Tag: ACC

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Grant Hill played during my late teens when I probably watched more basketball that at any other time in my life.  To me, he will always be the epitome of grace, style, and class on (and off) the basketball court, a kind of basketball version of Roger Federer.

His record, while superb, is perhaps not as good as I expected it to be.  In his freshman and sophomore years, he was excellent, but clearly played a supporting role to Laettner and Hurley.  He made second team All-ACC as a sophomore.  In 1993, Laettner was gone, and Hill stepped up from 14 PPG to 18 PPG, without giving up much in terms of shooting percentage.  That year statistically was his best – 18 points, 6.4 rebounds, 2.5 steals (3^rd in the ACC).  But the key point is that Hurley was still around, so Hill was free on the offensive end to move without the ball, find open spots, and Hurley would find him.

With Hurley gone in 1994, Hill became the primary ball handler.  His assists went up, his shooting percentage went down, and he became the focal point of opposing defenses.  In addition, he became a three-point shooter.  In his first three years, he attempted a total of 17 threes; as a senior, he went 39-for-100. 

If you just look at his statistics, you might conclude that he slipped a bit in his senior year.  But I think it’s a case where the statistics don’t tell the full story.  The fact that he became the primary ball handler, and every possession went through him, and he didn’t have Hurley dropping dimes anymore, all of that has to be considered.  In the big picture, he became the unquestioned leader of a team that, while talented, was less so than the 1991 and 1992 teams.  His teammates were Cherokee Parks, Antonio Lang, Chris Collins, Jeff Capel, and Marty Clark. He took that team to the national championship game and within a hair’s breadth of winning it all.  For his efforts, he was a First Team All-American.

Since 1993, there have been only 2 seasons in which an ACC player averaged 17+ points, 5+ assists, and 6+ rebounds: Hill in 1994, and Bob Sura in 1995.

The media have always had a minor obsession with Hill.  As an example, I have a wonderful book called the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, published in 2009.  In that book, a panel of 19 college basketball experts including Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas, Andy Katz, and other well-known names selected the 50 best players in the history of college basketball.  Hill was listed at number 33.  He was the seventh ACC player listed, behind David Thompson, Christian Laettner, Ralph Sampson, Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, and Phil Ford.  Later in the book, a Top Five for each school is selected.  Hill is named to Duke’s team, along with Johnny Dawkins, Bobby Hurley, Laettner, and Art Heyman.

I love Grant Hill, but his record simply does not support those conclusions.  I honestly have no idea how anyone could conclude that Grant Hill is the seventh-best player in ACC history.  I have him as the ninth-best player – in Duke history.  He had a very fine senior year, winning ACC Player of the Year, being named first team All-American, and leading the team to the national championship game.  As a junior, he barely made first team All-ACC, edging out Sam Cassell by a few votes.  He was a second/third team All-American that year.  He was a major contributor but still a supporting player on the 1991 and 1992 championship teams. 

That’s a heckuva player, a Top 25 player, but it’s not a Top 10 player.  He wasn’t National Player of the Year and wasn’t close.  He wasn’t a two-time ACC Player of the Year and wasn’t close.  He wasn’t a two-time first team All-American and wasn’t close.  He wasn’t Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament.  He never did anything in the ACC Tournament, never making even first team All-Tournament.  He didn’t blow you away with incredible numbers.  The guys ahead of him on the list did those things.  There’s just not enough there to be considered a Top 10, or even Top 20 in my opinion, caliber-player.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

[Charlie Scott] was the first Carolina player that really would compare to today’s player. His build, his speed, his ability – you could take him out of the late 1960s and drop him into today’s game, and he wouldn’t miss a beat. – Woody Durham, quoted in North Carolina Tar Heels, Where Have You Gone? by Scott Fowler

John Roche and Charlie Scott were probably the hardest players to write about on this entire list.  Not because I couldn’t think of what to write, but it’s actually the opposite problem – there’s too much material.  Great players, great teams, great games, controversies, integration, Jim Crow, civil rights, the Frank McGuire storyline, the South-Carolina-leaving-the-ACC storyline… it’s all there.

