Tag: ACC

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

I found Bobby Hurley to be an extremely difficult player to rank.  Which is ironic, because I probably watched him play more than anyone else on this list except for Rodney Monroe and Julius Hodge.  Hurley is the perfect example of a player whose national reputation was buoyed by the incredible success of the teams he played on.  Now of course, Hurley was a huge contributor to that success – but I think it’s safe to say he had a little help, in the persons of Christian Laettner and Grant Hill.

Hurley’s ACC accolades are good but modest.  He made third team All-ACC as a sophomore, second team as a junior, and first team as a senior, losing a close Player of the Year vote to Rodney Rogers.  He was first team All-Tournament once.  The overall record is comparable to, say, Kenny Smith.

Hurley’s national accolades are way more impressive.  As a junior in 1992, Hurley was named third team All-America by both the AP and the UPI, and first team by the NABC, which is absurd.  As a point of comparison, Hurley finished seventh in All-ACC balloting that same year, behind Tom Gugliotta, Rodney Rogers, Bryant Stith, and Hubert Davis, none of whom sniffed All-America.  As a senior, Hurley was first team All-America across the board.  Rogers, who nipped Hurley in ACC POY voting, was second team.  The All-America record is comparable to a Len Bias, Antawn Jamison, or Larry Miller.

So the question really is, which do you believe?  Is Hurley closer to Kenny Smith, as the ACC voters seemed to think, or is he close to Len Bias, as the national voters seemed to think?

I come down somewhere in the middle. In my heart of hearts, I seriously doubt that Hurley was a better player than Kenny Smith.  Had Kenny Smith been the point guard of those Duke teams, I think they would have been just as good, maybe better.

But having said that, I have to give Hurley some credit for what he actually accomplished.  While I don’t think he was a better player than Kenny Smith, he accomplished a lot that Kenny Smith did not.  He played in 20 NCAA Tournament games.  He played on two national championship teams.  He was Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament.  He’s the all-time assist leader in all of college basketball.  Maybe Smith would have the same accomplishments had he been on those teams; I don’t know.  But Hurley’s teams made Final Fours and won championships, and Smith’s didn’t, and that’s a fact.  We have to apportion some credit for all that winning, and Hurley deserves a generous share, even if less than Laettner.

I also give Hurley credit for his senior year.  I’m not sure that he was a first team All-American, but he had a great year.  Without Laettner, he had to step up his scoring, and he did, averaging 17 points and 8 assists, and shooting 42% from three, 80% from the free throw line.  He wasn’t without help, obviously; Grant Hill, Thomas Hill and Cherokee Parks were all there.  But it wasn’t the same overwhelming talent level of the previous two years.  He had to do more, and he did it, and while I would have flipped Hurley and Rodney Rogers on my All-America ballot, he was far from the worst first teamer we’ve ever seen.

As an aside, in the past 30 years of college basketball, there have been only ten 17+ point, 8+ assist seasons. Notable ones in addition to Hurley 1993: JJ Barea, Northeastern, 2006; Kay Felder, Oakland, 2016; Trae Young, Oklahoma, 2018; Ja Morant, Murray State, 2019.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Wake Forest went through about a ten-year dry spell from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, spanning the coaching tenure of Jack McCloskey and the first few years under Carl Tacy.  The best years of that span were 1969-1971 – the three years of Charlie Davis.

• 1965: 12-15, 6-8
• 1966: 8-18, 4-10
• 1967: 9-18, 5-9
• 1968: 5-21, 3-11
• 1969: 18-9, 8-6
• 1970: 14-13, 6-8
• 1971: 16-10, 7-7
• 1972: 8-18, 3-9
• 1973: 12-15, 3-9
• 1974: 13-13, 3-9
• 1975: 13-13, 2-10

Davis made First Team All-ACC all 3 years that he played and was ACC Player of the Year as a senior.  His career coincided exactly with South Carolina great John Roche, both of whom were one year behind UNC great Charlie Scott.  In 1969, when Roche and Davis were sophomores and Scott was a junior, all three made First Team All-ACC, and Roche was POY.  In 1970, the result was exactly the same.  In 1971, with Scott gone to the NBA, Davis won POY over Roche.  I’ll talk more about the POY votes in the posts on Roche and Scott.

