Month: March 2022

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

This one is personal for me.  I grew up an NC State fan, and Rodney Monroe, Chris Corchiani, and Tom Gugliotta are the players I remember best.  I think many Wolfpack fans look back on this era with – not just with fondness, but something akin to reverence, out of proportion to the actual success these teams had.  In Monroe’s years, NC State didn’t win an ACC Tournament and didn’t make it past the Sweet 16.  I think there are a couple of reasons for the intensity of feeling that NC State fans have for this era.

One, these teams, and players, were exceedingly fun to watch.  They played an up tempo style, made shots, and scored a lot of points.  Corchiani and Monroe were a perfect pair – the fiery, tough, smart floor general Corchiani, and the cool, understated, sweet-shooting Monroe.

But the biggest reason is that looking back, NC State fans now understand that this was the end of an era.  Through 1991, NC State was one of the ten best programs in the history of college basketball.  Since 1991, they haven’t been one of the 50 best.  It’s almost as if when Monroe and Corchiani left the program, they took the excellence, the pride, and the history with them.

Of particular significance to fans, 1991 also marked the end of the era when NC State was on a similar level with Duke and North Carolina.  During Monroe and Corchiani’s careers, NC State went 8-10 against their biggest rivals.  Nobody owns Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski, but it was competitive.  When you played one of those teams at home, you expected to win.  No matter where you played them, you knew you were going to compete, and you didn’t worry about getting embarrassed.

Monroe as a player is one of the greatest scorers in ACC history.  He is the ACC’s fourth all-time leading scorer behind Tyler Hansbrough, JJ Redick, and Johnny Dawkins.  He trails only Hansbrough and Redick in career 20-point games.  He is sixth all-time in career 30-point games and is the only player from the last 45 years in the top six.  Only Len Chappell (50) and Dickie Hemric (49) scored more in an ACC game than Monroe’s 48 against Georgia Tech in 1991.  Monroe is third all-time in three-point FG%, shooting 43.6% for his career.  His 27 points per game in 1991 has not been reached by an ACC player since.

Monroe did better among ACC voters than he did nationally.  He was first team All-ACC in 1989 as a sophomore.  In his junior year, he barely missed, finishing sixth in the voting.  His performance didn’t dip at all; he probably lost some votes because the Wolfpack had a somewhat disappointing year in Jim Valvano’s last season.  As a senior, Monroe was named ACC Player of the Year over Kenny Anderson and Christian Laettner.  Anderson and Laettner did better in All-America voting, which is understandable; both of them had been to the Final Four the previous year, so they came into the year with a lot of hype, plus they were great players, of course.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

When I first started researching this project, one of the first things I looked at was the 2003 Top 50 list created by ACC area sportswriters.  The two omissions that surprised me most were Rod Griffin of Wake Forest and Bob Verga of Duke.

Verga’s case is simple. He was a three-time first team All-ACC, two-time All-American player who missed being ACC Player of the Year by two votes in 1967.  The only player with a comparable resume who isn’t in my Top 50 is Trajan Langdon, but I think Verga’s resume is stronger than Langdon’s.  Langdon was not a serious contender for ACC Player of the Year; Verga lost a 52-48 vote to Larry Miller of UNC.  Verga was unanimous first team All-ACC; Langdon was not.

The 1966 national championship game between UTEP and Kentucky is remembered for its racial storylines against the backdrop of the civil rights movement.  What’s isn’t as well-remembered is that Kentucky beat Duke in the semifinals to advance to that game.  Verga, who had been named the Most Outstanding Player of the East Region, was weakened by the flu and scored just four points.  Had Verga been healthy, there’s a good chance it would have been Duke playing the Miners instead.

There is an ongoing debate in “Duke circles” about whether Verga’s jersey should be retired.  I don’t have a strong opinion about it; for me, he is right around the cut line.  All the players whose jerseys are retired rank higher than Verga on my list, but if you were going to retire another, Verga or Elton Brand would be next in line for me.  (I don’t know if Brand has finished his degree; if not, he wouldn’t be eligible.)