First the basics.  Charlie Scott played from 1968-1970.  He was the first black scholarship athlete at UNC.  John Roche, who was white, played from 1969-1971.  They were the two best players in the ACC in 1969 and 1970.  In both years, Roche won close ACC Player of the Year votes over Scott, 56-39 in 1969 and 51-47 in 1970.  These votes were very controversial at the time, and in a sense, they still are.  There were accusations, credible but unprovable, that Scott was slighted in those votes because of race.

Adding spice to the whole situation is that UNC and South Carolina were the best teams in the conference (throw in NC State in 1970), so they were battling it out for conference supremacy.  South Carolina won three out of four head-to-head meetings in those two seasons. The first of those Gamecock wins was particularly memorable and seems to have had a lot to do with Roche winning that Player of the Year vote.  Roche scored 38 points to lead the Gamecocks to a 68-66 upset over the second-ranked Tar Heels.  After the game, the superlatives were flowing and the hyperbole was thick.  “I’d rather have Roche than Pete Maravich, Calvin Murphy, or any other ball player in the country,” declared Gamecock captain Bobby Cremins.  “I’ve never had an individual to give that kind of performance before,” declared the Gamecocks’ jubilant coach, Frank McGuire. – The State (Columbia, SC)

The Tar Heels won the rematch on February 25, but it seems that by then, opinions had been formed, and the memory of Roche’s legendary performance was too strongly imprinted on the voters’ minds.  Scott did not play particularly well in either game, which didn’t help.

There were no legendary performances in 1970, but the Gamecocks won both matchups on their way to an undefeated ACC regular season.  Scott again did not play particularly well in these games.

So I think all these factors played into Roche’s winning those POY votes.  In 1969, it was about his incredible performance when they played in early February.  In 1970, South Carolina was just a better team, and it was too much for Scott to overcome.

But it should also be said that we can’t reduce their careers to their head-to-head matchups, or even to the 1969 and 1970 seasons.  Scott played in 1968 without Roche, and Roche played in 1971 without Scott.  Scott was a first-team All-ACC performer on the 1968 team that advanced to the national final before losing to Lew Alcindor and UCLA.  Roche came back in 1971 with a chance to become a three-time ACC Player of the Year, something no one had accomplished at the time.  The Gamecocks had a fine season, winning their first ACC Tournament in their last year in the conference, but Roche came up short in Player of the Year voting, losing to Wake Forest’s Charlie Davis (who was black, which complicates the racial bias narrative) by a wide margin.

All-America voting is interesting.  If you look at it from a head-to-head perspective, Scott clearly did better:

Year	Scott	Roche
1969	1 – USBWA, NABC; 2 – AP, UPI	Nothing
1970	1 – USBWA, NABC; 2 – AP, UPI	2 – AP, NABC

But don’t forget, each played another year.  If you line them up by class year, the picture still favors Scott, but not by much:

Year	Scott	Roche
Sophomore	Nothing	Nothing
Junior	1 – USBWA, NABC; 2 – AP, UPI	2 – AP, NABC
Senior	1 – USBWA, NABC; 2 – AP, UPI	1 – UPI, USBWA; 2 – AP, NABC

So who was better?  It seems to be almost a settled opinion now that Scott was the better player and that those Player of the Year votes were an injustice.  While that is far from an obvious conclusion, the balance of the evidence does seem to favor that Scott was the better player and fell victim to some combination of racial bias and bad timing.  Considering their careers holistically, it’s very close.  Roche had another tremendous year after Scott was gone, but then I guess you could say that Scott had a tremendous year before Roche arrived.

