Mudville Analytics

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.

2003 Top 50 List: Not eligible

Dan Collins List: Yes

Nolan Smith won the ACC Triple Crown in 2011.  He was ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament MOP, and first team Consensus All-American.  I know you’re wondering who else has done that:

• 1957, Lennie Rosenbluth
• 1962, Len Chappell
• 1963, Art Heyman
• 1968, Larry Miller
• 1992, Christian Laettner
• 1996, Tim Duncan
• 1998, Antawn Jamison
• 1999, Elton Brand
• 2001, Shane Battier
• 2005, JJ Redick
• 2006, JJ Redick
• 2008, Tyler Hansbrough
• 2019, Zion Williamson

In other words, Nolan Smith and a bunch of guys who were better than he was.  But still, he’s a legitimate member of that group, and any time you’re on a list with those guys, you’re doing something right.  Smith’s 2011 season is the ACC’s only 20+ point, 5+ assist season in the past 20 years (since Jason Williams in 2002).

He was really good on the 2010 national championship team, too.  Scheyer and Singler got a little more press, but Smith was really an equal partner in that triumvirate that led the Blue Devils to the national title.  He was named Most Outstanding Player of the South Region.

It looked like they had a great shot to repeat in 2011.  They were ranked #1 most of the year and won the ACC Tournament.  But they got shipped out West and ended up losing to Arizona in the Sweet 16.  In case you forgot, that was the Kyrie Irving year.  Irving hurt his foot in the eighth game of the season and didn’t play again until the NCAA Tournament.  You wonder if the season would have turned out differently had Irving been healthy the whole year.  He was great when he played.

Smith is in some ways similar to Chris Carrawell, a Duke guard who really stepped forward as a senior to win ACC Player of the Year.  But Smith was better.  His great year was better than Carrawell’s great year, and Smith was a major contributor to a national championship team.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Bob Lewis was Dean Smith’s first big recruit.  A year later, Smith added Larry Miller, and the Tar Heels had something.

Lewis had a whale of a year as a junior in 1966.  He led the league in scoring at 27 points per game and shot 53% from the floor.  He was the leading vote-getter in All-ACC balloting, although he finished behind Steve Vacendak and Jack Marin in Player of the Year voting (I’ll have more to say about that strange POY vote in a later post).  Lewis made third team AP All-American, which sells him a bit short based on the year he had.  Under different circumstances, Lewis could have been ACC POY and at least second team All-America with the year he had.

If you think about it, at that time, Duke was really the ACC’s media darling.  They had had an incredible run, winning the regular season title the previous four seasons, three ACC tournaments, a few Final Fours.  North Carolina hadn’t done much under Dean Smith up to that point.  So as strange as it sounds to our ears for a UNC player, I think Lewis flew under the radar a bit, and Duke’s players – Vacendak, Marin, and Bob Verga – got more attention.

As a senior, his numbers slipped, but he was still named first team All-ACC.  Behind Lewis and Miller, the 1967 Tar Heels won the ACC Tournament for the first time since 1957 and made the first of many Final Fours under Dean Smith.  That 1967 season was a real changing of the guard in the ACC.  The Tar Heels slayed the dragon that was Vic Bubas and Duke, who didn’t win another ACC title until 1978.  For the next few years, it was Dean Smith’s Tar Heels who dominated the league.

Lewis still holds a couple of school records at Carolina – most points in a game, 49 against Florida State in 1965 (see quote below), and most consecutive free throws made, 39.  He is 14^th all-time in career scoring average in the ACC.  His scoring average of 27.4 in 1966 is the tenth highest scoring average for a season in league history. 