2003 Top 50 List: Harpring Yes; Stith No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Bryant Stith and Matt Harpring are very, very similar.

• Both were outstanding as freshmen
• Both made first-team All-ACC three times (only 25 players have done that)
• Neither was ACC Player of the Year or came close
• Neither did well in All-America voting (Harpring was 3^rd team AP All-America in 1998, that’s it)
• Both piled up a ton of career stats – 2000+ points, 800+ rebounds
• Neither ever played on a really good team
• Both reached one ACC Tournament final and lost

These were players who flew under the radar screen nationally.  They never had a lot of hype.  They did better among ACC voters than national voters.  Just consistent excellence for four years.  Stith, in fact, is perhaps the most consistent player in ACC history.  Look at the stats for his last three seasons:

Season	School	Conf	G	FG%	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
1989-90	Virginia	ACC	32	0.481	0.777	6.9	1.7	1.3	0.3	1.9	2	20.8
1990-91	Virginia	ACC	33	0.471	0.791	6.2	1.2	1.5	0.6	2.5	2.5	19.8
1991-92	Virginia	ACC	33	0.452	0.815	6.6	2.2	1.2	0.4	2	2.4	20.7

Stith is fifth on the all-time ACC scoring list behind Tyler Hansbrough, JJ Redick, Johnny Dawkins, and Rodney Monroe.  Harpring fell three rebounds short of 1,000, just missing joining Tim Duncan, Ralph Sampson, Mike Gminski, Tyler Hansbrough, Len Chappell, Sam Perkins, Christian Laettner, Kyle Singler, and Danny Ferry in the 2,000 points/1,000 rebounds club.

Stith ended his career as a champion – of the NIT.  The 1992 Cavaliers won five straight games to win it.  Stith was named MVP.  Only four other ACC teams have won the NIT championship: UNC in 1971; Maryland in 1972; Virginia in 1980; and Wake Forest in 2000.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

The arrival of Jim Spanarkel in the 1976 season was the first step towards the late 1970s Duke surge under Bill Foster, culminating in an unexpected run to the national championship game in 1978.  Spanarkel was ACC Rookie of the Year as a freshman; second team All-ACC as a sophomore, narrowly missing first team; and first team All-ACC as a junior and senior.  Spanarkel was also Most Outstanding Player of the ACC Tournament as a junior. Spanarkel was a high school teammate of Mike O’Koren.

He was never the best player in the league, but he was a really good player for four years.  He scored over 2,000 points in his career.  He ranks ninth in career steals.  He shot 53% from the floor and 81% from the line.  He was a second team All-American as a senior.  He made huge contributions to great teams.  He’s one of the best players who wasn’t named to the 2003 ACC’s 50 Greatest Players Team.

Spanarkel’s numbers dropped significantly between his junior and senior years.  He went from 20.8 points/game to 15.9.  Why did this happen?  His FG% and FT% dropped a bit, but most of the drop was a result of fewer attempts.  Taking a closer look at the numbers, it wasn’t just Spanarkel; the whole Duke team slowed way down between 1978 and 1979:

	FGA/Game	FTA/game	Points/Game
1977-78	62.7	24.7	85.6
1978-79	55.0	22.1	71.9

Duke was an extreme example, but the same thing happened across the league. The league average went from 81 points/game to 75 points/game.  I don’t have an explanation for why this happened.  I’m not able to find a rule change that would have driven it.

The radical change in Duke’s numbers is even stranger.  Here you have a team that is coming off an incredible season, returning everybody, and their tempo changes dramatically the following year.  Maybe teams started playing slowdown against them.

About the only thing he will do for you is win. He’s not very fast or quick, can’t jump, and is not a very good shooter. But when the other team presses, we give him the ball. When we need a basket, we give him the ball. If we’re having trouble stopping a big man, we put him on that guy. If we’re having trouble with a guard, we put him on that guy. – Spanarkel’s high school coach, quoted in The Blue Divide by Johnny Moore and Art Chansky

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Dennis Scott’s 1990 season is one of the truly special, remarkable seasons in ACC history.  I was 15 at the time, and I remember just being in awe of what he was doing.  Looking back on it as an analyst rather than a fan, it still looks amazing.