Scott’s experience as the first black scholarship athlete at UNC and the first black star athlete in the ACC is a fascinating one.  Art Chansky wrote a very good short book called Game Changers, which I highly recommend if you’re interested in the subject.  It focuses not only on Scott’s experience but also Dean Smith and his leadership and influence in civil rights.  In the book, Scott comes across as a complex character, admirable but not particularly likable, highly intelligent, proud, independent, somewhat cold and distant, shaped by his childhood and obviously by the intense and unusual circumstances he experienced as the integrator of UNC basketball.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Ronnie Shavlik was part of the first class to play all three varsity years in the ACC.  He was a year behind Dickie Hemric, and Shavlik and Hemric were similar in many ways.  Shavlik finished second to Hemric in 1955 for ACC Player of the Year, and in 1956 with Hemric out of the way Shavlik won it easily.  Shavlik was also the Most Outstanding Player of the 1955 ACC Tournament.

Shavlik was a graceful big man who could run the floor and was a voracious rebounder. Watching his game film, two things stand out. One, he was an exceptional outlet passer. These NC State teams put tremendous pressure on opponents with Shavlik grabbing every rebound and making perfect outlet passes to #100 Vic Molodet and John Maglio to ignite the fast break. Two, Shavlik had an uncanny ability to tap the ball in off a missed shot. He still holds all kinds of rebounding records, including a probably unbreakable ACC season record of 581 rebounds in 1955.

I give Shavlik a slight edge over Hemric, only because he did a little better in All-America voting.  He made second team in 1955 and barely missed first team in 1956, finishing sixth in both AP and UPI voting.

NC State was one of the best teams in the country in 1955 and 1956.  In 1955, they went 28-4, won the ACC Tournament, and were ranked fourth in the country, but the Wolfpack was ineligible for the NCAA Tournament due to recruiting violations.  In 1956, they were 24-3 and ranked second in the country going into the NCAA Tournament but were upset by Canisius in a thrilling four-overtime first round game.  So for those two great years, Shavlik and the Wolfpack had exactly zero NCAA Tournament wins to show for it.  The Wolfpack would not play another NCAA Tournament game under Everett Case; their next appearance was in 1965, the year that Case gave way to Press Maravich after two games.

Shavlik is, so far as I can ascertain, the only notable ACC player from Colorado. He gained national attention, including that of NC State assistant Vic Bubas, by playing well in the national AAU Tournament in Denver in 1952.

Notable players to win three straight ACC Tournaments:

• Shavlik and Vic Molodet – NC State, 1954-56
• Bill Bunting, Rusty Clark, Dick Grubar – UNC, 1967-1969
• Shane Battier, Nate James – Duke, 1999-01
• Jason Williams, Mike Dunleavy, Carlos Boozer – Duke, 2000-02
• Chris Duhon – Duke, 2001-2003
• Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler – Duke, 2009-2011

Two role players for Duke, Casey Sanders and Andre Buckner, are the only two players in league history to win four straight from 2000 to 2003.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

ACC Legends H-O-R-S-E competition: who you taking?

JJ Redick, Dennis Scott, Rodney Monroe? Maybe Christian Laettner just because he wins everything? If you’re looking for a dark horse pick, how about Charlie Davis or Bob Verga or Jack McClinton? Hubert Davis, anyone?

I’m taking Mark Price. Quite simply, one of the best shooters to ever lace ‘em up. One of only three players in NBA history to shoot 90% from the free throw line (Curry and Nash) for his career. Over 40% from three and over 50% from two. If you’re too young to remember Price, think of him as Steve Nash with a shorter career. Price’s good seasons would fit right into Nash’s playing record and you wouldn’t know the difference. But he was finished as a great player at 29 whereas Nash was just getting started.

