2003 Top 50 List: No
Dan Collins List: Yes
Gene Banks should write a memoir. He saw a little bit of everything in his career – times of success and triumph, times of disappointment and frustration, and everything in between. He personally went through a full hype cycle, from the overhyped beginning, to the disillusioned middle, to the persevering end. He was there for the regime change that brought in Mike Krzyzewski, which continues to grow in historic significance, 40-plus years later. Through it all, Banks was there putting up great numbers, game after game.
He was the last piece to the puzzle in Bill Foster’s resurrection of the Duke program. Mike Gminski and Jim Spanarkel were already there, but it was Banks’ arrival in 1978 that provided the spark they needed to ignite that magical season that has been so much written about. Banks had about as good a freshman year as you can have, finishing as ACC Rookie of the Year, finishing sixth in All-ACC balloting, and helping drive the Blue Devils to the ACC Tournament Title and the national final.
Then came the 1979 season, in which the Blue Devils found out that it’s easier to be the hunter than the hunted. I’ll have more to say about that when I write about Spanarkel and Gminski. Banks suffered a bit from the overall malaise that affected Duke’s team, but he still put together a fine year, finishing seventh in All-ACC balloting.
Duke’s 1980 season could be a book in itself. The Blue Devils started out 12-0 and ranked #1 in the country but stumbled badly in ACC play, only to pull it together to win the ACC Tournament and beat fourth-ranked Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament (at Rupp Arena nonetheless) before losing in the regional final to Purdue. The ACC that year was probably as balanced as it has ever been; the top six teams were all about the same, and if you had played the season six times, you might’ve had six different champions. Those six teams’ best players were the top six vote-getters in All-ACC balloting. Banks, steady as ever, finished seventh.
Then Foster left, and Banks had to adjust to Coach K in his senior year. Without Spanarkel and Gminski, Banks and Vince Taylor were the focal point of the offense. It wasn’t a storybook season; the Blue Devils finished 17-11 (6-8). But Banks finally cracked first team All-ACC, finishing 23 points ahead of Buck Williams.
Banks is another interesting case of a player who is tough to rank because he was consistently good but never great. There are but three players who finished in the top seven of All-ACC voting four times: Tyler Hansbrough, Jeff Lamp, and Banks. But he never finished higher than fifth. He snuck onto third team All-American as a sophomore, but never made it again. But his career numbers are impressive. Banks missed three games due to injury his senior year; had he played those games, he probably would have pulled down 15 more rebounds, which would have given him 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds in his career. At the time, only Len Chappell and Gminski had accomplished that (since then, seven others have done it).
If anything, I feel this ranking may be too low for him. He was one of those players who was so hyped that he couldn’t possibly live up to it, and despite his excellence, he always seemed to be regarded as slightly disappointing. But looking back on his career, four decades removed from the burden of those expectations, he can be seen and appreciated for the tremendous player that he was.