lest you think he piled up those points against inferior non-conference teams, he averaged 29.6 in ACC games.  In fact, he still holds the record for most points scored in a season in ACC games.  He had some absolutely monster games that year, including seven straight 30-point games against ACC teams and a 38-point, 14-rebound performance in the ACC Tournament opener against Clemson. And this wasn’t “volume scoring” – he shot 55% from two, 37% from three, and 76% from the line for a True Shooting Percentage of 59.5%.

But it wasn’t just that season.  He was playing at a very high level in 1991 when he broke his leg and missed most of the ACC season.  He probably would have been first team All-ACC had he stayed healthy.

There are a handful of Top 100 candidates whose career trajectories were affected by injuries.  JR Reid comes to mind.  Doug Moe missed a bunch of games as a junior, but that was due to academic problems.  Bobby Hurley missed some games as a junior, and maybe that kept him off first team All-ACC.  James Worthy, Sean May, and Elton Brand missed a lot of time early in their careers. But nobody was affected more than Williams. I thought a lot about how to handle that in compiling the list.  On the one hand, it doesn’t seem right to give a guy credit for games he didn’t play.  While I think he would have been All-ACC as a junior, the fact is that he wasn’t.

On the other hand, I feel like some sort of credit should be given for being a great player, even if circumstances prevent you from being in the lineup.  To borrow a line from Bill James, I’m not giving him credit for what he might have been; I’m giving him credit for what he was.  Walt Williams was a great player in 1991.  It’s too bad he didn’t get more opportunities to show it.

I would also argue that there is a hangover effect from that in terms of recognition.  Because Williams got hurt in 1991, he didn’t make All-anything.  And because he didn’t make All-anything, he wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen nationally going into 1992, and didn’t get the hype.  And there is no question but that preseason hype has a carryover effect in terms of getting end-of-season recognition.  So I’m suggesting that Williams’ injury in 1991 indirectly kept him from making first team All-American in 1992.

To support that point, here is the balloting for AP preseason All-America going into the 1992 season (65-member panel):

• Shaquille O’Neal – 64
• Christian Laettner – 61
• Jimmy Jackson – 52
• Calbert Cheaney – 23
• Lee Mayberry – 20
• Todd Day – 15
• Harold Miner – 14
• Alonzo Mourning – 14
• Allan Houston – 12
• Byron Houston – 11
• Clarence Weatherspoon – 7
• Terry Dehere, Bobby Hurley, Don MacLean, Malik Sealy – 6
• Walt Williams, Josh Grant, Chris Smith – 2

The eventual first team, in order of votes, was Laettner, O’Neal, Jackson, Miner, and Mourning; second team was Williams, Houston, MacLean, Anthony Peeler, and Adam Keefe.  I’m not taking away from how good Harold Miner was, but I think Walt Williams had a better year than he did.

Maybe I’m voting with my heart here instead of my head. Williams’ magical year was my senior year in high school, and I remember it fondly. But it’s my list, and I think Williams belongs on it.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Yes

I struggled with whether to put Tyler Zeller on the list.  What he has going for him is an outstanding senior year in 2012 in which he ran away with ACC Player of the Year and was an All-American, finishing eighth in the AP voting and making second team on all the major listings.  He was nearly as good as a junior in 2011, and with all due respect to Reggie Jackson of Boston College, probably should have made first team All-ACC.  Both the 2011 and 2012 Carolina teams were Top 10 teams, and Zeller was their best player.

What he doesn’t have going for him is that the ACC in 2012 was pretty weak.  Kenpom has them as the fifth-best conference that year, after the Big Ten, Big 12, Big East, and the SEC.  Zeller’s main competition for ACC Player of the Year was Virginia’s Mike Scott, a nice player but unlikely to be confused with Ralph Sampson.  I didn’t put Zeller or Kyle Guy on my early versions of this list, but after some reflection, I decided that I was probably being too hard on players from the 2010s.  Zeller is deserving.