In evaluating Price, you can’t avoid thinking about Johnny Dawkins.  Their careers were parallel in a lot of ways.  Both were combo guards who played from 1983-1986, and both were cornerstones of great program building jobs.  Here is how their respective teams fared over those years:

Year	Duke	Georgia Tech
1982 (year before arrival)	10-17, 4-10	10-16, 3-11
1983 (freshman)	11-17, 3-11	13-15, 4-10
1984 (sophomore)	24-10, 7-7	18-11, 6-8
1985 (junior)	23-8, 8-6	27-8, 9-5
1986 (senior)	37-3, 12-2	27-7, 11-3

Dawkins is generally regarded as a better player than Price, and that is what I would like to explore, because from looking at their playing records, that is not an obvious conclusion.  We will look at several dimensions:

• How they did locally in All-ACC voting
• Tournament performance
• How they did nationally in All-America voting

You might guess that we are coming to a familiar theme here, and that is the disparity between ACC voting and national voting.  From the perspective of ACC voting alone, Price is the equal of Dawkins, in fact I would argue slightly better.  Here is how they did in All-ACC voting:

• 1983: Price finished 9^th with 149 points, Dawkins finished 10^th with 117 points.  Price also won ACC Rookie of the Year with 83 votes to Dawkins’ 53.  Advantage: Price
• 1984: Price finished 5^th with 177 points; Dawkins finished 7^th with 157 points.  Advantage: Price
• 1985: Price finished 3^rd with 223 points; Dawkins finished 4^th with 199 points.  Advantage: Price
• 1986: Dawkins finished 3^rd with 243 points; Price finished 4^th with 236 points.  Dawkins received 40 votes for ACC Player of the Year, Price received 5.  Advantage: Dawkins

All-ACC: advantage Price.

Then there’s the ACC Tournament:

• 1984: Dawkins 1^st team all-tournament, Price 2^nd team all-tournament.  Advantage: Dawkins
• 1985: Dawkins and Price both 1^st team all-tournament; Price MOP.  Advantage: Price
• 1986: Dawkins 1^st team all-tournament, Price 2^nd team all-tournament, Dawkins MOP.  Advantage: Dawkins

ACC Tournament: advantage Dawkins.

So if you look at the whole picture with All-ACC and All-ACC Tournament, I just don’t see anything in that record that would support Dawkins being better than Price.  It’s at best a draw for Dawkins, and if I had to pick a winner, it would be Price.

Then there’s the 1986 NCAA Tournament.  Dawkins had an amazing tournament.  He was MOP of the East Region, and there is no question but that he would have been MOP of the tournament had Duke won the final.  Here is his game by game shooting/scoring:

• First Round: 27 points on 11-for-17
• Second Round: 25 points on 10-for-12
• Regional Semifinal: 25 points on 11-for-20
• Regional Final: 28 points on 13-for-25
• National Semifinal: 24 points on 11-for-17
• National Final: 24 points on 10-for-19

That would be remembered as one of the all-time great NCAA tournaments if Duke had won the title.

So maybe we give Dawkins an ever-so-slight edge overall based on that NCAA Tournament performance.  It’s arguable.  I still think they’re about even.

But when it comes to All-America voting, Dawkins clearly did better than Price.  To break it down,

• 1984: Price: 3-UPI; Dawkins: nothing
• 1985: Price: 2-AP, NABC; Dawkins: 1-NABC,UPI; 2-AP
• 1986: Price: 2-NABC; 3-AP, UPI; Dawkins: 1-AP, NABC, UPI, USBWA

Let’s acknowledge that Dawkins was just better in 1986.  The ACC voters agreed with that.  So that really leaves 1985 as the anomaly.

I’m probably spending too much time on this, but hopefully you get the point.  Whether Dawkins or Price was better is not at all obvious, and the decision requires close parsing of a lot of data points.  I do think the balance of the evidence is in favor of Dawkins, but it’s awfully close, and Price has an argument.

One thing that I think hurt Price nationally is that his scoring average dropped by almost five points from his freshman year to his sophomore year.  On the surface, that sounds like regression, but if you look closer, that wasn’t the case at all.  There were two factors:

1. Price got some help, in the form of Bruce Dalrymple and Yvon Joseph, so he started shooting less and passing more.
2. His freshman year had the three-point line, and then they took it away.  Price was a great 3-point shooter.  He lost 2-3 points per game just from the line going away.

Price’s efficiency actually went up as a sophomore.  He went from being a 43.5% shooter to a 51% shooter.  He was probably a better player overall.  But unless you’re watching him every day, like the ACC voters were, you might miss those nuances and conclude that he took a step back.