J.K. (Bud) Kennedy has been head basketball coach at Florida State for 17 years and over that time he has seen some ballplayers come and go. Last night he stood with his feet in the middle of a pile of towels, scratched his head and looked at his team as it listlessly dressed following a 115-80 loss to UNC. “I thought I’d seen the best of them,” he said, “but this kid is the best shot I’ve ever seen… we tried to play him loose and we tried to play him tight. He shot over the loose ones, drove past the tight ones. We played him perfect several times, and he made the shot anyway.” – Bill Ballenger, Charlotte News, Dec. 17, 1965

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

In 1972, Carl Tacy took over a Wake Forest program that was coming off a dismal 8-18 season and really hadn’t done much since the days of Bones McKinney.  He had a talented player in Tony Byers, but not much else.  The first thing he did to get the program headed in the right direction was the recruitment of Skip Brown.  Brown and fellow freshman Jerry Schellenberg made an immediate impact in 1974.  Wake was pretty good, but you couldn’t tell by their record in the brutal ACC.  They went 0-8 against NC State, UNC, and Maryland, 13-5 against everybody else. The next season, Brown took a major step forward, making first team All-ACC and finishing second to David Thompson in scoring.  Byers was gone, but Tacy added Rod Griffin.  The record was more of the same – 1-7 against NC State, UNC, and Maryland, 12-6 against everybody else.  But the foundation had been laid.

An interesting side note on Brown’s 1975 season. He averaged 22.7 points and 6.8 assists. I mean, that’s a lot, isn’t it? According to sports-reference.com, there have been only 20 seasons of 22+ points and 6+ assists per game in all of college basketball in the past 30 years (as far back as their data set goes). Many of them are players from low-major schools, but there are some you’ve heard of:

• 1993, Penny Hardaway, Memphis, 22.8/6.4
• 1994, B.J. Tyler, Texas, 22.8/6.3
• 1995, Damon Stoudamire, Arizona, 22.8/7.3
• 1997, Antonio Daniels, Bowling Green, 24.0/6.8
• 2000, Speedy Claxton, Hofstra, 22.8/6.0
• 2005, J.J. Barea, Northeastern, 22.2/7.3
• 2009, Eric Maynor, VCU, 22.4/6.2
• 2018, Trae Young, Oklahoma, 27.4/8.7
• 2019, Ja Morant, Murray State, 24.5/10.0

In 1976, Wake put everyone on notice by beating both State and Carolina in the Big Four Tournament in early January.  They went on to go 17-10.  Brown’s numbers dipped just a little bit as Griffin and Schellenberg took more of the offensive load, but he still averaged 21 points and 5 assists.

In 1977, things finally came together as the Deacs went 22-8 (8-4).  They won the Big Four Tournament again and were ranked in the Top 10 most of the season before a late season slide.  They earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they knocked off Sidney Moncrief and Arkansas on their way to the Sweet 16, where they lost to eventual champion Marquette.  Brown was again first team All-ACC, while Rod Griffin was player of the year over Phil Ford.

Statistically, Mark Price is a pretty good comp for Brown; smallish, ball-dominant point guards who could really shoot it.  They are among the 12 players in ACC history with 2000 points and 500 assists.  Steals didn’t become a official stat until Brown’s sophomore year, which is too bad; otherwise he would probably be in the Top 10 all-time in that category as well.

Brown was at the center of one of the most controversial ACC Tournament games ever, the 1975 quarterfinal matchup with North Carolina in which the Tar Heels came from eight down with 44 seconds left to tie the game and send it to overtime, eventually winning 101-100.  A Phil Ford bucket, a steal, and a Mitch Kupchak layup cut the lead to four.  Then came the controversial moment.  Schellenberg inbounded the length of the floor to Brown, who was fouled; but referee Fred Hikel ruled that the inbounds pass had grazed the scoreboard overhead and gave the ball to Carolina, who scored to cut the lead to two.  The Tar Heels tied the game after Brown, an 84% career free throw shooter, missed the front end of a one-and-one, and they went on to win in overtime.

After the game, Brown and Schellenberg were adamant that the ball did not hit the scoreboard.  Dean Smith, being Dean Smith, said “I’m sure it hit or the official never would have called it.”  Can’t you just hear him saying that in that nasally voice he had?  Someone really should go through the thousands of newspaper articles and compile all the Dean-isms like that from over the years – the backhanded compliments, the subtle digs… it would be a great read.

