Greatest College Basketball Recruiting Class

I saw a graph in an ESPN Magazine, and I think they left out 2011 Kentucky, which actually won it all Fab Five, with Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist and Teague.

What others can people come up with?

UCLA 1965?
Lew Alcindor
Lucius Allen
Ken Heitz
Lynn Shackelford

Ohio State 1958?
Jerry Lucas,
John Havlicek,
Mel Nowell,
Bob Knight

UCLA 1970?
Bill Walton,
Keith Wilkes

 

Duke 1997
Shane Battier
Elton Brand
William Avery
Chris Burgess

UNC 1993
Vince Carter
Rasheed Wallace
Jeff McInnis

 

1991 Michigan
Chris Webber
Jalen Rose
Juwan Howard
Jimmy King
Ray Jackson

Kentucky 2009
John Wall
DeMarcus Cousins
Eric Bledsoe
Daniel Orton
Jon Hood

2006 Ohio State
Greg Oden
Mike Conley Jr.
Daequan Cook
David Lighty

Duke 1997
Shane Battier
Elton Brand
Chris Burgess
William Avery

 

I thought this was going to be an interesting thread, but once I put a few classes together, it seems like there is not that much debate over the top ones.

 

The 1979 freshman class has to be the best ever. Sampson, Worthy, Wilkins, Lowe, Wittenburg, Byron Scott, Minniefield, Paxson, Sidney Green, Antoine Carr and even Greg Kite had a long NBA career.

 

Pancamo, this is probably more interesting than the starting question.

 

Greg Kite? I'm not putting a guy whose most memorable game -- Game 3 of the '87 Finals -- saw him score...0 points, on any type of greatest list. And Lowe and Wittenburg...

It is an interesting discussion, though. But just off the top of my head, the freshmen of 1981 -- Jordan, Hakeem, Barkley, Ewing, Mullin, Oakley, Karl Malone (wasn't eligible freshman year), Dumars (to name a few) -- is sort of tough to beat. If it's about how the guys in a freshmen class eventually did in the NBA.

 

2004 Florida
Corey Brewer
Joakim Noah
Taurean Green
Al Horford

 

Although your point about the greatness of the 79 class is valid, that is the strangest description of why I've ever seen.

You included friggin Greg Kite, yet forgot the guy who turned out to be greatest of all the players from that class, Isiah Thomas. And also forgot others at the top of that class like Terry Cummings, Sam Bowie, Clark Kellogg, Rodney McRay, Dale Ellis, Thurl Bailey and even Steve Stipanovich who were all immensely better examples than than Kite.