The old cliché is that the elite programs don’t rebuild, they just reload, and that was certainly true of Roy Williams’ program at Carolina.  But reloading isn’t always as easy as it sounds; consider the 2010 Tar Heels.  The core four from the 2009 national championship team all departed, with Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green graduating and Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson leaving for the NBA.  The 2010 team was really starting over, with a combination of upperclassmen who had previously been role players and highly touted recruits who were unproven at the college level.  The result was a mess.  The upperclassmen – Deon Thompson, Will Graves, and Marcus Ginyard – just weren’t that good.  And the young players played like young players; nobody came in and made an immediate impact.  Roy kept changing the rotations, trying different combinations, desperate for something to work, but nothing ever did.  Zeller showed some promise early, but he got hurt and missed most of the ACC schedule.  The offseason was filled with more churn, as Ed Davis turned pro, Travis and David Wear transferred, and Graves left the program.

So there were lots of questions going into 2011, and the early season returns weren’t promising as the Tar Heels lost non-conference matchups to Minnesota, Vanderbilt, Illinois, and Texas.  After a dismal loss to Georgia Tech in mid-January, it seemed like they were on their way to another disappointing season.  But Roy finally found the right buttons to push, and the Heels reeled off 12 of 13, culminating with a blowout win at Duke in the regular season finale.  The core group was built around Zeller, surrounding him with Kendall Marshall, John Henson, Harrison Barnes, and Reggie Bullock. 

Amazingly, all five of them returned in 2012, and UNC was preseason #1.  They didn’t quite live up to that billing, but they had an outstanding year, going 14-2 in the ACC and advancing to the regional final.  Injuries really hurt that team; Tar Heel fans will remember, not without pain, that Roy played Stilman White in the regionals after Marshall broke a bone in his wrist, that on top of a season-ending injury to Dexter Strickland earlier in the year.  Had they stayed healthy, they had a great chance to make the Final Four.

So give Zeller some credit for that as well.  He had to deal with some real adversity in the program, and he led them back to the top, or very near it.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: No

George Karl was a three-year starter at point guard from 1971-1973.  Karl, Virginia’s Barry Parkhill, and Duke’s Gary Melchionni were the best players in the ACC class of 1973.  1972 was the Bob McAdoo year when the Tar Heels won the ACC regular season, ACC tournament, and made the Final Four.  But McAdoo, Dennis Wuycik, and Bill Chamberlain all departed, leaving Karl and Bobby Jones as the only experienced returning players in 1973.  Karl stepped up his play, averaging 17 points and 6 assists and leading the Tar Heels to a second place ACC finish and as high as #3 in the AP poll.  Karl finished third in All-ACC balloting behind David Thompson and Tom Burleson and ahead of other notables such as Jones, Parkhill, Tom McMillen, and Len Elmore.  By reputation, Karl was a scrapping, hustling, defending, dive-for-loose-balls, do-everything floor leader who earned his nickname The Kamikaze Kid.  I never saw him play, but he seems like the kind of player that your fans loved but other teams’ fans probably hated.

“Is George Karl really a Grade A, 100 per cent pure hot dog?  Lord knows, he looks like one on the court, racing around on those oak-stump legs with his socks pulled down and his sandy hair flying, diving for a steal, crashing into backboard supports, flying into the stands, raising clenched fists, dancing backwards on defense with his hands on his hips in what appears to be a taunting, Ali-like invitation to try to beat him.” – Ron Green, The Charlotte News, Feb 9, 1973

Reading Dean Smith’s autobiography, one thing that really struck me was how much he loved the 1971 team that won the NIT. For him, it seemed to be the team that epitomized what Carolina basketball was about – playing smart, hard, and together in a selfless way. Charlie Scott had graduated the year before, and the Tar Heels were expected to be down. Instead, behind Dennis Wuycik, Bill Chamberlain, Lee Dedmon, and Karl, they won the ACC regular season, lost a heartbreaker to South Carolina in the ACC Tournament final, and ran through the NIT.