The Tar Heels were living right that year; their semifinal game was another overtime win, this time over Clemson.  Tree Rollins had a short follow shot at the end of regulation that went down, around, and fell out, giving the Heels new life, which they took advantage of.  Carolina went on to topple David Thompson and NC State in the final and win the title.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Mike O’Koren and Mitch Kupchak are easily confused – similar first names, New York/New Jersey natives, 1970s UNC big guys who played with Phil Ford.  But their games were quite different.  Kupchak was more of a classic big man with higher rebounding totals; O’Koren had more of a midrange game and was an excellent passer, leading the Tar Heels in assists as a junior and senior.  O’Koren, Danny Ferry, and Gene Banks are the only ACC players with 1500 points, 800 rebounds, and 300 assists.

O’Koren’s freshman year was 1977, the year after Kupchak graduated and Phil Ford’s junior year.  After a late January slump, the Tar Heels caught fire, winning their last nine regular season games, winning the ACC Tournament, and advancing to the national championship game where they lost to Marquette.  O’Koren quickly established himself as a mainstay in the Tar Heels lineup, and his role increased when center Tommy LaGarde hurt his knee in early February.  O’Koren had 31 in the semifinal against UNLV.

As a sophomore, O’Koren was outstanding, averaging 17.3 points on 64% shooting.  But that team went out on a sour note, losing to Wake Forest in the ACC Tournament semifinal and then losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to the Bill Cartwright-led San Francisco Dons.

O’Koren’s scoring numbers dropped as a junior and a senior.  It’s hard to say why, but a good guess is that he wasn’t receiving passes from Phil Ford anymore, and the whole team seems to have gone to a slower tempo without Ford.  But O’Koren was still good; he barely missed first team All-ACC in 1979, finishing two points behind teammate Al Wood, and was back on first team as a senior.

O’Koren’s All-America record is interesting.  He was never named by the AP, but he was named a lot by the other services.  Here is a breakdown of the voting from the four services that were used to determine Consensus All-American:

Year	AP	UPI	NABC	USBWA
1978	Nothing	Nothing	3rd	Nothing
1979	Nothing	2nd	2nd	2nd
1980	Nothing	2nd	2nd	2nd

There are a couple of storylines here.  One is, something was rotten in the state of Denmark with the AP voting from 1979 to 1983.  They drastically changed their voting methodology in 1979.  Prior to 1979, they polled a few hundred sportswriters.  In 1979, they reduced it to a panel of seven, who incidentally were from Dallas, Kansas City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and three from New York.  And guess what?  Right away you see a discontinuity between the way ACC players fared in AP voting versus other services.  In addition to O’Koren, Mike Gminski, Albert King, Jim Spanarkel, and Sam Perkins did comparatively worse in AP voting.  In addition to the changes in voting membership, the AP voted by position for a few years, I think through 1981.  This also is a bad idea; it means that if the two best players in the country are both centers, one of them has to be on second team.  By 1984, the AP had gone to a 10-member panel and done away with position-based voting, and the ACC bias seems to disappear.  In 1989, they blew it up again, and went to the current system of polling 60-70 sportswriters who make out first/second/third team ballots, for which the AP assigns 5/3/1 points respectively.

In any case, despite the snubs by the AP, O’Koren was a consensus second team All-American twice.  However, the other storyline is, looking at his All-ACC voting for those same years, I have to regard those All-America selections with a bit of skepticism.  It seems clear that the ACC voters regarded him as a good player, but not as good as Gminski, Spanarkel, King, or even Hawkeye Whitney.  So I’m splitting the difference a bit in putting him in this slot.  He is ranked lower than any other two-time Consensus All-American, save Eric Montross.

As a postscript, it’s interesting to note that O’Koren, Gminski, King, and Buck Williams all wound up playing for the early-to-mid 1980s New Jersey Nets.  The Nets had two first round picks in 1980 and used them on Gminski and O’Koren.  They had two more in 1981 and used them on King and Williams.  I guess their GM had a thing for the ACC.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

When I drafted my first list, I had Trajan Langdon in the Top 50.  But the more I reflect on his playing record, I think that’s too high.  What he has going for him is that he was first team All-ACC three times and was a solid second team All-American as a senior.  That’s impressive.  But I can’t escape the feeling that he was overrated.  He was a one-dimensional player.  He didn’t rebound, he didn’t create, he wasn’t a great passer, he wasn’t a great defender.  He had one job, and he did it really well, but I just don’t think that’s enough to make someone a Top 50 player.  Now you could argue that JJ Redick was a one-dimensional player too, and in a way he was, but a) he developed a floor/drive/penetrate game that was very effective, and b) he was better than Langdon at the one dimension.  Langdon made first team All-ACC in 1997 and 1998, but looking back, it’s hard to see how.  14 points per game for a one-dimensional player, that just doesn’t seem like enough.

