2003 Top 50 List: No
Dan Collins List: Yes
I’m an unabashed fan of his. When I get into arguments with younger guys talking about backcourt guys I tell them, ‘Give me Molodet and you can have anybody else but Phil Ford.’ Give me the two of them, and I’ll beat everybody. — legendary North Carolina sportswriter Irwin Smallwood, as reported in Legends of N.C. State Basketball by Tim Peeler
As I was working on this list, one of my guardrails was trying to ensure that I had players ranked reasonably with respect to other players who played at the same time. In a list of 100 players, it’s easy to lose sight of where Player A ranks relative to Player B who was contemporaneous with him. In looking at it from that angle, I was surprised how often there were “clusters” of players who played at the same time and were very hard to differentiate. The Class of 1956 provides a good example.
Vic Molodet of NC State, Joe Belmont and Ronnie Mayer of Duke, and Lefty Davis of Wake Forest were all part of the first class to play all three years in the ACC. Ronnie Shavlik of NC State was in that class as well, but Shavlik was clearly a notch above the others and will be considered later. But look at the records of Molodet, Belmont, Mayer, and Davis, and see if you can figure who was the best?
It’s complicated by the fact that this group belongs around the Top 100 cut line; my first inclination was to either put them all in or leave them all out. But ultimately I think Molodet has a slight edge over the others, for three reasons. First, he was the MVP of the ACC Tournament in 1956; second, he was the only player of the four to receive serious ACC Player of the Year consideration; and third, he was the only player of the four to ever be named to any All-America team (NABC Third Team, 1956). It seems that the level he reached in 1956 was just a bit higher than the level reached by any of the other three. It’s splitting hairs, but that’s what this list requires.
Molodet had tremendous floor speed, the kind of guard who would take advantage of the slightest relaxation after a made basket to push the ball up the floor before the defense could get set. Think of him as a 1950s version of Ty Lawson or Raymond Felton.
The wife of Vic Molodet, NC State basketball guard, was telling an interviewer how the Wolfpack conference title drive traced back to a secret squad meeting a month before season’s end. “The boys,” quoth the noble missus, “vowed right then and there to quit smoking, late hours, and women… (pause)… wild, wild women, that is.” — Burlington (Vermont) Daily News, March 15, 1956