Karl’s last ACC Tournament in 1973 was an interesting one.  Remember, at this time, only the ACC Tournament champion advanced to the NCAA Tournament.  #1 seed NC State was on probation and ineligible for the postseason, but they were still playing in the ACC Tournament.  So assuming the Wolfpack made it to the final (they did), the team that faced them would advance to the NCAAs, win or lose.  UNC and Maryland were far and away the best teams after the Wolfpack, and everyone expected them to meet in the semifinals to determine who would advance.  But last place Wake Forest, whom the Tar Heels had twice beaten handily in the regular season, upset UNC 54-52 in overtime in the first round, due in part to a critical late-game mistake by Karl.  About halfway through the overtime with the score tied at 52, UNC went into the four corners, intending to hold for the last shot.  But Karl took (and missed) the shot too soon, leaving Wake just enough time to go down and score the winning basket.  It was one of only two times in Dean Smith‘s 36-year career that the Tar Heels would lose an opening round ACC Tournament game as a one or a two seed (the other was in 1970).

If you were making out an UNC all-time greats 1^st/2^nd/3^rd team by position, who would the guards be?  OK, first team is pretty easy, Ford and Jordan.  Second team is Charlie Scott and probably Kenny Smith.  Who’s on third team?  I say Joseph Forte and George Karl.  Other possibilities: Tommy Kearns, Larry Brown, Rashad McCants, Raymond Felton, Ty Lawson, Ed Cota, Marcus Paige, Joel Berry II.  (Bob Lewis, Larry Miller, Jerry Stackhouse, and Vince Carter are considered forwards.)

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

I’m an unabashed fan of his. When I get into arguments with younger guys talking about backcourt guys I tell them, ‘Give me Molodet and you can have anybody else but Phil Ford.’ Give me the two of them, and I’ll beat everybody. — legendary North Carolina sportswriter Irwin Smallwood, as reported in Legends of N.C. State Basketball by Tim Peeler

As I was working on this list, one of my guardrails was trying to ensure that I had players ranked reasonably with respect to other players who played at the same time.  In a list of 100 players, it’s easy to lose sight of where Player A ranks relative to Player B who was contemporaneous with him.  In looking at it from that angle, I was surprised how often there were “clusters” of players who played at the same time and were very hard to differentiate.  The Class of 1956 provides a good example.

Vic Molodet of NC State, Joe Belmont and Ronnie Mayer of Duke, and Lefty Davis of Wake Forest were all part of the first class to play all three years in the ACC.  Ronnie Shavlik of NC State was in that class as well, but Shavlik was clearly a notch above the others and will be considered later.  But look at the records of Molodet, Belmont, Mayer, and Davis, and see if you can figure who was the best?

It’s complicated by the fact that this group belongs around the Top 100 cut line; my first inclination was to either put them all in or leave them all out.  But ultimately I think Molodet has a slight edge over the others, for three reasons.  First, he was the MVP of the ACC Tournament in 1956; second, he was the only player of the four to receive serious ACC Player of the Year consideration; and third, he was the only player of the four to ever be named to any All-America team (NABC Third Team, 1956).  It seems that the level he reached in 1956 was just a bit higher than the level reached by any of the other three.  It’s splitting hairs, but that’s what this list requires.

Molodet had tremendous floor speed, the kind of guard who would take advantage of the slightest relaxation after a made basket to push the ball up the floor before the defense could get set. Think of him as a 1950s version of Ty Lawson or Raymond Felton.

The wife of Vic Molodet, NC State basketball guard, was telling an interviewer how the Wolfpack conference title drive traced back to a secret squad meeting a month before season’s end.  “The boys,” quoth the noble missus, “vowed right then and there to quit smoking, late hours, and women… (pause)… wild, wild women, that is.”  — Burlington (Vermont) Daily News, March 15, 1956

2003 Top 50 List: Not Eligible

Dan Collins List: Not Eligible

Kyle Guy, as much as anyone on this list, is here because of his postseason accomplishments.  His regular season accomplishments and accolades alone wouldn’t be good enough.  He did make first team All-ACC twice, but both times he was the 5^th-leading vote getter and finished behind a number of other guys who won’t sniff this list.  But, he was Most Outstanding Player of both the ACC Tournament (in 2018) and the NCAA Tournament (in 2019).  Only six ACC players have won both those honors: Art Heyman, James Worthy, Christian Laettner, Shane Battier, Kyle Singler – and Kyle Guy.  I still thought hard about whether he should be here, and I’m not totally convinced.  I’m not sure he deserved the MOP from the 2019 tournament; he had some poor games along the way.  But he was money in the final.  Ultimately, I think it’s enough.