You’ve heard of guys who “fill up the stat sheet”?  Langdon was the opposite of that.  Here’s a crude metric that supports what I am saying.  I looked at the total number of career rebounds + assists + steals + blocks for all 59 players in ACC history with 1900+ career points.  We’ll call this made-up stat RASB.  Langdon ranks dead last in RASB among this group, excepting a few pre-1980 players for whom we don’t have assist, steal, or block totals.

Langdon missed nearly all of the 1999 ACC Tournament after spraining his foot in the opening round.  Those missed games likely cost him a spot in the ACC 2,000 point club.  He finished his career with 1,974.

I’ve been running Langdon down, but he is on the list, so obviously he did something right.  For one thing, he’s one of the best three-point shooters in ACC history.  Sounds like a good topic for a list… who are the best 3-point shooters in ACC history?  Considering both accuracy and volume?  Here’s my (subjective) ranking:

Rank	Player	Team	Minutes	3P	3P%	Min/3P
1	Dennis Scott	Georgia Tech	3686	351	0.452	10.5
2	Jack McClinton	Miami	3013	286	0.440	10.5
3	JJ Redick	Duke	4732	457	0.406	10.4
4	Trajan Langdon	Duke	3921	342	0.426	11.5
5	Rodney Monroe	NC State	3989	322	0.436	12.4
6	Anthony Morrow	Georgia Tech	2906	258	0.421	11.3
7	Kyle Guy	Virginia	3080	254	0.425	12.1
8	Curtis Staples	Virginia	4072	413	0.383	9.9
9	Jason Williams	Duke	3572	313	0.393	11.4
10	Randolph Childress	Wake Forest	3970	329	0.395	12.1

Honorable Mention: Scott Wood, NC State; Justin Gray, Wake Forest; Rashad McCants, UNC; Seth Curry, Duke

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

There are nine pairs of teammates who came in together, finished together, and both of whom are reasonable candidates for the Top 100:

• Johnny Dawkins and Mark Alarie, Duke, 1983-1986
• JJ Redick and Shelden Williams, Duke, 2003-2006
• Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith, Duke, 2008-2011
• Tom McMillen and Len Elmore, Maryland, 1972-1974
• Juan Dixon and Lonny Baxter, Maryland, 1999-2002
• Pete Brennan and Tommy Kearns, UNC, 1956-1958
• York Larese and Doug Moe, UNC, 1959-1961
• Lou Pucillo and John Richter, NC State, 1957-1959
• John Roche and Tom Owens, South Carolina, 1969-1971

I’ll go ahead and tell you that not all 18 of these players made the Top 100, but they are all at least reasonable candidates.  I suppose you could throw in Stackhouse/Wallace, Monroe/Corchiani, and Jamison/Carter if you like; I didn’t, because Wallace, Corchiani, and Carter are not credible candidates for the Top 100 in my opinion.

Now, it seems like if you have two teammates among the Top 100 players in ACC history, and who played together for 3-4 years, that your team should accomplish something during that time, doesn’t it?  Let’s see what these teams accomplished.

Team	Teammates	Overall W-L	ACC W-L	ACC Titles	Final Fours	Nat’l Champs
Duke 1983-1986	Dawkins, Alarie	95-38	30-26	1	1	0
Duke 2003-2006	Redick, Williams	116-23	49-15	3	1	0
Duke 2008-2011	Singler, Smith	125-23	50-14	3	1	1
Maryland 1972-1974	McMillen, Elmore	73-17	24-12	0	0	0
Maryland 1999-2002	Dixon, Baxter	110-31	49-15	0	2	1
UNC 1956-1958	Brennan, Kearns	69-12	35-7	1	1	1
UNC 1959-1961	Larese, Moe	57-15	36-6	0	0	0
NC State 1957-1959	Pucillo, Richter	55-21	29-13	1	0	0
South Carolina 1969-1971	Roche, Owens	69-16	35-7	1	0	0

Alarie and Dawkins started all 133 of those games.  I’ll talk about this more when we get to Dawkins, but unlike most of the other teammates on this list, they had to build from the ground up. Duke was 11-17 their freshman year, then 24-10, then 23-8, then 37-3 in that memorable 1986 year. Alarie was the Lonny Baxter to Dawkins’ Juan Dixon.  I just made that up, but the more I think about it, it’s a good comparison.  But I think Alarie was a little bit better than Lonny Baxter.  He is one of only 14 players in the 2000 points/800 rebounds club – all of whom are in the Top 100.