There have been only three ACC POYs who played on a team that did not have a winning ACC record: Davis, 1971 (Wake went 7-7); Len Bias, 1986 (Maryland went 6-8); TJ Warren, 2014 (NC State went 9-9).

Davis is quite possibly the most valuable free throw shooter in the history of college basketball.  I don’t think it’s an overreach to say that.  When I say “most valuable free throw shooter”, I mean he combined tremendous accuracy with getting to the line a lot, thereby creating a lot of value for his team.  Let me give you some numbers to substantiate that.  Davis, for his career, averaged 7.3 free throws made per game.  Think about that for a second. He averaged 7.3 points per game on free throws alone. That’s more than Tyler Hansbrough, more than JJ Redick, more than pretty much anyone else except the early guys like Hemric, Wilkinson, and Rosenbluth.  Not only that, but Davis’ career FT% is 87.3, which is fifth in ACC history.

If that doesn’t convince you, try this.  Since 1993, a span of 30 years, there have been only 16 seasons in all of college basketball in which a player shot 85+% from the line on 8+ free throw attempts per game, and nobody has done it more than once.  Davis did it three times.

Only five players in ACC history have three seasons with 22+ points per game: David Thompson, Billy Cunningham, Lennie Rosenbluth, Art Heyman – and Charlie Davis.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

I loved watching Randolph Childress play.  I remember him probably as fondly as any player who didn’t wear the red and white.  His performance in the 1995 ACC Tournament is something I will never forget.  I remember how disappointed I was when the Demon Deacons were upset by Oklahoma State in the Sweet 16.  I was really pulling hard for them, and I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to see Childress play anymore.

Childress and Rodney Rogers came in together for Dave Odom in 1991.  Unfortunately, they only got to play together for two seasons.  Childress missed the 1992 season with a torn ACL; they both played in 1993; then Rogers turned pro.  You can’t help but wonder how good the Deacs would have been in 1994 with Childress, Rogers, and Tim Duncan.  But the stars never quite aligned.

The Demon Deacons weren’t all that highly regarded coming into the 1995 season, and as late as February 10, they stood at 5-4 in the ACC.  But they ripped off seven straight to end the regular season, including wins over Maryland, Georgia Tech, UNC, and Virginia.  It was their February 28 win at the Smith Center over second-ranked Carolina that really got people’s attention.  Childress had 26, Duncan dominated Rasheed Wallace inside, and Scooter Banks put the cherry on top with an incredible alley-oop dunk in the final seconds.  The momentum carried over into the tournament, and you know what happened there for Childress: 40 against Duke, 30 against Virginia, and 37 against the Tar Heels, with highlight plays galore, including the now legendary crossover on Jeff McInnis.

Childress had a higher profile locally than he did nationally.  He never received All-America consideration until his senior year when he made second team.  He was the sixth leading vote-getter in the AP, finishing just a few points behind Jerry Stackhouse for the last spot on first team (pretty sure those votes were taken before the ACC Tournament).  Wake Forest was not a media darling; they weren’t on the radar nationally until that push late in the 1995 season, and I think that hurt Childress a bit.

I’ve talked about that 1995 ACC season in a couple of other posts. I think 1974 was the best season in ACC history, but 1995 was the second-best. First team All-ACC was Joe Smith, Jerry Stackhouse, Childress, Tim Duncan, and Rasheed Wallace. That’s some team. Travis Best was a tremendous player who I’m not convinced doesn’t belong in the Top 100 – couldn’t crack first team. Bob Sura as a senior – couldn’t crack first team. Cherokee Parks had a tremendous year – couldn’t crack first team. Just incredible depth of talent. The next year, every player I just mentioned was gone except Duncan.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Burleson and McMillen, along with #58 Len Elmore and #57 Bobby Jones, are part of the quartet of outstanding big men in the class of 1974.  You can view the post on Elmore and Jones here.  After looking at this for a long time, all I can really conclude is that Burleson and McMillen are a notch ahead of Elmore and Jones.  But each of those pairs is dead even.  It’s impossible to differentiate conclusively.

