COLLEGE GREATNESS

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I must admit, this has been a phenomenal NCAA tournament. This tournament has had most of the elements that we love about the annual month of madness which college basketball provides us with each March. We have seen “Cinderellas” upset highly seeded teams. We have seen great individual performances, and we have seen TEAMS prove that even though they may seem less talented, the sum of their parts is better than the more talented individuals they faced. This tournament has also shown us why coaches are so important in college basketball. Some of the in-game adjustments that have been made have been absolutely brilliant (Rick Pitino’s change from a zone to man defense in the second half against Florida immediately comes to mind). The only thing that this tournament is missing is the dramatic buzzer beater to win the game. But, hey, we still have one game left, so it’s still a possibility.

While watching some of the great individual performances in this year’s tournament and throughout this college basketball season, I couldn’t help but to let my mind wonder and try to figure out where these players rank against the college basketball greats that came before them. That is when I decided that in this blog entry, I would name the top 5 college basketball players of all time (one per position). I quickly realized that I wouldn’t be able to do a good job on that list because I am not old enough to have seen some of the greats play. For instance, Bill Walton is widely considered to be one of the best college players to ever play. However, since his college career took place in the early 70’s, I really don’t have an informed opinion of him. So with my 30-year-old frame of reference, I decided to instead create a list of the 5 best college basketball players since 1990. This is around the time when I really got into college basketball, and for the purposes of this blog that means I am qualified to create this list. I know that there will be players that are left off the list that some of you feel were better players than my top 5. If that is indeed the case, please feel free to chime in with your opinions in the comments section found at the bottom of this blog entry. These players are simply the top 5 in MY opinion. I recognize the high probability of dissension here and I look forward to your rebuttals.

Although the players on this list may have gone on to have great NBA careers. That was not a factor in creating this list. This list is based strictly on their performance in college and the impact they made to the college game.

My starting five are….

Point Guard   

Allen Iverson: Simply put, college basketball has never seen a player this dynamic before him or since he moved on to the NBA. Before Iverson was the “Answer” to all of the NBA’s problems, he was the first truly dominant guard to hit the floor for a University known for producing great big men. Even in college, Iverson was bigger than life. He was a rock-star who had the game to live up to the persona and swagger that seemed to precede him. He could handle the ball as good as a Harlem Globetrotter, could get to the basket anytime he damn well pleased, and was also an excellent shooter. He was unstoppable in college, and had some of the best duels in college basketball history with my pick for shooting guard. Fortunately for Iverson, this is a list of the best college basketball players and not the best student athletes. If that was the case, he definitely would not have made it. The fact that Iverson has blown nearly the entire fortune that he amassed while playing in the NBA, tell us that he didn’t exactly take advantage of the free Georgetown education. However, if it wasn’t for his spectacular basketball skills, he would have never had the opportunity to blow such a fortune. As JaMarcus Russell might say, “It’s better to have been a rich and lost it all, then to never have been rich.” He is without a doubt the best point guard to play college basketball in the last two decades.

Honorable Mention: Mike Bibby, Stephon Marbury

Shooting Guard

When the basketball gods created the position of shooting guard, Ray Allen was definitely the prototype that they had in mind. Allen was one of the most complete college basketball players that I have ever seen. He was his team’s best perimeter defender (evidenced by the fact that he always drew the defensive assignment on Iverson), a great ball handler, and could also beat his man off the dribble. Oh yeah, there’s one other thing. He has the best jumpshot in the history of jumpshots. During his time at UConn their offense was completely built around him. Their offense mainly consisted of running Allen off of a series of complex screens to get him open shots. There have been other great shooters to play college basketball since Allen, but none of them possessed the ability to go by defenders who played them tight to prevent them from getting their shot off. Allen was simply that good. I will never understand how UConn coach Jim Calhoun was able to convince a kid from Los Angeles to come to Connecticut to play college basketball. I don’t want to assume anything on the matter, but whatever Calhoun did to get Allen, it was well worth it.

Honorable Mention: Stephen Curry, Richard Hamilton

Small Forward

I initially struggled with this pick. I was initially torn between Jalen Rose and Grant Hill. Both had stellar and memorable college careers. After thinking about it a little more, I ultimately chose Grant Hill. Then while writing about Hill, I instantly realized that I had made a mistake and that Hill was definitely not the right selection. An epiphany struck and I remembered the dominant force that was Carmelo Anthony during the 2002-2003 season. Anthony, much like Ray Allen, is the embodiment of an offensively complete basketball player. During his lone season at Syracuse, Anthony was simply unstoppable. He averaged 22 points and 10 rebounds per game. Anthony was able to score at will, and no one could come close to stopping him. He was a superb shooter that could also punish opponents in the post. Anthony also showed that he could handle the ball like a guard. Every time Anthony stepped onto the college basketball floor, he was hands down the best player in that game. Jim Boeheim will forever be indebted to Carmelo for single-handedly winning him his only national championship.