It’s probably a good time also to talk about the decade of the 2010s in ACC basketball.  I mentioned in the introduction that there would be less representation from that decade on the list. Let me elaborate on why.  There are three reasons, which I will list in order of importance:

1. The best players do not stay long enough to build up career accomplishments that are comparable to players from earlier eras.
2. The overall level of college basketball is down because so many of the best 19, 20, and 21 year-olds are in the NBA.
3. The quality of play in the ACC relative to other conferences has slipped in the 2010s.

Number 1 is self-evident to anyone who is paying attention. Players leaving early is not a new phenomenon, but the 2010s are really when the one-and-done or two-and-done became so prevalent.  Here are some of the players who could have accomplished, well, who knows what, had they stayed:

2011: Kyrie Irving (Fr.)

2012: Austin Rivers (Fr.), Harrison Barnes (So.)

2014: Jabari Parker (Fr.), T.J. Warren (So.), Tyler Ennis (Fr.), Rodney Hood (So.)

2015: Jahlil Okafor (Fr.), Terry Rozier (So.), Justise Winslow (Fr.), Tyus Jones (Fr.)

2016: Brandon Ingram (Fr.), Malik Beasley (Fr.)

2017: Luke Kennard (So.), John Collins (So.), Donovan Mitchell (So.), Dennis Smith (Fr.), Jayson Tatum (Fr.), Jonathan Isaac (Fr.), Dwayne Bacon (So.)

2018: Marvin Bagley (Fr.), Wendell Carter (Fr.), Josh Okogie (So.)

2019: Zion Williamson (Fr.), RJ Barrett (Fr.), De’Andre Hunter (So.), Coby White (Fr.)

2020: Vernon Carey (Fr.), Tre Jones (So.), Cole Anthony (Fr.)

2021: Matthew Hurt (So.), Justin Champagnie (So.), Scottie Barnes (Fr.), DJ Steward (Fr.), Day’Ron Sharpe (Fr.)

I am not the first person to make this observation, but this is really hurting college basketball.  The primary cause of the situation is clear – the NBA’s 2006 imposition of the 19-year old minimum for draft eligibility.  This rule, I would argue, is the worst possible one from the perspective of how it affects college basketball.  It would be better for college basketball to have one-and-done players skip college entirely, because it would create more program continuity.  Major college basketball programs have a roster identity crisis.  I’d be willing to give up the occasional Zion Williamson to have college basketball get back to some sense of continuity.

Of course, the NBA is looking out for its own interests, not the interests of college basketball, and not necessarily the interests of individual players.  In order to solve the problem, there has to be an alignment of interests among the different parties.  I’m not particularly hopeful that such an alignment is going to happen.  But it’s immensely frustrating, because there are obvious solutions to the problem.

I’ve always felt that baseball has it right.  Their rule is very simple.  If you want to turn pro out of high school, go right ahead.  If you choose to enter a four-year college, then you’re not eligible for the draft until you turn 21 or complete your junior year.  It’s good for the players, who have the freedom to turn pro out of high school if they want.  It’s good for the college programs because players have to stay for three years, so you get the continuity.

I’m not an expert on the business of basketball and NBA collective bargaining, so I don’t know how likely it is that solutions are on the horizon.  There has been some serious talk about the abolition of the 19-year old minimum.  This would drive some of the one-and-done players straight to the NBA, but it’s hard to know how many.

Duke has clearly built their entire recruiting approach around the one-and-done rule.  It will be interesting to see if Jon Scheyer continues that approach.