Looking at All-ACC voting, Burleson had 579 career points; McMillen had 570.

Looking at All-America voting, that was summarized in the Elmore/Jones post.  I suppose, if you look hard enough, you might say that McMillen’s record there was ever so slightly better, but that requires some serious hair-splitting.

I decided to look at head-to-head.  I don’t think that’s a very good way of differentiating players, but I’m grasping at straws here.  They did play head-to-head eight times in their three years, twice in ACC Tournament finals, so there is quite a lot to go on.  Here are the results:

Date	McMillen – FG	Pts	Reb	Burleson – FG	Pts	Reb	Game Winner
1/5/1972	8-14	22	7	7-11	18	8	MD
1/31/1972	8-20	22	4	6-10	18	13	MD
1/14/1973	12-22	29	14	9-17	20	15	NCS
1/31/1973	10-16	25	6	8-15	18	10	NCS
3/10/1973	12-20	24	8	7-13	14	14	NCS
1/13/1974	9-18	24	11	3-19	13	10	NCS
1/30/1974	14-23	28	14	5-13	11	13	NCS
3/9/1974	11-16	22	7	18-25	38	13	NCS

On average, I think you’d have to say that McMillen got the better of those matchups.  But, in the most important game of them all, the 1974 ACC Tournament final, Burleson played one of the great games of all time in leading the Wolfpack to victory in the “greatest game ever played”.  So call that one even.

In terms of career numbers, as of the time they graduated, McMillen was 9^th in career scoring, Burleson 18^th;   Burleson was 6^th in career rebounds, McMillen 14^th.  Call that one even.

These guys are about as even as two players can get.  But I have to put someone ahead, and I’m going to go with Burleson.  Ultimately, he was Most Outstanding Player of the ACC Tournament twice, and McMillen wasn’t.  That’s a fact.  As you can see above, that’s certainly not because McMillen didn’t play well; in fact, he was first team All-Tournament all three years that he played.  It’s simply because Burleson’s team won.  Obviously David Thompson had a lot to do with that, but McMillen’s supporting cast was pretty good too.

McMillen, Jones, and Burleson were all members of the 1972 Olympic team which lost the gold medal game to the Soviet Union in such a controversial manner. Burleson was benched for that game for breaking a team rule – a decision that Burleson still seethes about to this day.

In Tim Peeler’s Legends of NC State Basketball, Burleson comes across as a complex figure. At times, he was plagued with self-doubt. Coming out of high school, he didn’t think he was good enough to play for Duke or North Carolina. But his fierce competitiveness eventually overshadowed his timidity and self-doubt and drove him to be great. He was known as a big game player, and his record bears that out.

One final comment on the Burleson/McMillen/Jones/Elmore group.  I think you would be hard pressed to find a similar quartet of four players in college basketball history – players of this quality, who played the same years, in the same conference, at (roughly) the same position.  I can’t think of one.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Three ACC players have been first team All-American, ACC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, and NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player in the same season: Art Heyman 1963, James Worthy 1982, and Shane Battier 2001.  The other two were also ACC Player of the Year; Worthy was runner up to Ralph Sampson.  Worthy scored 28 of the Tar Heels’ 63 points in the national championship game against Georgetown, and they needed every one of them, plus an assist from Fred Brown.

Worthy’s career trajectory was very similar to Sean May’s.  Both were good as freshmen but missed a lot of time due to injury.  Both made second team All-ACC as sophomores.  Both made first team All-ACC as juniors, both were runners up in ACC POY voting, and both earned NCAA Tournament MOP in leading their respective teams to national championships.  But Worthy was a little bit better every step of the way (except for the NCAA Tournament, where May’s performance was exceptional).  Both turned pro after their junior year.