Honorable Mention: Jalen Rose, Grant Hill

Power Forward

Michigan’s “Fab 5” will always be remembered by college basketball fans for their impact on the game (long shorts & black socks), as well as their raw basketball talent. On a team filled with some of the best players in their recruiting class, Chris Webber was without a doubt the Alpha-male. The moment he entered college, he immediately became the best power forward in the nation. Without Webber, Michigan would have been just another talented college basketball team, but with Webber they were legit championship contenders from day one. The fact that Weber’s college career ended in infamy doesn’t take away from his collegiate brilliance at all. Ray Jackson, Jimmy King, Juwan Howard, Jalen Rose, and Chris Webber will always be remembered together as the “Fab 5”. However, Chris Webber was without a doubt Michael Jackson. The other four were immensely talented, but compared to Webber, they may as well had been “Tito”.

Honorable Mention: Tim Duncan, Larry Johnson

Center

Yes, I am a Kentucky fan. Yes, this list spans a 22-year period. However, my bias towards Kentucky has absolutely nothing to do with my selection at center. Anthony Davis is simply the most dominant force in college basketball today. On a team full of High School All-Americans, he clearly stands out as the best player. The best description that I have seen of Davis’ ability came from Bomani Jones (via twitter). He said, “Anthony Davis is make you giggle good.” That pretty much sums it up. Sometimes while watching Kentucky (I watch all of their games every season), I find myself chuckling at the plays that Davis routinely makes. What’s amazing is that Davis can completely control the game without taking a shot. He has blocked 180 shots this season (including the postseason). His 180 blocked shots ranks HIM 11^th in TEAM BLOCKED SHOTS. That’s right, only 10 TEAMS (including Kentucky) have blocked more shots than Anthony Davis this season. He is also averaging 14 points per game. This is also incredible once you consider the fact that he attempts only about 8 shots a game. On a team as talented as his, everyone can score, so everyone has to fill a role. His role is defensive stopper and paint dominator. On a less talented team with him as the clear number one option on offense, he would easily average 25 points per game or more. Oh yeah, you can also pencil him in for 10 rebounds per night. He is hands-down the best and most dominant center to play college basketball in the last 22 years. I dare you to find someone better!  .

Honorable Mention: Shaquille O’Neal, DeMarcus Cousins

And now for my Baller & Scrub of the Week….

BALLER – Guggenheim Baseball Management: Everyone meet the new owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Guggenheim Baseball Management consists of Magic Johnson, Stan Kasten, Peter Guber, Todd Boehly, and Bobby Patton. These gentlemen pooled their resources and came up with $2 BILLION to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes, they overpaid for the franchise, and yes it was a terrible deal because they didn’t even get all of the parking lots in the deal, but the fact that they had $2 billion dollars of disposable income between them to make this purchase, gives them Baller of the Week status. To add insult to injury, this was an ALL CASH PURCHASE! That’s right, they didn’t finance a penny. I double dare, matter of fact, I double-dog dare another rapper to go into the recording booth and tell the world how much he is balling. Unless he can call up four friends and come up with $2 billion, I don’t want to hear it. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to pull together a group of my friends to make such an enormous purchase, but right now, I doubt that we could even afford an indoor women’s professional soccer franchise.

SCRUB – The Charlotte Bobcats: The Bobcats have a 7 and 43 record this season and are currently riding a 7 game losing streak. This is absolutely horrible. It’s now time for team owner Michael Jordan to call NBA Commissioner David Stern and ask for a small favor as repayment for all of the money that Jordan made for the league during his playing days. I’m sure that Jordan would consider rigging the NBA lottery so that the Bobcats were sure to get the first pick in the draft ample repayment. This pick would certainly be used to select Kentucky’s Anthony Davis in the draft, and hopefully usher in a new era of Bobcat basketball. If they don’t get the first pick, look for more of the same from the Bobcats next year as well. To put in perspective how bad they are, Larry Brown couldn’t make them a winner. This is the guy who even made the Clippers of the early 90’s a respectable team.



This is my list, if you disagree feel free to share your list in the comments section.