One more point on Price.  When Price was named ACC Rookie of the Year in 1983, he was the first of eight Yellow Jackets to win that honor over the 14-year span from 1983 to 1996 (full list below).  Bobby Cremins knew how to recruit freshmen who were ready to play in the ACC, and he had no qualms about putting them on the floor.

• 1983 – Mark Price
• 1984 – Bruce Dalrymple
• 1985 – Duane Ferrell
• 1986 – Tom Hammonds
• 1988 – Dennis Scott
• 1990 – Kenny Anderson
• 1993 – Martice Moore
• 1996 – Stephon Marbury

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Joe Smith was the greatest two-year player in ACC history.  I don’t mean only that he is the best two-and-done player, though he is that.  I mean that if you look at just the freshman and sophomore years of all players in ACC history, Joe Smith is the best ever.

Now of course that’s not fair to players who weren’t freshman-eligible.  David Thompson, for one, might have something to say about that had he been eligible as a freshman.  But among players who played as freshmen and sophomores, I’d pick Smith as the best.  Smith was National Player of the Year as a sophomore, which places him in some seriously rarified air.  The only other ACC players to do that are Ralph Sampson and Elton Brand.  But Smith was better as a freshman than either.

When Smith showed up on campus, the Maryland program was way down.  In the seven long years since Lefty Driesell had departed, the Terrapins had compiled a 25-70 ACC record.  Gary Williams, in his fifth season, was coming off a 12-16, 2-14 year, and was under some pressure to win.  That 12-16 year concealed some potential in the form of freshmen Johnny Rhodes, Exree Hipp, and Duane Simpkins.  When Smith and Keith Booth showed up in 1994, the effect was immediate and electric.  In the first game of the year, the Terrapins went into the Capital Centre and beat 15^th-ranked Georgetown behind 26 from Smith.  Maryland went on to make an unexpected run to the Sweet 16 as a 10 seed, upsetting John Calipari, Marcus Camby and UMass along the way.

I’ve previously written about the 1995 season under the Jerry Stackhouse and Randolph Childress entries, so I won’t go on about that here.  Suffice it to say that Smith was the best player in arguably the best season in ACC history.  Everybody remembers the Randolph Childress show in the epic ACC Tournament final, but not as many people remember the epic semifinal battle between Carolina and Maryland, which the Tar Heels won 97-92 in overtime.  Smith and Rasheed Wallace went it at, and Wallace got the better of him with probably the game of his life – 33 points, 6 rebounds, 5 blocks.  Maryland advanced to the Sweet 16 again before losing to eighth-ranked UConn in Smith’s final college game.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Dickie Hemric was ACC Player of the Year in the first two years of the league.  If you count his freshman and sophomore seasons when Wake was in the Southern Conference, his career total of 2,587 points is surpassed only by JJ Redick and Tyler Hansbrough, who played way more games than Hemric. When he graduated, he was the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer until Oscar Robertson broke his record in 1960.

Hemric holds a lot of records:

• ACC – most rebounds in a game, 36
• ACC – most free throw attempts in a season, 403 (fifth-most in NCAA history)
• NCAA – second (to Tyler Hansbrough) in career free throws made, 905
• NCAA – most career free throws attempted, 1359
• NCAA – fifth in career rebounds with 1802

Hemric as a senior averaged 19.1 rebounds per game, and 14.9 free throw attempts per game.  These are mind-boggling numbers.

Maybe I have Hemric too low.  He’s one of only ten players to win multiple ACC Player of the Year awards.  He certainly has a case as a top 20 player. The reasons I don’t have him that high are:

• His eye-popping numbers were to some extent a product of the time and the conditions of the game
• He wasn’t a first team All-American (third team and second team)
• While he did win ACC POY twice, he didn’t run away with it, failing to get a majority both times

Did you ever wonder how guys from the 1950s and 1960s got so many rebounds?  I think it comes down to two things, or maybe three depending on how you count.  1a and 1b are easy to quantify and support with data; #2 is just my theory.