Alarie made first team All-ACC as a sophomore – over Dawkins.  But his numbers slipped a bit as a junior, and it’s not clear why; it was exactly the same team.  In any case, as a senior his numbers got back up to where they had been as a sophomore, and he was back on first team.  He snuck onto UPI third team All-American as well.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: No

There were two players selected to the 2003 Top 50 list who never made first team All-ACC: Buck Williams and Tree Rollins.  Williams, in my opinion, is indefensible as a Top 50 choice.  Rollins has a better case.

While he didn’t make first team All-ACC, he came within a hair’s breadth, twice.  In 1975, he finished sixth in the voting, two points behind teammate Skip Wise.  Then in 1977, he finished sixth again, three points behind Walter Davis.  If you’re wondering about 1976, he was just as good that year, but Clemson had a somewhat disappointing year as a team, and Rollins suffered because of that.

Rollins did receive some national recognition as a third team AP All-American in 1977.  I think that validates that he was recognized as an outstanding player nationally.

Another thing I count in his favor is that his value was mostly on defense, and I always feel that defense-first players are undervalued in terms of accolades and recognition, because offense is easier to measure.  He’s the greatest shot-blocker in ACC history, still holding the ACC record for blocked shots per game at 4.1.  He had two career triple-doubles (points, rebounds, blocks).  He is fifth all time in career rebounds.  His NBA career, while it doesn’t directly factor into my evaluation, does provide further evidence that he was, in fact, a great defensive player.

We all know about Carolina beating Clemson in Chapel Hill a bajillion times in a row until the Tigers finally got them in 2020.  Rollins played a major part, and not in a good way, in one of the most gut-wrenching of those losses in 1975.  Clemson blew a 16-point lead to lose 74-72 in a game in which the Tigers went 14-for-32 from the free throw line.  Rollins was the worst offender, going 1-for-7 and missing two with 1:45 remaining and the Tigers up one.  Clemson did finally overcome the Tar Heels when they came to Littlejohn that year – their first win over UNC since 1967.

After the 1975 season, Clemson as a program looked to be on the verge of something special.  They finished 8-4 in the league, their best-ever conference record.  They were very young, with one sophomore (Rollins) and three freshmen (Skip Wise, Stan Rome, and Colon Abraham) among their leaders.  Wise was a sensation.

Then coach Tates Locke was forced to resign in the face of allegations of recruiting violations, and Wise turned pro.  The Tigers still had some talent, but without Wise, they took a step backward in 1976, finishing 5-7 in a tough ACC.  In 1977, Bill Foster did an admirable job of getting them back to 8-4 in the league, but their season ended with a loss to Virginia in the ACC Tournament semifinals.  They might have received an at large bid to the NCAA Tournament, but Locke’s shenanigans had left them on probation, so Rollins’ career was over.  We’ll never know, but you can’t help but wonder how things would have turned out for the program, and for Skip Wise, if he had stayed.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes (all 3)

[Pucillo] shows me something different every time I see him play. He’s always thinking one step ahead of everyone else on the court. – Everett Case, quoted in Legends of NC State Basketball by Tim Peeler

Pete Brennan, Lou Pucillo, and Lee Shaffer form a cluster of players who are very hard to distinguish.  You could throw John Richter and perhaps Tommy Kearns in there too, but I think Richter and Kearns are a notch below the other three.  Each was ACC Player of the Year, in 1958, 1959, and 1960 respectively.  Each received similar All-American support as a senior, making some second teams and some third teams.

