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.