When it comes to great scorers, you’re looking for two things.  You’re looking for guys who score a lot, and who score efficiently.  There are guys who score a lot because they take a lot of shots, and there are guys who score efficiently because they only shoot when they’re wide open under the basket.  But when you put them together, that’s a special scorer.

Scott in 1990 averaged 27.7 points per game, and his True Shooting Percentage was 59.3%.  To put that in context, I searched sports-reference.com for other seasons in college basketball where a player averaged 27+ points and had a True Shooting Percentage of 59% or above.  In the past 30 years for which they have data, there have been 14 such seasons.  The most notable are:

• 1993, JR Rider, UNLV, 29.1 PPG, 61.7 TS%
• 1995, Kurt Thomas, TCU, 28.9 PPG, 59.1 TS%
• 2006, Adam Morrison, Gonzaga, 28.1 PPG, 60.5 TS%
• 2009, Steph Curry, Davidson, 28.6 PPG, 60.4 TS%
• 2011, Jimmer Fredette, BYU, 28.9 PPG, 59.4 TS%

And it’s worth noting that none of those seasons, as great as they are, was compiled against the ACC of 1990.  Let’s list it again, but this time, I’ll include Scott’s season, and I’ll also include the team’s strength of schedule according to sports-reference:

• 1990, Dennis Scott, Georgia Tech, 27.7 PPG, 59.3 TS%, 14^th of 292
• 1993, JR Rider, UNLV, 29.1 PPG, 61.7 TS%, 47^th of 298
• 1995, Kurt Thomas, TCU, 28.9 PPG, 59.1 TS%, 132^nd of 302
• 2006, Adam Morrison, Gonzaga, 28.1 PPG, 60.5 TS%, 31^st of 326
• 2009, Steph Curry, Davidson, 28.6 PPG, 60.4 TS%, 69^th of 330
• 2011, Jimmer Fredette, BYU, 28.9 PPG, 59.4 TS%, 62^nd of 345

So when you consider everything – the volume of scoring, the efficiency of scoring, the strength of the competition –Dennis Scott’s 1990 season is one of the great scoring seasons in college basketball history.

Is there another season in the ACC to compare to it?  I think there are a few.  Here are the ones that stand out to me:

• 1962, Len Chappell, 30.1 PPG, 59.8 TS%, 34^th of 178
• 1966, Bob Lewis, 27.4 PPG, 59.8 TS%, 10^th of 181
• 1971, Charlie Davis, 26.5 PPG, 56.4 TS%, 13^th of 203
• 1975, David Thompson, 29.9 PPG, 57.5 TS%, 1^st of 234
• 1990, Dennis Scott, 27.7 PPG, 59.3 TS%, 14^th of 292
• 1991, Rodney Monroe, 27.0 PPG, 57.4 TS%, 23^rd of 295
• 1992, Walt Williams, 26.8 PPG, 59.5 TS%, 45^th of 298
• 2006, JJ Redick, 26.8 PPG, 63 TS%, 6^th of 326
• 2013, Erick Green, 25.0 PPG, 59.2 TS%, 49^th of 347

Looking at the list, I think the best seasons in addition to Scott are Chappell, Lewis, Thompson, and Redick, in no particular order.

That 1990 team was the famous “Lethal Weapon 3” Georgia Tech team with Scott, Kenny Anderson, and Brian Oliver that won the ACC Tournament and made it to the Final Four.  Scott had some monster games along the way, including 40 in the regional final against Minnesota to send the Jackets to the Final Four.  Everyone remembers how UNLV destroyed Duke in the final that year, but do you remember the semifinal?  Georgia Tech was not intimidated.  Scott had 20 in the first half, and the Jackets led 53-46.  In the second half, Stacey Augmon tightened the defense on Scott.  UNLV made an early run to grab the lead and went on to win by nine.