1. There were more missed shots.  More missed shots = more rebounds.
   1. Teams played at a faster tempo, so there were more shots.
   2. Teams shot a lower percentage, so they missed more of the shots they took.
2. Shots were generally closer to the basket than they are today, which means fewer long rebounds.  Short rebounds tend to go to the big men; long rebounds are distributed more randomly.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Rod Griffin was one year behind Skip Brown at Wake Forest.  In 1977, which was Brown’s senior year and Griffin’s junior year, the Deacs were ranked in the top 10 most of the season and made it to the regional final before losing to eventual champion Marquette.  Griffin was named ACC Player of the Year.

This will probably strike many as too high a ranking for Griffin, so I should explain my thinking.  A lot of it has to do with how Griffin relates to Phil Ford.  Their careers coincided exactly, so it’s an obvious comparison.  Ford is generally acknowledged to be one of the ten best players in ACC history, and I have no argument with that.  However, if you’re going to say Ford is one of the ten best, then you better have Griffin in your Top 30.  Because in 1977 and 1978, he played Ford to a standstill.

1977 Player of the Year voting: Griffin 89, Ford 31

1978 Player of the Year voting: Ford 86, Griffin 33

Total: Griffin 122, Ford 117

Now I’m not arguing that Griffin is the equal of Ford.  Adding in 1976 gives Ford an edge; he was first team All-ACC and received some consideration for player of the year (won by Mitch Kupchak), while Griffin was second team.  But the biggest difference is their All-America record.  Ford was consensus second team in 1976 and consensus first team in both 1977 and 1978.  Griffin was consensus second team in 1977 and 1978, and that barely.  If you trust the ACC voters more than the national voters, and I do, then you would have to say that at least 1977 there is an injustice to Griffin.

So to summarize my argument for Griffin,

• Phil Ford is a Top 10 player
• Griffin was viewed by ACC voters as being almost as good as Ford
• I trust the ACC voters more than the national voters
• Therefore, Griffin must be a Top 30 player.

Griffin was not included on the 2003 Top 50 list.  He is the highest ranked player on my list who was eligible and did not make that list.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

I wanted to start this post with a list of the greatest freshmen in ACC history.  My preconceived notion was that Kenny Anderson would be second on that list behind Zion Williamson.  But as I’ve looked at it more, Duke has me all confused.

Up until 2014, the list of greatest freshmen would have included Anderson, Joe Smith, Stephon Marbury, and Tyler Hansbrough.  Then you could argue about who was next – Antawn Jamison, or Gene Banks, or Mark Price, or Skip Wise, or somebody else.

Then Duke came along.  And suddenly, something that had never happened before, happened five times in six seasons: an ACC freshman made first team All-American.  Jabari Parker 2014, Jahlil Okafor 2015, Marvin Bagley 2018, Zion Williamson 2019, RJ Barrett 2019.  So are they the five best freshmen in ACC history?

Something seems wrong with that picture, doesn’t it?  Is it possible that the five greatest freshmen in the history of the league all played for one team in the span of six years? 

On one hand, I have to say yes, it is possible.  First of all, we’re talking about Duke here.  The approach they have taken to recruiting in the past decade is unique in the history of college basketball.  They target getting as many of the best freshmen in the country as possible, fully expecting them to be one-and-done.  They build their program on that.  The reason that works is that freshmen are better than they’ve ever been.  I’ve spent a lot of time in this series badmouthing the state of modern college basketball, but let me say this in its favor: the quality of freshman play has never been better.  Kids are more mature physically, they’ve been groomed from an early age, and they’ve faced better competition.