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EVERYONE’S A SPORTS FAN

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I am a sports fan, and I assume that everyone that is a regular reader of this blog is as well. As sports fans, we enjoy watching, playing, and following the daily news of our favorite sports. ESPN is the television staple for sports fans; we go to bed at night and wake up in the morning to Sportscenter trying our best to convince our significant other that each airing is in fact a new edition. As sports fans we tend to associate with other sports fans (birds of a feather…as they say). It’s nice to have friends that enjoy the same sports as we do, and we enjoy watching the games with them whether we root for the same or rival teams. For those of us that are truly fortunate, we will marry a fellow sports fan (which I did). Which means that sports will never be one of the things you have to sacrifice when making the usual compromises that come with marriage. All in all, being a sports fan is awesome because it gives us an escape from the rigors of everyday life, and a hobby to be passionate about.

Most sports fans have a certain sport or sports that they follow very closely. Personally, I love the NFL and NBA above all others. However, I also follow college basketball closely, and I stay in tuned with the on-goings of college football (although I only watch a few full games each season). I am also a golf fan (and a bad golfer), and I keep tabs on NASCAR and MLB. As for hockey, I’m a 30 year old black man raised in the south. That should explain my interest in hockey. We in the community of sport fandom have different levels of passion about a wide variety of sports, but our devotion to those interests connects us with other fans around the globe. This is a special and unique community eleven months of the year. In March however, there is nothing unique about being a sports fan, because everyone suddenly becomes a sports fan, or at least a fan of college basketball.

Strange things start to happen once the calendar turns to March. You suddenly don’t mind hearing that cheesy “One Shining Moment” song every time you turn to CBS. Your company totally ignores the corporate policy on gambling and turns a blind eye to all of the tournament pools taking place in the office. People who don’t know the difference between dribbling a basketball and dribbling a soccer ball are suddenly into college basketball and filling out brackets. I rarely, if ever, fill out a bracket. The odds against getting it right are astronomical, so I just don’t take the time to do it. Plus, if I did fill them out, Kentucky (the college basketball team that I have been following since my youth) would always end up winning. The best and most amusing thing about this college basketball phenomenon is the strategies used by others when filling out their bracket. Some of them include:

Picking the Best Team – This is the method that I would prefer if I filled out a bracket (with Kentucky always winning every game, of course). This method is used by the college basketball fan that really follows the sport. They know (or think they know) the advantages and disadvantages of each team in every matchup. They fill out their bracket with first-hand knowledge of the teams involved.

Conference Affiliation – Die-hard college sports fan are fiercely loyal to their conferences. If their team can’t win, they would rather a team in their conference win. This is strictly for bragging rights. If they can’t say Roll Damn Tide! They’d at least like to be able to shout SEC! SEC! SEC!

Chalk – In this situation the highest seeded team will win every game in the tournament. This will NEVER happen in a 68 team tournament.

Cutest Mascot – This one is understandably more popular with women. I’m not saying that it can’t work, but I am saying that the University of Georgia has never won the tournament. Personally, I don’t think that dog they have for a mascot is all that good-looking.

Which Mascot Would Win A Fight – Let’s just say, this is probably why the Fighting Okra of Delta State don’t play Division 1 basketball. Obviously, they wouldn’t have a chance.

Then there’s my personal favorite. I promise you I am not making this up. Please keep in mind that I earn my living as an engineer, thus my co-workers are also engineers.

Two years ago, one of my co-workers was filling out his bracket. He went to a small school in the Northeast that will never win the NCAA tournament, neither will any team from the conference that they play in. Therefore, it was obvious that he wasn’t filling it out for his team or a fellow conference member to win. Instead, his chosen method was….

Which School Would Win in a Fight – After hearing this, I immediately thought that he would simply pick the school with the worst academic reputation to win each game. I was assuming that he would equate partying, drinking, and not doing well academically with the ability to fight. Boy was I wrong! In fact, he had the opposite strategy. He picked the engineering schools with the best academic reputation to win each game, because they have the intelligence to build better weapons and defense systems to be used in combat. I am not making this up! Using his logic, if MIT ever figures out how to apply that brain power to the hardwood, the tournament will never be the same.

Lines on paper (otherwise known as brackets) have helped make the NCAA tournament the multi-billion dollar enterprise that it has become. I hope the enterprising person who figured out how to get the whole country interested in the tournament has received some benefits from this tremendous idea. There isn’t much that the NCAA does right. In fact the NCAA tournament in the only thing that I think they do get right. It is only rivaled by the Super Bowl when you think of championships creating excitement for their sport. Think about it. The only people who give a damn about the World Series are people who live in the cities that are participating. The NHL, really? I challenge anyone to name the last three Stanley Cup Winners. The NBA is all about stars, so casual sports fans don’t really care which teams are playing in the finals, they are more concerned about which individual players are playing. As for college football, thanks to the recent dominance of the SEC, it has pretty much become a regional sport, almost like NASCAR (I know people in Big Ten country and on the west coast aren’t going to like that).

