Month: April 2022

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Dave Odom inherited a Wake Forest program that had been way down under Bob Staak.  But Staak did leave him a couple of good young players in Anthony Tucker and Hobbton High School’s own Chris King.  Odom promptly went out and recruited Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress, and he got things turned around quickly.

1991 was Rogers’ and Childress’ freshman year, and the Deacons improved markedly to go 19-11.  They made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1984, losing in the second round to a very good Alabama team.  They had almost everyone coming back in 1992.  It had the makings of a breakthrough year, but it wound up as a “what might have been” year.  Childress tore his ACL over the summer and missed the entire season.  Wake still had an OK year, but you know it could have been so much more with Childress.  Childress was back in 1993, and the Deacons did take a step forward, finishing 10-6 in the ACC and making the Sweet 16 on their way to a final ranking of 16.  In 1994, they added Tim Duncan, but Rogers was gone, leaving early for the NBA.  I would’ve paid to see a team with Rogers, Childress, and Duncan.

Rogers played three seasons in the ACC, during a time when the ACC was hands down the best conference in college basketball.  In fact, an ACC team won the national championship all three of those years.  His contemporaries included Christian Laettner, Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, George Lynch, Eric Montross, Bryant Stith, Walt Williams, Tom Gugliotta, Randolph Childress, and Sam Cassell.

It is my contention that Rogers is underrated. He wasn’t on the 2003 Top 50 list. That to me is an injustice. Here’s a guy who won ACC Player of the Year in 1993 over Bobby Hurley, in Hurley’s senior year (not to mention over Lynch, Montross, and Grant Hill).  Think of how easy it would have been for the voters to favor Hurley, not only because Hurley was really good, but also as a kind of lifetime achievement award for all that he and his teams had achieved in his four years.  And yet, Rogers won.  All-American was different, as Hurley was first team, Rogers second team (he finished sixth in the voting), but we’ve seen that movie before, haven’t we? I mean of course Bobby Hurley was going to be first team All-American, because all the voters had watched him win a couple of national championships. But the ACC sportswriters who watched them closely in 1993 said that Rogers was better. (Admittedly, the POY vote was very close. Rogers won 51-47, with Lynch and Montross getting 2 votes each.)

And it wasn’t just that year; Rogers was ACC Rookie of the Year as a freshman over Grant Hill; in fact he was named National Freshman of the Year by the USBWA. He made first team All-ACC as a sophomore.  Rogers and Horace Grant are the only two ACC players in the top 25 in career FG% who also led the league in scoring. Rogers is one of only 10 players to win both ACC Rookie and Player of the Year (Mike Gminski, Ralph Sampson, Michael Jordan, Dennis Scott, Joe Smith, Joseph Forte, Jahlil Okafor, Marvin Bagley, and Zion Williamson are the others).  He scored in double figures in 86 of his 89 career games and had nine points the other three times.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

It is difficult to overstate how bad Virginia was through the first 17 years of the ACC.  Here’s a quick rundown:

• Losing record in the ACC every year – 17-for-17
• 60-169 cumulative ACC record
• 22-123 record against the Big Four – 5-34 against Duke, 5-29 against Wake, 6-30 against UNC, 6-30 against NC State.  (It was 1976, UVa’s 23^rd year in the ACC, before they defeated each of the Big Four in the same season)
• 22 consecutive losses to Duke from 1959 to 1968
• 3-17 record in the ACC Tournament, never reached a final

But in 1971 things started to change.  The Cavaliers achieved a 15-11 overall record – their first winning record since 1954 – and notched wins over nationally ranked Duke and South Carolina during the regular season.  This set the stage for 1972, when Virginia finally broke through, going 21-7, 8-4 in the ACC, reaching the NIT, and achieving a Top 10 national ranking before finishing at #20.  How did the Cavaliers finally get over the hump?  The simple answer is Barry Parkhill.

Parkhill was the ACC’s leading scorer and became the first Virginia player to be named ACC Player of the Year.  He barely missed first team All-American.  In 1973, much of Parkhill’s supporting cast was gone, and he struggled at times, dropping to second team All-ACC.  But the Cavaliers’ biggest problem that year was having to play 7 games against NC State, Maryland, and North Carolina – three of the five best teams in the country.