But there is one major counterargument, and it’s one I’ve made several times in this series already: the overall quality of college basketball is lower.  Jabari Parker made first team All-American in 2014; Kenny Anderson made third team in 1990.  Does that mean that Jabari Parker was better than Kenny Anderson?  Not for a minute.  Because if you look at who wasn’t playing in college in 2014, suddenly you realize that maybe Jabari Parker’s year isn’t as impressive as you thought.  Would he have made it over Anthony Davis?  Kyrie Irving?  Trey Burke, Victor Oladipo, Andre Drummond, Bradley Beal, Jared Sullinger, Otto Porter, Tristan Thompson, Ben McLemore, Cody Zeller? 

See, when Kenny Anderson played, all the guys like that were playing in college.  Yes, there were a few (JR Reid, Nick Anderson, Rex Chapman, and Shawn Kemp), but nothing like in 2014.  We have to adjust for the era.

So I think the answer lies somewhere in the middle.  Yes, freshmen are better than they’ve ever been, and Duke’s run of amazing freshmen is real, and as much as I’d like to just ignore them and pretend that Kenny Anderson and Joe Smith are the greatest of all time, I can’t and they aren’t.  But, it’s not a level playing field either, and we do have to adjust our evaluations to account for that.

Taking all that into consideration, here’s my list.

Greatest Freshmen in ACC History

1. Zion Williamson, Duke, 2019
2. Kenny Anderson, Georgia Tech, 1990
3. Marvin Bagley, Duke, 2018
4. Jahlil Okafor, Duke, 2015
5. Stephon Marbury, Georgia Tech, 1996
6. Joe Smith, Maryland, 1994
7. Tyler Hansbrough, UNC, 2006
8. RJ Barrett, Duke, 2019
9. Jabari Parker, Duke, 2014
10. Gene Banks, Duke, 1978

Anderson was, of course, sensational in the NCAA Tournament as well, leading the Yellow Jackets to the Final Four as the Most Outstanding Player of the Southeast Region.  In 1991, Anderson, Rodney Monroe, and Christian Laettner made for one of the most difficult ACC Player of the Year choices ever.  Monroe got 54 votes, Laettner 32, and Anderson 21.  The order in All-America was reversed, with Anderson making first team, Laettner second team, and Monroe some second, some third.

My favorite Kenny Anderson stat… as a sophomore, in a span of five games, he had:

• 40 in a win over Georgia
• 50 in a win over Loyola Marymount (one of only nine 50-point games in ACC history)
• 19 in a win over Tulane (an off day)
• 41 in a win over Villanova
• 40 in a win over Howard

40+ points in four out of five games.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Johnny Dawkins is a pretty good comp for Jeff Lamp.  He’s not as good as Dawkins, but he’s not far behind.

Players who made First or Second-Team All-ACC 4 times:

• Tyler Hansbrough
• Johnny Dawkins
• Mark Price
• Jeff Lamp

Players who averaged 17+ points in four seasons:

• Tyler Hansbrough
• Johnny Dawkins
• Jeff Lamp

Players with 2300 points, 250 assists, and 500 rebounds:

• Johnny Dawkins
• Christian Laettner
• Kyle Singler
• Jeff Lamp

After making first team All-ACC as a sophomore, Lamp dropped to second team as a junior, presumably because his scoring dropped from 22.9 to 17.4.  But Lamp was just as good; he simply took fewer shots because of the presence of Ralph Sampson. 

Lamp finished his career as the second all-time leading scorer in the ACC, three points behind Mike Gminski.  They now stand eighth and ninth on the list.

Lamp’s senior year was a memorable one.  The Cavaliers started 22-0 and were ranked #1 before losing back-to-back games in late February and stumbling badly in the ACC Tournament semifinals in a blowout loss to Maryland.  But they managed to pull it together in the NCAA Tournament, winning the East region behind Ralph Sampson and Regional Most Outstanding Player Lamp.  The Final Four was a bitter pill as the Cavaliers lost to Al Wood and North Carolina, a team they had beaten twice in the regular season.  In Lamp’s last college game, he led the Cavaliers to a 78-74 win in the last ever Final Four third place game.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Billy Cunningham and Jeff Mullins represent another group of players who are very difficult to distinguish.  Mullins was one year ahead.  Each made first team All-ACC three times.  Each was ACC Player of the Year as a senior.  Mullins did slightly better in All-America balloting.  There’s just not much to separate them.  Their NBA careers were pretty similar too; Cunningham is a Hall of Famer and Mullins is not, but Mullins was a really good player too.  As I wrote about under the Pete Brennan/Lee Shaffer/Lou Pucillo post, Mullins and Cunningham were the first two ACC players to achieve stardom in the NBA.

