2003 Top 50 List: Yes
Dan Collins List: Yes
When you first get to school, you’d end up in Rat League [pickup games]. It was make it, take it. You played to 10 baskets. It was kind of routine that if you got up against Heyman’s team, you’d go 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 and then you’d sit down. Heyman was the best player ever at Duke… there was no more dominant force than Heyman. – Jack Marin in Game of My Life by Alwyn Featherston
Art Heyman was the best of the early generation of Yankees who came down south to play in the ACC. Heyman was the center of a fierce recruiting battle between North Carolina’s Frank McGuire and new Duke head coach Vic Bubas. Bubas’ landing of Heyman (who had previously committed to North Carolina) catapulted the Blue Devils into national prominence and ignited their run of excellence in the 1960s. In Heyman’s senior season, the Blue Devils reached the Final Four and a #2 national ranking. He was ACC Player of the Year, Consensus National Player of the Year, ACC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player. He made first team All-ACC three times.
Heyman’s jersey wasn’t retired at Duke until 1990. This was ridiculous, and Heyman, a brash, fiery, competitive player, resented it. There were numerous fights and confrontations during his career, including a well-known fight with North Carolina players during a game in 1961. But through it all, he managed to stay eligible and on the court, and continued to dominate. He was one year behind Len Chappell, and the two of them had some tremendous battles. Here are the results of their five head-to-head matchups:
| Date | Game Result | Chappell | Heyman |
| 2/9/1961 | Duke, 100-90 | 24 | 31 |
| 2/14/1961 | Wake, 103-89 | 38 | 31 |
| 12/31/1961 | Duke, 75-73 | 37 | 33 |
| 1/27/1962 | Duke, 82-68 | 24 | 26 |
| 2/15/1962 | Wake, 97-79 | 37 | 18 |
And how’s this for a Senior Day? Heyman had 40 points and 24 rebounds to lead Duke to a 106-91 trouncing of North Carolina, completing a perfect ACC regular season for the Blue Devils.
Heyman was named Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament in 1963 despite the fact that the Blue Devils lost in the semifinal. This was fairly common at the time. A player from a non-winning team received the award in 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1965, 1966, and 1971. Since 1971, the only non-winning player to be MOP is Akeem Olajuwon in 1983. It’s hard to say exactly why this changed, although dropping the third-place game in the Final Four probably has something to do with it. Of course, it’s perfectly sensible that the best player in the tournament might not have been on the winning team, and the voters in the 1950s and 1960s clearly had no compunction about saying that, but at some point it became accepted practice to pick a player from the winning team. It would be interesting to look back at the tournaments since 1971 and figure out who the real MOP was. But that’s a project for another day.