Scott wasn’t a one-year wonder either.  He was the ACC Rookie of the Year in 1988, and averaged 20 PPG in 1989, yet somehow failed to make All-ACC, finishing behind the likes of Steve Bucknall and Kevin Madden.  He is still all over the ACC record books.  Highest scoring average (27.7) in a season since David Thompson in 1975; most points (970) in a single season; most three-pointers (11) in a game; third in career three-pointers made (and in only three seasons), 351; 11^th in career three-point percentage (42.2%); most three-pointers (3.6) made per game, career; longest streak (69) of consecutive games with a three-pointer; second-most three-pointers in a season (137).  I mentioned in the Trajan Langdon post that Scott is, in my opinion, the greatest three-point shooter in ACC history.

I’m not sure Scott received the recognition he deserved nationally for his accomplishments.  He made second team All-American in 1990, which seems like an injustice considering how great a season he had.  Then again, when you look at who did make it, it’s hard to see who you would leave off.  The Sporting News named him their national player of the year.  He may have suffered from some vote splitting, considering how good Anderson and Oliver were.  And the timing of the vote probably hurt him as well; both the AP and UPI at the time voted before the conference tournaments.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Not eligible

If you want a shortcut way to identify the best players in ACC history, look for players who were consensus first or second team All-America more than once.  Those players, and there are 31 of them, are probably going to be in the top 50, and they’re going to include almost all of the top 25 or so.  Malcolm Brogdon is one of those 31 players.  After a lot of thought, I’m coming down on the side of Brogdon being a borderline top 50 player.  An outstanding player, but near the bottom of that list of 31 two-time All-Americans.  There is a lot to be said for him, and a little to be said against him, so let me try to lay it out.

Brogdon is unique in that his case is built largely on defensive value that is difficult to measure.  I don’t think he would be even a Top 100 player purely based on his numbers.  To support that, let’s do a blind comparison of Brogdon’s sophomore/junior/senior numbers with another guard who played at the same time, reordering their seasons to make the similarity more apparent:

Player 1	G	TS%	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PTS
Year 1	37	54.5%	5.4	2.7	1.2	0.1	1.4	12.7
Year 2	34	54.5%	3.9	2.4	0.7	0.4	1.7	14
Year 3	37	58.5%	4.1	3.1	0.9	0.2	1.4	18.2
Totals	108	55.8%	4.5	2.8	1	0.3	1.5	15

Player 2	G	TS%	Reb	Ast	Stl	Blk	TO	PTS
Year 1	34	53.7%	2.5	3.8	1.1	0.4	1.2	12.6
Year 2	38	57.0%	2.9	4.5	1.7	0.2	1.9	14.1
Year 3	34	59.2%	3.2	4.2	1.5	0.2	2.1	17.5
Totals	106	56.6%	2.9	4.2	1.5	0.3	1.8	14.7

Look closely.  Who would you rather have?  Player 1 is a better rebounder; player 2 is more of a playmaker.  Player 2 generated more steals.  Other than that, they’re about as even as you can get.  Again, they played in the same conference at the exact same time.

Player 1 is Brogdon.  Player 2 is Marcus Paige.  Marcus Paige was a good player, but I don’t think anyone is pleading his case as one of the 100 greatest players in ACC history.  Part of that is that Paige peaked as a sophomore and went downhill after that, which is why I put his seasons in a different order.  But my point is, there is essentially no difference between Brogdon and Paige purely on the basis of numbers.  Brogdon’s advantage is his (mostly unmeasurable) defense.

And unlike most good defensive guards, he didn’t generate a lot of steals, because that’s not the kind of defense that Virginia plays.  So how do we really know that Brogdon was a great defender?  Well, we know two things.  One, we know that Virginia was a great defensive team, and that is measurable.  So clearly someone on the Cavaliers was playing great defense.  And we know that observers consistently named Brogdon as an outstanding individual defender.  He was first team ACC All-Defense as a junior, and he was ACC and national Defensive Player of the Year as a senior.

