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SI's top 10 NCAA Tournament players

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Mar 5, 2013.

  1. Norrin Radd

    Norrin Radd New Member

    Agreed. Laettner is too low. Would put him in top three.

    Fanboy alert here: strictly considering the NCAA Tournament, a Steve Alford accomplished as much as Bird. Seems part of that list is "Uh, um . . . let's just name great NBA players!!!!!!!!!!!"

    Also agree that Ewing should be there.
     
  2. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    Yup- Keith Smart knocked down the shot when it counted by Alford got 'em there.
     
  3. Orange Hat Bobcat

    Orange Hat Bobcat Active Member

    The introductory letter in the bonus magazine mentioned they started with a list of 75, yes, Mizzou. I imagine the list and the package will be promoted more as the tournament nears, but if you want to scroll through it now, here's a link: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/specials/college-basketball-75th-anniversary/players.html#. Of course Ewing and Thompson are 12th and 13th. Of course they are. (Worthy is 43rd, Boom.)

    The top five boils down to magazine covers. This is a special issue outside the regular weekly that will probably be in stores for more than a month. The contents page shows five different regional covers, and though they're quite small, I think they're the top five players on the list — Alcindor, Walton, Russell, Robertson and Bird. Bird is on that list to sell magazines. That's it. That's the whole reason. If they could have found a way to get Bird, Magic and Jordan (who is not on the list at all) into the top five and onto covers, I'm sure they would have.
     
  4. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Bobby Hurley.

    Mateen Cleaves.

    Hakeem Olajuwon.

    Danny Manning.
     
  5. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Bird really had no reason to be in the top 10. Top 20 maybe.

    Most of the people in the top 10 won multiple titles.

    Isiah should be there above Bird. So should Ewing. So should Olajuwon.
     
  6. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Not true.

    1. Lew Alcindor
    2. Bill Walton
    3. Bill Russell
    9. Christian Laettner

    Only those four did. And they should have been the top four.
     
  7. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    Bob Kurland and Alex Groza also deserved spots in the top 10. Butch Lee wouldn't have been a bad addition, either.
     
  8. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    That would have been my top four.
     
  9. Bubbler

    Bubbler Well-Known Member

    Grant Hill should be on there.
     
  10. Versatile

    Versatile Active Member

    1. Lew Alcindor
    2. Bill Walton
    3. Jerry Lucas
    4. Bill Russell
    5. Christian Laettner
    6. Bob Kurland
    7. Patrick Ewing
    8. Danny Manning
    9. Magic Johnson
    10. Alex Groza

    I didn't even notice Lucas was omitted until just now. That's egregious.
     
  11. Norrin Radd

    Norrin Radd New Member

    Alex "The Toe" Groza?

    #SportsKnowledge
     
  12. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Any list without Austin Carr is worthless.

    See, this is why I have trouble with top 10 lists -- and frankly, I think they're usually ridiculous to even attempt. The difference between the top players is very small to begin with, but there's no clear definition of what you're looking for. Is it the most titles? Individual performances? Carr never made the Final Four but he averaged 41.3 points in his seven tournament games, dropped 61 on Ohio U and 52 on Kentucky and TCU. Shouldn't he be on the list somewhere?

    BTW, a few notes on Carr -- he averaged 52.7 ppg in three games in the 1970 tournament and 41.7 in three games in '71. And he was not the entire Notre Dame offense: In Carr's three 50-plus games I mentioned above, teammate Collis Jones put up 24, 22 and 26 points. Oh, and when Carr went off for 52 on Kentucky, UK's Dan Issell answered with 44 points.
     
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