Worthy was a consensus first team All-American in 1982, but he was left off the first team by the Associated Press in favor of Kevin Magee of UC Irvine.  Generally speaking, I regard the AP as more credible than the other services, but I’ve previously written about this period from 1979-1983 when the AP changed its voting process and appeared to manifest an anti-ACC bias which was evident in the records of Worthy, Mike O’Koren, Mike Gminski, Albert King, and Sam Perkins.  Not to mention the fact that the voting was done prior to the NCAA Tournament and probably before the ACC Tournament, both of which Worthy was the MVP of.  So in this case, I’m going to trust the other services.  James Worthy was a first team All-American.

Worthy’s scoring totals are not that impressive on the surface, but in context they look better.  He played during a low scoring era of college basketball.  In fact, 1982 was the lowest scoring season in ACC history.  The Top (or Bottom) 5:

1. 1982 – 64.8 PPG
2. 1959 – 65.0 PPG
3. 1960 – 67.6 PPG
4. 1958 – 68.3 PPG
5. 2012 – 68.5 PPG

The ACC Tournament was especially bad.  There were slowdown tactics from several teams.  In the seven games, only one team surpassed 60 points.  Over the next few seasons, the 5 seconds closely guarded rule and the 45-second shot clock were adopted to get teams to “stop messing around and play basketball”, to borrow a phrase from Bill James.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

Albert King and Barry Parkhill had very similar careers.  Each was ACC Player of the Year and All-American as a junior; each regressed as a senior to second team All-ACC.  King, Parkhill, and Julius Hodge are the only three players to win ACC Player of the Year as an underclassman, come back, and then fail to make first team All-ACC the following year.

With Parkhill, his supporting cast changed considerably, and that at least partially explains his drop in performance.   With King, however, that’s not the case.  In fact, Maryland had everyone coming back in 1981.  They were ranked fourth in the AP preseason poll.  King was expected to compete for National Player of the Year.  But the whole thing just fell flat.  It wasn’t a disaster – the Terps still went 21-10, made the ACC Tournament final, and finished in the Top 20 – but it left everyone unfulfilled.  Instead of taking a step forward, Maryland took a step back, and that included Albert King.  Maryland’s season, and King’s career, ended when they got embarrassed by eventual champion Indiana in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

I think we are more surprised by regression than we should be.  As fans, we tend to assume that the trajectory of young players will always be up.  We imagine what our team will be like next year, and in those fantasies, the underclassmen are always getting better.  But we forget that these are human beings, young human beings at that, and life isn’t always a straight line of improvement.  Flagging motivation, physical problems, emotional difficulties, financial straits, relationship issues… these things knock people back all the time.  We shouldn’t be surprised when they affect athletes as well.

Then, too, young athletes can fall into the trap of thinking that getting older = automatically getting better.  But getting better never happens by just standing around and watching the calendar.  It takes work, no matter your age.

ACC players with 2,000 points, 300 assists, and 700 rebounds:

• Danny Ferry
• Bob Sura
• Gene Banks
• Albert King
• Julius Hodge

King in 1980 is the last player to be named Most Outstanding Player of the ACC Tournament on a team that didn’t win as Maryland fell to Duke by a point. Mike Gminski’s tip-in with eight seconds left gave Duke a one-point lead. Maryland got the ball to King in great position for a 15-foot turnaround jumper that would have won the game and the tournament, but it came up short.

Most Disappointing ACC Teams of All Time:

Rank	Year	Team	Prior Yr Record	Preseason Rank	Final Rank	Final Record
1	1995	Duke	28-6, 12-4	8	UR	13-18, 2-14
2	2005	GT	28-10, 9-7	3	UR	20-12, 8-8
3	1981	Maryland	24-7, 11-3	4	18	21-10, 8-6
4	1979	Duke	27-7, 8-4	1	11	22-8, 9-3
5	1998	Clemson	23-10, 9-7	5	UR	18-14, 7-9
6	1987	GT	27-7, 11-3	6	UR	16-13, 7-7
7	1978	UNC	28-5, 9-3	1	11	23-8, 9-3
8	1959	Maryland	22-7, 9-5	11	UR	10-13, 7-7
9	1980	Duke	22-8, 9-3	3	14	24-9, 7-7
10	1990	UNC	29-8, 9-5	9	UR	21-13, 8-6

You’ll notice that the common theme here is “unexpected NCAA Tournament success the year before”.  Beware of the team that makes an unexpectedly deep run and then is ranked highly the next year.

