The ACC 100 – An Introduction

I’ve been working on a project to rank the 100 best basketball players in ACC history. It started a couple of years ago with an idea. I thought it might be fun to create a Top 50 ranking. I emailed my friend Todd, who quite honestly knows more about ACC basketball than I do. We both created an initial list and then exchanged them, after which he started telling me which players I was wrong about, which was most of them… anyway, I put it aside for a while, but I’ve been working on it again. I decided to expand it out to the Top 100, I guess for two reasons. One, 100 is a nice round number; two, I’m not aware of any other ACC Top 100 list, so I feel like I’m blazing a trail.

I know of two other lists of Top ACC players in the public domain. In 2003, in celebration of the ACC’s 50th anniversary, the conference released a list (unordered) of the Top 50 players, as voted on by experts. Then, in 2013, Dan Collins, a sportswriter for the Winston-Salem Journal, wrote The ACC Basketball Book of Fame, which was also a catalog of the best players in ACC history (also unordered). Collins’ approach was different; he used a point system based on certain achievements (All-ACC, All-American, etc.), and did not deviate from it. He was not going for any particular number of players; I think he wound up with about 75.

I really like Collins’ book, and I recommend it if you’re interested in this topic. In many ways, it’s similar in concept to what I intend to do. But I wanted to take a crack at it myself, for a few reasons. One, I thought it would be fun. Two, I want to rank (order) the players. Three, time has passed since those two earlier efforts, and the list now will be different. Four, while I appreciated Collins’ approach based on a point system – I used a similar system as a starting point – my opinion is that a point system should be the beginning of the conversation, not the end. Ultimately, I wanted to make a subjective judgment and invite discussion and debate. And finally, I thought it might work well as a series of blog posts, rather than being released all at once. Selfishly, this approach also allows me to get started posting while I continue working on the list.

I have no special qualifications here. I’m not a sportswriter, or a player, or a coach. I’m just an ACC basketball fan who enjoys sports history and likes to make lists. My only qualification is that I’ve spent a lot of time considering the question of who the 100 greatest players are, and how they should rank. In fact, I doubt that anyone in the world has spent more time considering that particular question than I have. I’ve pored over their statistics, their accomplishments, and their accolades. I’ve changed my mind a thousand times, and I’m sure I’ll change it a few more before I’m done. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be done. With a list like this, you’re never more than 51% sure.

I won’t bore you too much with my methods, but I should say a few things. First, I relied heavily on awards, specifically All-ACC voting, All-American voting, the Everett Case award (MVP of the ACC Tournament), and any awards received during NCAA Tournament play. The reasons for this are obvious, I think; I haven’t seen all these players play, so what can I really go on, other than the opinions of their contemporaries, those whose job was to recognize the best players?

Having said that, I do not slavishly follow where the awards lead. Not every award is equal. I tried to look deeper – was the vote one-sided, or was it close? Who was the competition? Is there reason to believe that the vote was biased? For tournament awards, was it a truly memorable performance (think of Randolph Childress in the 1995 ACC Tournament), or was it more a case of “you have to pick someone”?

I also tried to consider the quality of ACC basketball in each player’s era. ACC basketball in 1954, 1974, 1994, and 2014 are not the same. There are several reasons for that. First and most important is the rise of players leaving early or skipping college entirely. This started to increase in the mid-1990s and is now the accepted way of things. There is no question but that this has negatively affected the quality of college basketball in general, not just the ACC. Prior to about 1995, the best 19-, 20- and 21-year old players in the world were playing college basketball. That is no longer the case. I think we have to make an adjustment for that. As a result, you’ll see relatively fewer players on my list from the 2000s, and even fewer from the 2010s.

In addition, the quality of ACC play relative to other conferences has not been constant over time. This is admittedly difficult to measure and requires some degree of subjectivity, but I think it’s true that the ACC was the best basketball conference in the country in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and probably the 2000s as well. The ACC was not the best basketball conference in the 1950s, 1960s, or the 2010s, and it certainly isn’t right now in 2022.

Another difference between eras is that players in the modern era have some advantages with respect to postseason accomplishments. Prior to 1975, you had to win the ACC Tournament to make the NCAA Tournament. So relatively few players had the opportunity to achieve greatness in the NCAAs. In the modern era, several ACC teams have won national championships who didn’t win the ACC Tournament. They get that opportunity. Players from that earlier era did not. That’s not their fault, so we have to take that into consideration when comparing players from different eras.

The other major consideration was how to balance peak value with career value (borrowing terms from Bill James). An example will make the difference clear. A player with a very high peak value is Zion Williamson. He was the best player in the country in 2019; you can’t get any higher than that. But he played only that one year. The opposite kind of player is Travis Best. Very good player for four years, one of only 42 players with 2000 career points, 13th all time in career assists, made All-ACC three times. But he was never considered one of the best players in the country, or even the ACC (he never finished higher than sixth in All-ACC balloting). So who ranks higher, Travis Best or Zion Williamson?

Ultimately this is a matter of opinion. You’ll have yours, and I have mine; but the decision can’t be avoided with a list like this. Zion Williamson is an extreme example, but there are several other one- and two-year players who accomplished a great deal in their short time, and there are several other players like Travis Best. Even with four-year players, there are some like Best whose accomplishments were steadily accumulated over time, while there are others (Josh Howard comes to mind) who had one great year. I think overall I leaned a little more towards valuing peak accomplishments over piling up career numbers, but you be the judge.

I tried not to consider NBA performance at all. This is about accomplishments while in the ACC, for obvious reasons. It’s harder than I thought it would be not to be influenced by NBA performance; when you stare at these lists as long as I have, you’re searching for something, anything you can use to differentiate these players, and their NBA performance can seem like a confirmation of what you believed to be true about them but couldn’t prove. (“See, I knew Buck Williams was better than his ACC record shows!”) But as much as I could, I tried to ignore everything but what happened while they played in the ACC.

With each player, I’ll provide a brief write up. Usually I’ll explain my thinking in ranking the player where I did. Sometimes I’ll use that player as a launching point for discussing some other question about ACC basketball that interests me. Sometimes I’ll share an anecdote or quote about the player. In terms of frequency, I’m thinking I’ll try to post one player per day. That would put me finishing around the end of April. But I may double up a few times and try to finish by the time the college basketball season is over.

It is absolutely my intent to spark debate and discussion about this list. In fact, I’ll be disappointed if that doesn’t happen. Please, tell me where you think I’m wrong, or share with me a memory about a player. The discussion is really the fun part. And if you know anyone else who loves ACC basketball, forward it to them and get them involved. And with that, let’s get started.