The NCAA tournament has something to offer for everyone. If you are a college basketball fan, you get to see the 68 best teams in the country battle for the title. If you are a casual fan, you get to stop by some pretty good games while channel surfing and realizing that nothing else is on. If you’re not a fan at all, you still get to pretend to know sports by filling out your bracket and joining your office’s “only legal in March” gambling pool.

As it always does, this year’s tournament will feature some monumental upsets, and some surprisingly close games. A twelve seed will definitely beat a five seed in the first round, simply because it happens every year. When this happens, fans and the media will absolutely love it. Everyone loves the story of the underdog taking out the favorite in the tournament. We are a country that loves seeing David slay Goliath. This is where I differ from most. While I don’t mind seeing an early round upset or two during the first week of the tournament, by the time we get down to eight teams, I root for Wal-Mart! I want to see the super-powers square off. The Butler’s and VCU’s of the world are nice stories, but they have no place in my Final Four. I am hoping to see Kentucky, Syracuse, North Carolina, and Missouri in the Final Four. They have been the best four teams all season and they all play in big boy conferences. Will it happen? Probably not, but that’s the fun of this tournament. None of us know what’s going to happen.

And now for my Baller & Scrub(s) of the Week….

BALLER – NCAA Tournament Selection Committee: You may want to take a screenshot of this section and frame it, because I NEVER GIVE THE NCAA PROPS FOR ANYTHING! This is the most asinine group of administrators in the history of the world. Yet, they manage to do a great job with the tournament year in and year out. Some years the tournament is not very exciting, but that is a product of how the teams play, not which teams are invited. Also, if you are a coach, team, or fan that feels as though you were snubbed, GET OVER IT! If you weren’t clearly one of the 68 best teams in the country, then you run the risk of being left out. I have no sympathy for #69.

SCRUB #1 – Every NFL Quarterback not named Rodgers, Brees, Brady, Manning (Eli), Roethlisberger, Rivers, Stafford, or Newton: I have bad news for you. Your team doesn’t like you very much. Whether they will admit it or not, your team has reached out to Peyton Manning’s representatives to check his interest in replacing you. Fortunately for the makers of Kleenex, Peyton can only take one of your jobs, so there will be a box waiting in all of the survivor’s lockers to cry out their frustrations when training camp starts. The NFL is a cold, cold world. Arguably the best quarterback in NFL history is now available. Never mind the fact that he is 36 years old and has had four neck surgeries. Your team still likes him better than they like you. So suck it up and get over it. Or you could simply go join Terrell Owens in the Indoor Football League.

SCRUB #2 – ESPN: I miss the non-stop Jeremy Lin coverage. What happened to it?! He still plays in the NBA, right? Is he any less interesting now? Don’t quit on us now, please start back inundating us with Jeremy Lin coverage.


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STRAIGHT CASH HOMEY!!!! WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK

I hope that everyone enjoyed Championship Sunday as much as I did. I was also fortunate enough to attend the Kentucky - Georgia college basketball game (I love my wife). For those of you that don't already know, I AM A HUGE KENTUCKY BASKETBALL FAN!

Get ready for the Super Bowl. It should be a good one. I AM PREDICTING THAT THE CARDINALS WILL SHOCK THE WORLD!!!!

Unfortunately I was very busy this weekend and was not able to post anything new. However, I will have something new for next week, so stay tuned!


AND NOW FOR MY BALLER & SCRUB OF THE WEEK!

BALLER: Jodie Meeks (University of Kentucky) - Meeks had 54 points in Kentucky's victory at Tennessee on Tuesday night. We must also credit Tennessee Head Coach, Bruce Pearl, for not understanding the concept of the halftime adjustment. Meeks had 26 in the first half! He went on to add another 28 to that total in the second half. Which means that Pearl just couldn't find an answer for him. For that performance, he definitely deserves to be the BALLER OF THE WEEK!

SCRUB: Joe Flaco (Baltimore Ravens) - I know that Flaco is a rookie and has played reasonably well this season, but in a game like this you simply have to play better. The defense played well enough to win, but Flaco simply couldn't make a play when they needed it. He finished the game with a stat line that reads 13 - 30 passing for 141 yards. He also had zero touchdowns and 3 interceptions. I know that he is young and will without a doubt get better, but this week HE WAS A SCRUB!!!!