Pucillo was one of the greatest little guys ever, standing at 5’9″. He was a brilliant ball handler and a bit of a hot dog who was the perfect quarterback for the up tempo style that Everett Case wanted to play. Pucillo hardly played high school basketball at all. His big break came playing for Temple Prep after high school, when Vic Bubas happened to see him playing against the Philadelphia School for the Blind (who presumably weren’t on the basketball team) and Deaf.

Brennan, of course, played a major role on North Carolina’s 1957 national championship team, but he wasn’t the best player, or probably even the second best; Rosenbluth and Kearns made first team All-ACC, while Brennan made second team.

I’m going to rank them Pucillo, Brennan, Shaffer.  I’m putting Pucillo at the head of the group for two reasons.  One, he was ACC Tournament MVP in 1959; two, he made first team All-ACC twice.  Brennan and Shaffer did not.  But they really could be listed in any order.  They are so close that I’m keeping them together in my rankings.

Did you know that Shaffer is the first ACC player who was an NBA All-Star?  Well OK, I’m cheating a little bit.  Gene Shue of Maryland is actually the first, but his last year in college was 1954, so he played only one year in the ACC.  After Shue, it was Lee Shaffer.  After Shaffer came Billy Cunningham, Jeff Mullins, and Jack Marin, and the spell was broken.  Mullins, drafted in 1964, was the first ACC player to have a really good NBA career, unless you count Shue.

It’s a curious phenomenon.  The ACC’s best players had zero success in the NBA prior to the mid-1960s.  Here are the NBA careers of the ACC’s best players and highest draft picks from its first ten seasons:

Player	Team	Pick #	Draft Year	Yrs	G	Points	Reb	Win Shares	All-Star	All-NBA
Gene Shue	Maryland	3	1954	10	699	10068	2855	38.9	5	2
Mel Thompson	NC State	31	1954	never played
Rudy D’Emilio	Duke	39	1954	never played
Dickie Hemric	Wake Forest	12	1955	2	138	863	703	5.3	0	0
Buzz Wilkinson	Virginia	20	1955	never played
Ron Shavlik	NC State	4	1956	2	8	10	23	-0.3	0	0
Bob Kessler	Maryland	15	1956	never played
Ronnie Mayer	Duke	28	1956	never played
Joe Belmont	Duke	40	1956	never played
Vic Molodet	NC State	62	1956	never played
Len Rosenbluth	UNC	6	1957	2	82	342	145	-0.7	0	0
Grady Wallace	South Carolina	40	1957	never played
Pete Brennan	UNC	4	1958	1	16	40	31	-0.1	0	0
Joe Quigg	UNC	12	1958	never played
John Nacincik	Maryland	22	1958	never played
Tommy Kearns	UNC	30	1958	1	1	2	0	0	0	0
John Richter	NC State	3	1959	1	66	285	312	0.4	0	0
Herb Busch	Maryland	38	1959	never played
Lou Pucillo	NC State	67	1959	never played
Lee Shaffer	UNC	5	1960	3	196	3291	1240	8.2	1	0
Al Bunge	Maryland	7	1960	never played
Dave Budd	Wake Forest	10	1960	5	353	2505	1623	11.7	0	0
York Larese	UNC	12	1961	1	59	302	77	0.3	0	0
Doug Moe	UNC	14	1961	played in the ABA starting in 1967
Doug Kistler	Duke	26	1961	1	5	8	1	0	0	0
Len Chappell	Wake Forest	5	1962	9	591	5621	3113	19	1	0
Art Heyman	Duke	1	1963	3	147	1519	414	4	0	0
Jerry Greenspan	Maryland	25	1963	2	25	122	83	0.4	0	0
Larry Brown	UNC	56	1963	played in the ABA starting in 1967

That’s pretty dismal, isn’t it?  You have one guy, Shue, who had a good career.  You have a couple of guys in Chappell and Dave Budd who had respectable careers.  Chappell, I think, dealt with some injuries that kept him from being as good as he might’ve been.  Shaffer was good for three years, then quit to go into business.  Heyman had a pretty good rookie season with the Knicks, then fell off and was out of the league in three years, although he came back to play some good basketball in the ABA.  Hemric was a role player for two years for the Red Auerbach Celtics teams and won an NBA championship in 1957, but it appears that he fell behind Tom Heinsohn in Auerbach’s pecking order, so he walked away.  And the rest of the players on this list had no career at all to speak of, including Shavlik, Wilkinson, Rosenbluth, Wallace, Brennan, and Pucillo.