At the risk of getting too nerdy, I will point out a couple of things about Brogdon’s NBA career, and what it can tell us about whether he is, in fact, a great defender.  The two most common ways of measuring individual defensive contributions are through box score stats and on/off analysis.  Box score stats are exactly what you would think – steals, blocks, defensive rebounds, things you can identify from a box score.  On/off analysis compares how the team plays defense when the player is on the court versus when the player is off the court.  If you look at NBA advanced metrics, Brogdon doesn’t show as a good defender in terms of box score stats, but he shows as an above-average defender in terms of on/off analysis.  This seems consistent with his college record – he really is a player who does things on defense that don’t show up in the box score but help the team win.

I have no reason to doubt that Brogdon was as good a defender as everybody said he was.  Heck, I watched him, and I thought he was great, too.  I’m just pointing out that aspect of his game is hard to measure and therefore quite subjective.

As for Brogdon’s All-America accolades, they aren’t quite as impressive as they look.  As a junior, he made second team AP, but he was 10^th in the voting, finishing just two points ahead of Buddy Hield.  As a senior, he made first team, but he was 5^th in the voting, just four points ahead of Jakob Poeltl.  So with just the slightest change in the voting, he could’ve been third team and second team, rather than second team and first team.

What does it all add up to?  Certainly a great player, worthy of consideration for the Top 50.  But I can’t get behind him as a Top 30-type player. 

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Yes

I know I say this a lot, but Kyle Singler is tough to rank.  There is a lot to be said both for and against his candidacy.

The case against Singler can be summed up by saying that there is nothing in his playing record that indicates that he was thought of by his contemporaries as an elite player.  He never finished higher than fourth in All-ACC balloting.  He never received support for ACC Player of the Year.  He was not a Consensus All-American.  He was a second team NABC All-American in 2011, but he wasn’t named by the other services, and to be honest, the NABC is the one I trust the least.  College basketball coaches don’t have time to figure out who the best players in the country are.

In All-ACC balloting, Singler routinely finished behind other players who aren’t on the list – Trevor Booker, Malcolm Delaney, Jordan Williams.  In fact, he finished behind Delaney in both 2010 and 2011, which raises the very valid question of why Singler is on the list but Delaney isn’t.  Singler wasn’t even the best player on Duke’s team according to voters; Gerald Henderson, Jon Scheyer, and Nolan Smith did better in All-ACC and All-America balloting in 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively. 

But he has a case.  He was ACC Rookie of the Year.  He was All-ACC all four years, one of only seven players to do that.  He was first team ACC All-Tournament three times, one of only thirteen players to do that.  He was named Most Outstanding Player of the 2010 ACC Tournament.  He led the 2010 team to the national championship and was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.  He played more minutes than any player in ACC history.  He is eighth among ACC players in career scoring all-time.  His teams won 125 games over four years.  He is, along with Christian Laettner, Danny Ferry, and Tim Duncan, one of four players in ACC history with 2,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 200 assists.

The real difficulty with Singler is distilling his individual accomplishments from the collective accomplishments of the teams he played on.  There is no doubt that Singler received a lot of opportunities that other players didn’t because he played on great teams with other great players; however, there is also no doubt that Singler made the most of those opportunities and helped Duke hang some banners as a result.

Gene Banks is a pretty good comp for Singler.  Excellent as a freshman, made All-ACC all four years, never considered the best player in the conference or an elite player nationally, played on really good teams with other really good players (Spanarkel, Gminski).  But I rate Singler higher because of his ACC and NCAA Tournament accolades.

I do have a nagging feeling that the deck is stacked a little too much in favor of the players from these elite programs.  Perhaps Trevor Booker was just as good as Kyle Singler.  Perhaps if we went back in time and Booker and Singler switched teams, we’d be talking about Booker right now as a Top 100 player.  We’ll never know.  We have to judge the players on what they did, not what they might have done had circumstances been different.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Not eligible

I’ll be honest, I have no idea what to do with Zion Williamson.  In terms of peak value, he’s probably one of the ten greatest players in ACC history.  In terms of career value, he’s probably not in the top 300.