Mullins’ teams, of course, were much more successful.  The 1963 and 1964 Duke teams both won the ACC Tournament and went to the Final Four.  In a sense, the most impressive thing about Mullins’ career is the success of the 1964 team after the departure of Art Heyman.  It would have been an obvious time for the program to drop a bit, but they didn’t miss a beat, making it all the way to the national championship game and finishing third in the final poll.  Mullins played in eight career NCAA Tournament games, averaging 25 points and eight rebounds and shooting 54% from the field.  His 43-point outburst against Villanova in the regional semifinal in 1964 is still the most ever scored by an ACC player in an NCAA Tournament game.  (The other ACC players to score 40 in an NCAA Tournament game?  David Thompson, 1974; Rodney Monroe, 1989; Dennis Scott, 1990). One-and-dones aside, Mullins is the only player in ACC history to score in double figures in every game in his career.

By contrast, Cunningham’s teams were pretty ordinary.  As pointed out in the Bob Lewis post, it wasn’t until 1967 that the Dean Smith Tar Heels broke out.  But Cunningham was a sensation.  He ranks third all-time in rebounding average and ninth in scoring.  (Len Chappell and Dickie Hemric are the only other players in the top 10 in both categories.)  Cunningham and Chappell are the only players to lead the league in scoring and rebounding twice.  Cunningham, Tom Owens, Dale Davis, and Tim Duncan are the only players to lead the league in rebounding three times.

When did the ACC become an elite basketball conference?  Sports Reference rates conferences via the Simple Rating System, which uses margin of victory and strength of schedule to rate individual teams, then adds up teams to get conference ratings.  Here are the ACC’s ratings year by year:

• 1954 – 12^th of 18
• 1955 – 8^th of 18
• 1956 – 4^th of 18
• 1957 – 6^th of 18
• 1958 – 6^th of 18
• 1959 – 7^th of 18
• 1960 – 5^th of 18
• 1961 – 6^th of 18
• 1962 – 5^th of 18
• 1963 – 6^th of 17
• 1964 – 6^th of 17
• 1965 – 6^th of 17
• 1966 – 2^nd of 18
• 1967 – 3^rd of 18
• 1968 – 7^th of 18
• 1969 – 4^th of 19
• 1970 – 2^nd of 19
• 1971 – 2^nd of 19
• 1972 – 1^st of 19
• 1973 – 1^st of 19

Then the ACC ranks first or second every year until 1991-92.  So something turned a corner in the late ‘60s, and by the early 1970s, the ACC was established the best basketball conference in the country.

Now, I should point out that the ACC still had really good teams in the earliest years.  There was the UNC national championship team in 1957; then there were Final Four teams in 1962 (Wake), 1963, 1964, and 1966 (all Duke).  But the depth of quality wasn’t what it eventually became.

What changed?  Two things.  One, the non-North Carolina schools started to step it up.  In the first 12 years or so of the league, Duke, UNC, NC State, and Wake Forest were good; Clemson, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia were, as a group, pretty terrible.  But South Carolina hired Frank McGuire in 1964; Maryland hired Lefty Driesell in 1969; and even Clemson and Virginia started to be more competitive.

But the second and probably more influential factor was integration.  In the 1950s and most of the 1960s, the ACC and SEC were at a competitive disadvantage compared to other conferences which had already integrated.  In the late 1960s, that started to change with Charlie Scott, Charlie Davis, Ed Leftwich, Bob McAdoo, and Len Elmore, among others.  By 1974, three All-ACC first teamers (Elmore, David Thompson, and John Lucas) were black.