3. Christian Laettner, Duke, 1989-1992

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Christian Laettner. For me personally, I don’t think there’s any ACC player who conjures up as many powerful memories. His time at Duke corresponded exactly with my high school years, the time when my interest in ACC basketball was at its highest. For me he was a kind of basketball version of Ric Flair – the villain you love to hate. For whatever reason, what sticks out to me most with Laettner, besides the Kentucky shot I guess, is how he suddenly started shooting threes as a senior – and proceeded to knock down 56% of them. That season still ranks 13th all-time in NCAA Division I for three-point shooting percentage. He seems like the kind of guy who could pick up a bowling ball for the first time and roll a 300. He made everything look easy.

Any consideration of Laettner’s greatness has to deal with the question of how much weight to put on his NCAA Tournament performance.  Laettner is right up there with Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson, Lew Alcindor, and Bill Walton as the greatest March Madness performers ever.  He played in four Final Fours and three championship games, winning two.  His overall record in NCAA Tournament play was 21-2.  He is the tournament’s all-time leading scorer.  He was Most Outstanding Player of his region twice, and of the tournament once.  He won two tournament games on buzzer beaters.  He had the famous “perfect game” against Kentucky when he went 10-for-10 from the field and 10-for-10 from the line.  He had an incredible individual performance in 1991, leading the Blue Devils to a Final Four win over UNLV who had manhandled them the year before.  For his career, he shot over 60% from the field and 85% from the line in the NCAA Tournament.  I could go on.

One way I thought of looking at it is this.  Let’s pretend for a moment that Laettner had never played in the NCAA Tournament.  Where would he rank then?  My thinking is, he’d be somewhere in the mid-teens, maybe in the Johnny Dawkins/Danny Ferry range.  He was ACC and national player of the year as a senior, so that obviously counts for a lot.  As a junior, though, he was “only” second team All-America, and he didn’t win ACC POY either as that went to Rodney Monroe.  As a sophomore, he finished seventh in All-ACC voting, landing on second team.  It’s a pretty similar record to a Bias, Ferry, or Dawkins. Of course, one could argue that he was national player of the year precisely because of his NCAA Tournament performance – that his reputation was bolstered so much by his tournament exploits in 1990 and 1991 that it carried over into the voting in 1992.

So how much extra credit does he get for being the greatest NCAA Tournament performer of all time?  Well, a lot.  I started out with him fourth, behind Thompson, Sampson, and Duncan.  I still think in my heart of hearts that Duncan was better, but… there’s just too much there.  I have to put Laettner ahead.  Now I’m asking myself if he should be ahead of Sampson. I guess that’s going too far; Sampson wasn’t bad in the tournament, and he wasn’t playing with Bobby Hurley either.

Here’s a fun stat.  Laettner played in four regional finals.  Those are pretty big games, right?  I mean aside from winning the championship, making the Final Four is the most impactful and meaningful and memorable thing that a college basketball team can accomplish.  Well, in those four games, Laettner averaged 24.3 points on 91% from the field and 92% from the line, and won two of the games with buzzer beaters.  That’s not a typo – 91% from the field in those four games.

Laettner’s NCAA Tournament records of 23 games played and 407 total points seem unbreakable. 23 games is almost literally unbreakable; 24 games is the maximum possible over four years (excepting the dreaded play-in games) unless the tournament expands. And anyone good enough to score 407 points would never stay four years now. So I think Laettner’s record will stand forever.