One of the many things I learned from reading Bill James is that in sports, greatness is associated with uniqueness.  The greater a player is, the more unique he is.  Let me illustrate what I mean.  I’m going to give you statistical records of two players.  Pause for a minute and see if you can identify them.

Player 1	G	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Year 1	35	0.7	1.5	0.462	0.3	0.7	0.391	0.2	0.3	0.778	0.8	0.8	0.3	0	1.8
Year 2	35	2.7	6.2	0.431	1.2	3.4	0.347	1.6	2.2	0.724	2.9	2.4	1.1	0.1	8.1
Year 3	33	3.6	7.2	0.506	2	4	0.496	1.2	1.7	0.719	4.8	2.7	1.2	0.1	10.5
Year 4	32	4.3	10	0.425	2.4	6.1	0.395	1.8	2.5	0.709	4.3	4.2	1	0	12.7
Career	135	2.8	6.1	0.452	1.4	3.5	0.412	1.2	1.6	0.719	3.2	2.5	0.9	0.1	8.1

Player 2	G	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	PTS
Year 1	33	4.5	10.9	0.413	2.9	7.2	0.399	3.1	3.4	0.919	2.5	2	1.2	0.1	15
Year 2	37	4.6	11	0.423	2.8	7	0.395	3.9	4.1	0.953	3.1	1.6	0.7	0.1	15.9
Year 3	33	6.1	15	0.408	3.7	9.1	0.403	5.9	6.3	0.938	3.3	2.6	1.1	0.1	21.8
Year 4	36	8.4	17.9	0.47	3.9	9.2	0.421	6.1	7.1	0.863	2	2.6	1.4	0.1	26.8
Career	139	5.9	13.7	0.433	3.3	8.1	0.406	4.8	5.2	0.912	2.7	2.2	1.1	0.1	19.9

I’m guessing that no one was able to identify Player 1 as Dante Calabria.  Why?  Because it would be fairly easy to find 20 other players with similar statistical profiles.  There is nothing that stands out.  On the other hand, I’m guessing that many ACC fans would be able to identify Player 2 as JJ Redick. 

I say all that to say, Zion Williamson is perhaps the most unique (with apologies for that ungrammatical construction) player in college basketball history.  Who are you going to compare him to?  His stats are unique.  His game is unique.  He’s a uniquely gifted athlete.

Here’s another way I like to think about it in terms of a thought exercise: suppose a wizard cast a spell on you that impaired your vision such that every player on the court looked like a silhouette.  Whom would you be able to recognize?  I suggest that you would be able to recognize the all-time greats instantly.  Jordan, Magic, Bird, Ewing, Olajuwon, Shaq, Barkley, Kobe… after 30 seconds, you would know them by their silhouettes.  Well, Zion is like that.  His silhouette would be instantly recognizable.

He is one of the three greatest freshmen in the history of college basketball; only Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis are at his level.  In his one year at Duke, he accomplished everything it’s possible to accomplish, except win a national championship.  He was ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, unanimous All-American, and National Player of the Year – and only the eighth player in ACC history to accomplish all of those in the same season (Heyman, Laettner, Jamison, Brand, Battier, Redick, Hansbrough).

He’s the only one-and-done player on the list.  I am not generally seeking to reward or recognize Duke’s one-and-done players for their contributions; honestly I can’t keep track of them all.  But I felt that I had to recognize the greatness, and the uniqueness, of Williamson.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Al Wood was a consistent, solid-as-a-rock player for the North Carolina teams from 1978 through 1981.  He was the best player on the 1981 team (although James Worthy and Sam Perkins didn’t hurt, either) that won the ACC Tournament and advanced all the way to the national championship game before losing to Indiana.

Wood was a player who steadily, quietly accumulated numbers and accomplishments with one good year after another.  He averaged 18, 19, and 18 points per game in 1979-1981.  He was named first team All-ACC in 1979, second team in 1980, and first team again in 1981.  He is fifth on UNC’s all-time scoring list behind Tyler Hansbrough, Phil Ford, Sam Perkins, and Lennie Rosenbluth.