Though this initially struck me as surprising, as I’ve thought about it more, it makes a little more sense.  First off, there were only eight teams in the NBA (nine with the addition of the Chicago team in 1962).  So there were very few spots to be had.  With 8 teams, you’re talking about only 40 starting positions, and maybe 60-70 positions with regular playing time.  It was really hard to make it.

Second, there were no teams in the south.  The league was northeastern (Boston, Philadelphia, Syracuse, New York), midwestern (Cincinnati, Detroit, St. Louis, Chicago), and western (Los Angeles).  And it wasn’t particularly lucrative.  Many players at that time were married, sometimes with a family.  So for a lot of them, it just wasn’t worth it.  It made more sense for them to get a job.

But there were other players from the South who made it.  Bob Pettit from LSU, Bailey Howell from Mississippi State, Hal Greer and Jerry West, if you count West Virginia as the South.  So it wasn’t impossible. 

This is one factor (among many) that leads me to conclude that the quality of play in the ACC wasn’t that great during this period.  The Big Ten, the Big Eight, the PAC-10 predecessors, the Missouri Valley, and arguably the SEC and Southwest Conference were playing better basketball, top to bottom, than the ACC.  I think this was true up until the mid-to-late 1960s.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Joseph Forte is in the pantheon of great “two-and-done” players in ACC history, along with Joe Smith, Kenny Anderson, Elton Brand, Jerry Stackhouse, and Chris Paul.  Don’t let Forte’s lack of NBA success fool you into thinking he doesn’t belong with that group.  In 2000, he was ACC Rookie of the Year over Jason Williams and Steve Blake.  He then led a Tar Heels team that had a mediocre regular season to an unexpected Final Four run, and it was absolutely Forte who made the difference in the regionals, with 22 points in a Sweet 16 win over Tennessee and 28 in a 59-55 win over Tulsa to get to the Final Four.

Then, in his sophomore campaign (also Matt Doherty’s first year), all he did was tie Shane Battier for co-ACC Player of the Year and make first team All-American (along with Battier and Jason Williams) in leading that team to win the ACC regular season and finish sixth in the final AP poll.

It’s not quite up to the level of Smith, Anderson, or Brand, but it’s in the same range as Paul and Stackhouse, and in my view a bit better, because Forte did more as a freshman and just as much as a sophomore.

The 2001 UNC team is a fascinating one.  Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we know what was going to happen to Matt Doherty; but at the time, that was the farthest thing from anyone’s mind.  After a couple of early season losses, the Tar Heels reeled off 18 consecutive wins and stood at 21-2, 11-0 in the ACC and ranked #1 in the country when they took the court at Littlejohn Coliseum on February 18, 2001.  Clemson had lost eight consecutive games, most recently a 34-point drubbing at the hands of lowly NC State, and were on their way to a last place 2-14 ACC finish.  Who could have guessed that it would be that very day that Matt Doherty’s fortunes would turn, and from that day forward, Doherty’s ACC record would be 12-25?  It would have seemed impossible at the time.  But whatever mojo the 2001 team had, it was lost.  They stumbled a few more times down the stretch and were upset by Penn State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

… as much as the hurt he felt, Doherty struggled to deal with the mysterious nature of a season that has to be regarded as one of the absolute strangest in the program’s rich history.  In a matter of days, the Heels went from a No. 1 national ranking to a team that simply couldn’t quit shooting itself in the foot.  “I’ll never be able to figure it out,” junior Jason Capel said.  “We tried to put the pieces back together, but I don’t guess we ever did.” – Caulton Tudor, Raleigh News & Observer, March 19, 2001

Perhaps that run of initial success was the worst thing that could have happened to Doherty and the program.  Coming off a Final Four run under Bill Guthridge, it must have seemed to everyone that the program would just keep rolling.  It’s a good lesson to all of us that in sports, and in life, sustained excellence is never automatic.  There’s no such thing as greatness on autopilot.  It has to be earned, one day at a time.