2003 Top 50 List: Yes
Dan Collins List: Yes
Dickie Hemric was ACC Player of the Year in the first two years of the league. If you count his freshman and sophomore seasons when Wake was in the Southern Conference, his career total of 2,587 points is surpassed only by JJ Redick and Tyler Hansbrough, who played way more games than Hemric. When he graduated, he was the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer until Oscar Robertson broke his record in 1960.
Hemric holds a lot of records:
- ACC – most rebounds in a game, 36
- ACC – most free throw attempts in a season, 403 (fifth-most in NCAA history)
- NCAA – second (to Tyler Hansbrough) in career free throws made, 905
- NCAA – most career free throws attempted, 1359
- NCAA – fifth in career rebounds with 1802
Hemric as a senior averaged 19.1 rebounds per game, and 14.9 free throw attempts per game. These are mind-boggling numbers.
Maybe I have Hemric too low. He’s one of only ten players to win multiple ACC Player of the Year awards. He certainly has a case as a top 20 player. The reasons I don’t have him that high are:
- His eye-popping numbers were to some extent a product of the time and the conditions of the game
- He wasn’t a first team All-American (third team and second team)
- While he did win ACC POY twice, he didn’t run away with it, failing to get a majority both times
Did you ever wonder how guys from the 1950s and 1960s got so many rebounds? I think it comes down to two things, or maybe three depending on how you count. 1a and 1b are easy to quantify and support with data; #2 is just my theory.
- There were more missed shots. More missed shots = more rebounds.
- Teams played at a faster tempo, so there were more shots.
- Teams shot a lower percentage, so they missed more of the shots they took.
- Shots were generally closer to the basket than they are today, which means fewer long rebounds. Short rebounds tend to go to the big men; long rebounds are distributed more randomly.
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