Wood was named second team AP All-America as a senior.  From the statistical record, it’s not entirely clear that he was better as a senior than he was as a sophomore or a junior.  But sometimes that happens; a senior who has been good for a long time will be rewarded by the voters, as a kind of Lifetime Achievement Award.

Without a doubt, the pinnacle of Wood’s career was his 39-point, 10-rebound, no turnover performance against Virginia in the 1981 Final Four.  The Tar Heels had been swept by the Cavaliers in the regular season, but Wood made sure there wasn’t going to be a hat trick.  He still holds the NCAA record for most points scored in a national semifinal.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Yes

I watched Julius Hodge for four years, and I never quite figured him out.  It didn’t seem like he did anything great, but at the end of the game you’d look up and he had 22 points.  He was a very versatile player, one of those guys who could do a little bit of everything.  Need to get to the rim?  He could do that.  Need a midrange jumper?  He could do that.  Need a three?  He could do that.  Need a rebound?  He could get it.  Need an assist?  He could dish it.  Need a steal or a block?  He could do that too.  He wasn’t great at any of those things, mind you, but he was adequate to good, and somehow the combination of all of it was exponential.

He was great at one thing, and that was getting to the line. I have a theory, totally untested, that getting to the line a lot is a skill that often doesn’t translate well from college to the NBA, because of the differences in officiating.  Julius Hodge, Tyler Hansbrough, Troy Bell… be wary of the player whose offensive value in college is highly dependent on free throw attempts.

Because he did so many things well, you could make lots of career totals lists that would make him look better than he actually was.  Here’s a silly one: Hodge is the only player in ACC history with 2,000 points, 700 rebounds, 400 assists, and 80 blocks.

Through his junior year, he was on a track with some of the all-time greats.  He was first team All-ACC as a sophomore and ACC Player of the Year as a junior.  He made second team All-America as a junior and didn’t miss first team by all that much.  Had he repeated as Player of the Year, we’d be talking about a Top 20 player here.  But his senior year just got weird.  He was still a good driver/slasher, but his shooting tanked.  He was never a great three-point shooter, but his percentage went from 36% to 26%.  His free throw shooting went from 83% to 67%.  How does that happen?  On the other hand, his assists went way up and his turnovers went way down, so his floor game improved.  NC State had a disappointing season as a team, and Hodge wound up dropping to second team All-ACC.  Then the Wolfpack made an unexpected run to the Sweet 16 before losing to Wisconsin.  It was a confusing season for a hard-to-figure out player.

How many players have won ACC POY as an underclassman, then come back the next season?  And how did they do?  Here is the list.

There have been 19 occasions when an underclassman won ACC Player of the Year and then returned the next season.  12 times, he won again.  Of the seven who didn’t, four at least made first team All-ACC (John Roche 1971, Rod Griffin 1978, Mike Gminski 1980, Tyler Hansbrough 2009).  The three who didn’t make first team All-ACC the next year are Hodge 2005, Albert King 1981, and Barry Parkhill 1973.

Year	Player	Next Year
1954	Dickie Hemric, Wake Forest	Won again
1961	Len Chappell, Wake Forest	Won again
1967	Larry Miller, UNC	Won again
1969	John Roche, South Carolina	Won again
1970	John Roche, South Carolina	Finished second
1972	Barry Parkhill, Virginia	Second team All-ACC
1973	David Thompson, NC State	Won again
1974	David Thompson, NC State	Won again
1977	Rod Griffin, Wake Forest	Finished second
1979	Mike Gminski, Duke	First team All-ACC
1980	Albert King, Maryland	Second team All-ACC
1981	Ralph Sampson, Virginia	Won again
1982	Ralph Sampson, Virginia	Won again
1985	Len Bias, Maryland	Won again
1988	Danny Ferry, Duke	Won again
1996	Tim Duncan, Wake Forest	Won again
2004	Julius Hodge, NC State	Second team All-ACC
2005	JJ Redick, Duke	Won again
2008	Tyler Hansbrough, UNC	Finished third