2003 Top 50 List: No

Dan Collins List: Yes

Dave Odom inherited a Wake Forest program that had been way down under Bob Staak.  But Staak did leave him a couple of good young players in Anthony Tucker and Hobbton High School’s own Chris King.  Odom promptly went out and recruited Rodney Rogers and Randolph Childress, and he got things turned around quickly.

1991 was Rogers’ and Childress’ freshman year, and the Deacons improved markedly to go 19-11.  They made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1984, losing in the second round to a very good Alabama team.  They had almost everyone coming back in 1992.  It had the makings of a breakthrough year, but it wound up as a “what might have been” year.  Childress tore his ACL over the summer and missed the entire season.  Wake still had an OK year, but you know it could have been so much more with Childress.  Childress was back in 1993, and the Deacons did take a step forward, finishing 10-6 in the ACC and making the Sweet 16 on their way to a final ranking of 16.  In 1994, they added Tim Duncan, but Rogers was gone, leaving early for the NBA.  I would’ve paid to see a team with Rogers, Childress, and Duncan.

Rogers played three seasons in the ACC, during a time when the ACC was hands down the best conference in college basketball.  In fact, an ACC team won the national championship all three of those years.  His contemporaries included Christian Laettner, Grant Hill, Bobby Hurley, George Lynch, Eric Montross, Bryant Stith, Walt Williams, Tom Gugliotta, Randolph Childress, and Sam Cassell.

It is my contention that Rogers is underrated. He wasn’t on the 2003 Top 50 list. That to me is an injustice. Here’s a guy who won ACC Player of the Year in 1993 over Bobby Hurley, in Hurley’s senior year (not to mention over Lynch, Montross, and Grant Hill).  Think of how easy it would have been for the voters to favor Hurley, not only because Hurley was really good, but also as a kind of lifetime achievement award for all that he and his teams had achieved in his four years.  And yet, Rogers won.  All-American was different, as Hurley was first team, Rogers second team (he finished sixth in the voting), but we’ve seen that movie before, haven’t we? I mean of course Bobby Hurley was going to be first team All-American, because all the voters had watched him win a couple of national championships. But the ACC sportswriters who watched them closely in 1993 said that Rogers was better. (Admittedly, the POY vote was very close. Rogers won 51-47, with Lynch and Montross getting 2 votes each.)

And it wasn’t just that year; Rogers was ACC Rookie of the Year as a freshman over Grant Hill; in fact he was named National Freshman of the Year by the USBWA. He made first team All-ACC as a sophomore.  Rogers and Horace Grant are the only two ACC players in the top 25 in career FG% who also led the league in scoring. Rogers is one of only 10 players to win both ACC Rookie and Player of the Year (Mike Gminski, Ralph Sampson, Michael Jordan, Dennis Scott, Joe Smith, Joseph Forte, Jahlil Okafor, Marvin Bagley, and Zion Williamson are the others).  He scored in double figures in 86 of his 89 career games and had nine points the other three times.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

It is difficult to overstate how bad Virginia was through the first 17 years of the ACC.  Here’s a quick rundown:

• Losing record in the ACC every year – 17-for-17
• 60-169 cumulative ACC record
• 22-123 record against the Big Four – 5-34 against Duke, 5-29 against Wake, 6-30 against UNC, 6-30 against NC State.  (It was 1976, UVa’s 23^rd year in the ACC, before they defeated each of the Big Four in the same season)
• 22 consecutive losses to Duke from 1959 to 1968
• 3-17 record in the ACC Tournament, never reached a final

But in 1971 things started to change.  The Cavaliers achieved a 15-11 overall record – their first winning record since 1954 – and notched wins over nationally ranked Duke and South Carolina during the regular season.  This set the stage for 1972, when Virginia finally broke through, going 21-7, 8-4 in the ACC, reaching the NIT, and achieving a Top 10 national ranking before finishing at #20.  How did the Cavaliers finally get over the hump?  The simple answer is Barry Parkhill.