The second point is a different effect of the same cause.  It is that the overall level of competition in college basketball must be down in comparison with prior eras, for the simple reason that the best players of that age group are in the NBA.  As a result, we have to adjust our evaluation of modern college basketball players in comparison to players from earlier eras.

I’ve previously done a detailed study on this effect by creating hypothetical All-America teams based on a fictional scenario where every player goes to college and stays for four years.  But if you want a quick example, consider Tyler Hansbrough.  Hansbrough was a Consensus 2^nd Team All-American in his freshman season in 2006, which is very impressive.  However, let’s note the following players who were college age that year but were already playing in the NBA: Carmelo Anthony, Andrew Bogut, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Charlie Villanueva, Raymond Felton, Luol Deng, Dwight Howard, Andre Iguodala, Al Jefferson, Josh Smith, Chris Bosh, and LeBron James. Now – is anyone prepared to maintain, in the face of that list, that Tyler Hansbrough would have been an All-American, if even half of those players had been in college?

The third point is that, aside from all the effects of early departures and one-and-done, the ACC has slipped relative to other conferences.  There are several ways to look at this – kenpom conference rankings, conference RPIs, sports-reference.com Simple Ratings System – but however you look at it, the Big 10 and Big 12 were better than the ACC in the 2010s. 

So, without giving too much away, don’t expect to see a lot of players from the 2010s on the list. But Kyle Guy did just enough to make the cut.

I’ve been working on a project to rank the 100 best basketball players in ACC history. It started a couple of years ago with an idea. I thought it might be fun to create a Top 50 ranking. I emailed my friend Todd, who quite honestly knows more about ACC basketball than I do. We both created an initial list and then exchanged them, after which he started telling me which players I was wrong about, which was most of them… anyway, I put it aside for a while, but I’ve been working on it again. I decided to expand it out to the Top 100, I guess for two reasons. One, 100 is a nice round number; two, I’m not aware of any other ACC Top 100 list, so I feel like I’m blazing a trail.

I know of two other lists of Top ACC players in the public domain. In 2003, in celebration of the ACC’s 50th anniversary, the conference released a list (unordered) of the Top 50 players, as voted on by experts. Then, in 2013, Dan Collins, a sportswriter for the Winston-Salem Journal, wrote The ACC Basketball Book of Fame, which was also a catalog of the best players in ACC history (also unordered). Collins’ approach was different; he used a point system based on certain achievements (All-ACC, All-American, etc.), and did not deviate from it. He was not going for any particular number of players; I think he wound up with about 75.

I really like Collins’ book, and I recommend it if you’re interested in this topic. In many ways, it’s similar in concept to what I intend to do. But I wanted to take a crack at it myself, for a few reasons. One, I thought it would be fun. Two, I want to rank (order) the players. Three, time has passed since those two earlier efforts, and the list now will be different. Four, while I appreciated Collins’ approach based on a point system – I used a similar system as a starting point – my opinion is that a point system should be the beginning of the conversation, not the end. Ultimately, I wanted to make a subjective judgment and invite discussion and debate. And finally, I thought it might work well as a series of blog posts, rather than being released all at once. Selfishly, this approach also allows me to get started posting while I continue working on the list.

I have no special qualifications here. I’m not a sportswriter, or a player, or a coach. I’m just an ACC basketball fan who enjoys sports history and likes to make lists. My only qualification is that I’ve spent a lot of time considering the question of who the 100 greatest players are, and how they should rank. In fact, I doubt that anyone in the world has spent more time considering that particular question than I have. I’ve pored over their statistics, their accomplishments, and their accolades. I’ve changed my mind a thousand times, and I’m sure I’ll change it a few more before I’m done. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be done. With a list like this, you’re never more than 51% sure.

I won’t bore you too much with my methods, but I should say a few things. First, I relied heavily on awards, specifically All-ACC voting, All-American voting, the Everett Case award (MVP of the ACC Tournament), and any awards received during NCAA Tournament play. The reasons for this are obvious, I think; I haven’t seen all these players play, so what can I really go on, other than the opinions of their contemporaries, those whose job was to recognize the best players?