Hoot Gibson coached one more year before giving way to Terry Holland.  It was 1979 before the Cavaliers had their second winning season in the ACC.  Then Ralph Sampson arrived and they were on their way.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: No

Elton Brand was another of the great “two-and-done” players in ACC history.  I’ve previously listed Jerry Stackhouse, Chris Paul, and Joseph Forte, and you can probably guess that Kenny Anderson and Joe Smith are still to come.  Brand won all the national player of the year awards as a sophomore.  What’s interesting about his career is that he flew under the radar a bit coming into that year.  He was great as a freshman, but he was on an incredible team and had to battle for playing time.  Then he broke his foot in December and missed 17 games.  As a result, he didn’t even make the ACC All-Freshman team.  But it was clear to anyone who was watching that Brand was a special talent. 

Sports Reference has a statistic called “Win Shares” which attempts to quantify the degree to which a player has contributed to his team’s wins.  Since they started computing this stat in 1995-96, there are only 3 10-Win Share seasons in the ACC:

• Tim Duncan, 1996-97
• Shane Battier, 2000-01
• Elton Brand, 1998-99

What are the greatest teams in ACC history to NOT win the national championship?  Sports Reference has a team rating system called the Simple Rating System (SRS) which uses margin of victory and strength of schedule to rate teams.  The following teams were #1 in the SRS ratings but failed to win it all.  I will rank those teams in order of quality (my opinion):

1. Duke, 1998-99 (37-2, 16-0)

This team was ridiculous.  Their top 6 players were Elton Brand (national POY), Trajan Langdon, Will Avery, Corey Maggette, Chris Carrawell, and Shane Battier.  They lost an early season game to Cincinnati and didn’t lose again until the national championship against UConn.  Had this team won that game, they would be remembered as one of the greatest teams in the history of college basketball.

2. UNC, 1983-84 (28-3, 14-0)

Starting lineup: Michael Jordan (national POY), Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Matt Doherty, Kenny Smith.  Yeah I’d say that’s pretty good… this team was ranked #1 wire to wire.  They lost a single regular season game to Arkansas.  But they slipped up and lost to Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals, then lost to an inferior Indiana team led by Steve Alford in the Sweet 16.

3. Duke, 1997-98 (32-4, 15-1)

Same top 6 players as the 1998-99 team, save replacing Corey Maggette with Roshown McLeod.  And throw in Steve Wojciechowski.  The record is slightly less impressive than the ’99 team; they were ranked #1 some of the year, but not all, and they got spanked a couple of times by UNC.  Lost a 2 point game to Kentucky in the regional final.

4. UNC, 1986-87 (32-4, 14-0)

Starting lineup: Kenny Smith, J.R. Reid, Joe Wolf, Jeff Lebo, Dave Popson.  Ranzino Smith, Steve Bucknall, Curtis Hunter, and Scott Williams off the bench.  After coasting through the regular season, lost to Vinny Del Negro and NC State in one of the biggest upsets in ACC Tournament history.  Then lost a close one to #10 Syracuse in the regional final. 

5. Duke, 2001-02 (31-4, 13-3)

Starting lineup: Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, Dahntay Jones, Chris Duhon.  Ranked #1 most of the season until losing a couple of games in late February.  Upset by Indiana in the Sweet 16.

6. Duke, 2003-04 (31-6, 13-3)

The starting lineup here was JJ Redick, Luol Deng, Daniel Ewing, Shelden Williams, and Chris Duhon.  They were ranked #1 for most of January, but lost a few down the stretch.  They lost an incredible ACC Tournament final to Maryland in overtime, then made the Final Four, where they lost to eventual champion UConn by a point.

7. UNC, 2006-07 (31-7, 11-5)

This was a very good team, but not a great one.  The starting lineup was Hansbrough, Brandan Wright, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, and Reyshawn Terry, with Danny Green off the bench.  They went 31-7 overall and were not ranked #1 for most of the season.  They stumbled a bit down the stretch, won the ACC Tournament, but lost in the regional final to Georgetown.

8. UNC, 1985-86 (28-6, 10-4)

Starting lineup: Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Steve Hale, Joe Wolf, Jeff Lebo/Dave Popson/Warren Martin.  This team started 21-0 and was #1 all year long, and then the wheels came off.  They lost 3 of their last 4 regular season games, lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament, then lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual champion Louisville.