Parkhill was the ACC’s leading scorer and became the first Virginia player to be named ACC Player of the Year.  He barely missed first team All-American.  In 1973, much of Parkhill’s supporting cast was gone, and he struggled at times, dropping to second team All-ACC.  But the Cavaliers’ biggest problem that year was having to play 7 games against NC State, Maryland, and North Carolina – three of the five best teams in the country.

Hoot Gibson coached one more year before giving way to Terry Holland.  It was 1979 before the Cavaliers had their second winning season in the ACC.  Then Ralph Sampson arrived and they were on their way.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: No

Elton Brand was another of the great “two-and-done” players in ACC history.  I’ve previously listed Jerry Stackhouse, Chris Paul, and Joseph Forte, and you can probably guess that Kenny Anderson and Joe Smith are still to come.  Brand won all the national player of the year awards as a sophomore.  What’s interesting about his career is that he flew under the radar a bit coming into that year.  He was great as a freshman, but he was on an incredible team and had to battle for playing time.  Then he broke his foot in December and missed 17 games.  As a result, he didn’t even make the ACC All-Freshman team.  But it was clear to anyone who was watching that Brand was a special talent. 

Sports Reference has a statistic called “Win Shares” which attempts to quantify the degree to which a player has contributed to his team’s wins.  Since they started computing this stat in 1995-96, there are only 3 10-Win Share seasons in the ACC:

• Tim Duncan, 1996-97
• Shane Battier, 2000-01
• Elton Brand, 1998-99

What are the greatest teams in ACC history to NOT win the national championship?  Sports Reference has a team rating system called the Simple Rating System (SRS) which uses margin of victory and strength of schedule to rate teams.  The following teams were #1 in the SRS ratings but failed to win it all.  I will rank those teams in order of quality (my opinion):

1. Duke, 1998-99 (37-2, 16-0)

This team was ridiculous.  Their top 6 players were Elton Brand (national POY), Trajan Langdon, Will Avery, Corey Maggette, Chris Carrawell, and Shane Battier.  They lost an early season game to Cincinnati and didn’t lose again until the national championship against UConn.  Had this team won that game, they would be remembered as one of the greatest teams in the history of college basketball.

2. UNC, 1983-84 (28-3, 14-0)

Starting lineup: Michael Jordan (national POY), Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, Matt Doherty, Kenny Smith.  Yeah I’d say that’s pretty good… this team was ranked #1 wire to wire.  They lost a single regular season game to Arkansas.  But they slipped up and lost to Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals, then lost to an inferior Indiana team led by Steve Alford in the Sweet 16.

3. Duke, 1997-98 (32-4, 15-1)

Same top 6 players as the 1998-99 team, save replacing Corey Maggette with Roshown McLeod.  And throw in Steve Wojciechowski.  The record is slightly less impressive than the ’99 team; they were ranked #1 some of the year, but not all, and they got spanked a couple of times by UNC.  Lost a 2 point game to Kentucky in the regional final.

4. UNC, 1986-87 (32-4, 14-0)

Starting lineup: Kenny Smith, J.R. Reid, Joe Wolf, Jeff Lebo, Dave Popson.  Ranzino Smith, Steve Bucknall, Curtis Hunter, and Scott Williams off the bench.  After coasting through the regular season, lost to Vinny Del Negro and NC State in one of the biggest upsets in ACC Tournament history.  Then lost a close one to #10 Syracuse in the regional final. 