Having said that, I do not slavishly follow where the awards lead. Not every award is equal. I tried to look deeper – was the vote one-sided, or was it close? Who was the competition? Is there reason to believe that the vote was biased? For tournament awards, was it a truly memorable performance (think of Randolph Childress in the 1995 ACC Tournament), or was it more a case of “you have to pick someone”?

I also tried to consider the quality of ACC basketball in each player’s era. ACC basketball in 1954, 1974, 1994, and 2014 are not the same. There are several reasons for that. First and most important is the rise of players leaving early or skipping college entirely. This started to increase in the mid-1990s and is now the accepted way of things. There is no question but that this has negatively affected the quality of college basketball in general, not just the ACC. Prior to about 1995, the best 19-, 20- and 21-year old players in the world were playing college basketball. That is no longer the case. I think we have to make an adjustment for that. As a result, you’ll see relatively fewer players on my list from the 2000s, and even fewer from the 2010s.

In addition, the quality of ACC play relative to other conferences has not been constant over time. This is admittedly difficult to measure and requires some degree of subjectivity, but I think it’s true that the ACC was the best basketball conference in the country in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and probably the 2000s as well. The ACC was not the best basketball conference in the 1950s, 1960s, or the 2010s, and it certainly isn’t right now in 2022.

Another difference between eras is that players in the modern era have some advantages with respect to postseason accomplishments. Prior to 1975, you had to win the ACC Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament. So relatively few players had the opportunity to achieve greatness in the NCAAs. In the modern era, several ACC teams have won national championships who didn’t win the ACC Tournament. They get that opportunity. Players from that earlier era did not. That’s not their fault, so we have to take that into consideration when comparing players from different eras.

The other major consideration was how to balance peak value with career value (borrowing terms from Bill James). An example will make the difference clear. A player with a very high peak value is Zion Williamson. He was the best player in the country in 2019; you can’t get any higher than that. But he played only that one year. The opposite kind of player is Travis Best. Very good player for four years, one of only 42 players with 2000 career points, 13th all time in career assists, made All-ACC three times. But he was never considered one of the best players in the country, or even the ACC (he never finished higher than sixth in All-ACC balloting). So who ranks higher, Travis Best or Zion Williamson?

Ultimately this is a matter of opinion. You’ll have yours, and I have mine; but the decision can’t be avoided with a list like this. Zion Williamson is an extreme example, but there are several other one- and two-year players who accomplished a great deal in their short time, and there are several other players like Travis Best. Even with four-year players, there are some like Best whose accomplishments were steadily accumulated over time, while there are others (Josh Howard comes to mind) who had one great year. I think overall I leaned a little more towards valuing peak accomplishments over piling up career numbers, but you be the judge.

I tried not to consider NBA performance at all. This is about accomplishments while in the ACC, for obvious reasons. It’s harder than I thought it would be not to be influenced by NBA performance; when you stare at these lists as long as I have, you’re searching for something, anything you can use to differentiate these players, and their NBA performance can seem like a confirmation of what you believed to be true about them but couldn’t prove. (“See, I knew Buck Williams was better than his ACC record shows!”) But as much as I could, I tried to ignore everything but what happened while they played in the ACC.

With each player, I’ll provide a brief write up. Usually I’ll explain my thinking in ranking the player where I did. Sometimes I’ll use that player as a launching point for discussing some other question about ACC basketball that interests me. Sometimes I’ll share an anecdote or quote about the player. In terms of frequency, I’m thinking I’ll try to post one player per day. That would put me finishing around the end of April. But I may double up a few times and try to finish by the time the college basketball season is over.

It is absolutely my intent to spark debate and discussion about this list. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if that doesn’t happen. Please, tell me where you think I’m wrong, or share with me a memory about a player. The discussion is really the fun part. And if you know anyone else who loves ACC basketball, forward it to them and get them involved. And with that, let’s get started.