5. Duke, 2001-02 (31-4, 13-3)

Starting lineup: Jason Williams, Carlos Boozer, Mike Dunleavy, Dahntay Jones, Chris Duhon.  Ranked #1 most of the season until losing a couple of games in late February.  Upset by Indiana in the Sweet 16.

6. Duke, 2003-04 (31-6, 13-3)

The starting lineup here was JJ Redick, Luol Deng, Daniel Ewing, Shelden Williams, and Chris Duhon.  They were ranked #1 for most of January, but lost a few down the stretch.  They lost an incredible ACC Tournament final to Maryland in overtime, then made the Final Four, where they lost to eventual champion UConn by a point.

7. UNC, 2006-07 (31-7, 11-5)

This was a very good team, but not a great one.  The starting lineup was Hansbrough, Brandan Wright, Wayne Ellington, Ty Lawson, and Reyshawn Terry, with Danny Green off the bench.  They went 31-7 overall and were not ranked #1 for most of the season.  They stumbled a bit down the stretch, won the ACC Tournament, but lost in the regional final to Georgetown.

8. UNC, 1985-86 (28-6, 10-4)

Starting lineup: Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Steve Hale, Joe Wolf, Jeff Lebo/Dave Popson/Warren Martin.  This team started 21-0 and was #1 all year long, and then the wheels came off.  They lost 3 of their last 4 regular season games, lost in the first round of the ACC Tournament, then lost in the Sweet 16 to eventual champion Louisville.

2003 Top 50 List: Yes

Dan Collins List: Yes

This one is personal for me.  I grew up an NC State fan, and Rodney Monroe, Chris Corchiani, and Tom Gugliotta are the players I remember best.  I think many Wolfpack fans look back on this era with – not just with fondness, but something akin to reverence, out of proportion to the actual success these teams had.  In Monroe’s years, NC State didn’t win an ACC Tournament and didn’t make it past the Sweet 16.  I think there are a couple of reasons for the intensity of feeling that NC State fans have for this era.

One, these teams, and players, were exceedingly fun to watch.  They played an up tempo style, made shots, and scored a lot of points.  Corchiani and Monroe were a perfect pair – the fiery, tough, smart floor general Corchiani, and the cool, understated, sweet-shooting Monroe.

But the biggest reason is that looking back, NC State fans now understand that this was the end of an era.  Through 1991, NC State was one of the ten best programs in the history of college basketball.  Since 1991, they haven’t been one of the 50 best.  It’s almost as if when Monroe and Corchiani left the program, they took the excellence, the pride, and the history with them.

Of particular significance to fans, 1991 also marked the end of the era when NC State was on a similar level with Duke and North Carolina.  During Monroe and Corchiani’s careers, NC State went 8-10 against their biggest rivals.  Nobody owns Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski, but it was competitive.  When you played one of those teams at home, you expected to win.  No matter where you played them, you knew you were going to compete, and you didn’t worry about getting embarrassed.

Monroe as a player is one of the greatest scorers in ACC history.  He is the ACC’s fourth all-time leading scorer behind Tyler Hansbrough, JJ Redick, and Johnny Dawkins.  He trails only Hansbrough and Redick in career 20-point games.  He is sixth all-time in career 30-point games and is the only player from the last 45 years in the top six.  Only Len Chappell (50) and Dickie Hemric (49) scored more in an ACC game than Monroe’s 48 against Georgia Tech in 1991.  Monroe is third all-time in three-point FG%, shooting 43.6% for his career.  His 27 points per game in 1991 has not been reached by an ACC player since.

Monroe did better among ACC voters than he did nationally.  He was first team All-ACC in 1989 as a sophomore.  In his junior year, he barely missed, finishing sixth in the voting.  His performance didn’t dip at all; he probably lost some votes because the Wolfpack had a somewhat disappointing year in Jim Valvano’s last season.  As a senior, Monroe was named ACC Player of the Year over Kenny Anderson and Christian Laettner.  Anderson and Laettner did better in All-America voting, which is understandable; both of them had been to the Final Four the previous year, so they came into the year with a lot of hype, plus they were great players, of course.