# College Basketball's 25 Greatest Players of All-Time



## The Truth (Jul 22, 2002)

according to a cbssportsline.com poll:

http://www.sportsline.com/collegebasketball/fanpolls 

I personally think Pistol Pete should be number 1. Absolutely no way Michael Jordan should be #2.

Christian Laettner at #15 is a joke.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

I'm betting the majority of people who voted in that poll are a bunch of teens-young adults who never even saw Jordan in college and also have no knowldge about college basketball. Larry was great too, but with no nat'l chapionship, no way he's No. 1. I go with Pistol before Larry Legend, but again, no championship. I honestly don't think anyone could challenge Alcindor. Off the top of my head...
1. Alcindor
2. Wilt
3. Walton
4. Pistol
5. Oscar
6. Russell
7. West
8. Magic
9. David Thompson
10. Elvin Hayes

Where do you think Christian should be? Shaq above him? :laugh: If I remember correctly, Laettner outplayed Shaq head to head. Patrick Ewing in the top 8. Again, :laugh: Grant Hill is too high. Turasi and Hodlsclaw above Cheryl Miller. Are you kidding me?!?!?! As you can tell, I only like these "Greatest of all time" polls because I get to complain a lot about how the people voting for them have no clue what they're talking about. Like I said, they're a bunch of kids who've only seen these players in the NBA/WNBA and have _zero_ knowledge about anything before 1985.


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## The Truth (Jul 22, 2002)

TonyM said:


> I'm betting the majority of people who voted in that poll are a bunch of teens-young adults who never even saw Jordan in college and also have no knowldge about college basketball. Larry was great too, but with no nat'l chapionship, no way he's No. 1. I go with Pistol before Larry Legend, but again, no championship. I honestly don't think anyone could challenge Alcindor. Off the top of my head...
> 1. Alcindor
> 2. Wilt
> 3. Walton
> ...



Laettner had a much better college career than Shaq. I actually think he should be around the 8-10 range (and ahead of Jordan).

I realize that Pistol Pete didn't win a national championship, but I am still partial to him. He averaged 44 points per game for his college _career_. Also, you can't really fault Larry Bird for not winning a championship. It was amazing that team even made it to the championship game.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

haha, where'd Bird go? I could have sworn I had him on there. Oh well, get rid of Hayers, bump Thompson down to 10, and put Larry in @ #9.


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

George Mikan at 37? The guy was voted the best player of the first 50 years of basketball....They had to make rules (3 in the key and goaltend) because of him.


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## JuniorNoboa (Jan 27, 2003)

I think Patrick Ewing at #8 is fairly reasonable. Laettner would be right near top 10 for me.

As for Pistol Pete - were his teams any good. Not only were they not national championship teams, I think some of the teams struggled to be .500. Sure he was a great scorer, but his teams were too poor. Pistol appeared to be a great player who was given free reign to take every shot for a subpar team. Top 10, but not #1. I go with Bill Walton as my #1.


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## zagsfan20 (Dec 24, 2004)

Freeman Williams was great at Portland State....


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## Gtown07 (Dec 10, 2003)

Ewing led his team to three freaking final 4's and a national championship!!!!
Number 8 is low. No respect for THE G'town Hoya. 

And to not put him in the top 10 make people look real uneducated on the subject. Pure stupidity.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

Gtown07 said:


> And to not put him in the top 10 make people look real uneducated on the subject. Pure stupidity.


Pure bias.


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## HeinzGuderian (Jun 29, 2004)

I've never been more scared of a college player than I was of Ralph Sampson.


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## Gtown07 (Dec 10, 2003)

Pure bias huh? I'm very good about never talking about Georgetown but look at the numbers you *<s>fuc*king idiot</s> do not mask curses and do not insult* Nevermind his stats which are money in the bank. He led his team to 3 final 4's and won a national championship! Name 10 other dudes that captained their teams to that. And i think he won the Big East all 4 years. Don't be a total <s>moron</s>. Ewing ran ****.


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

1 nat'l championship. I don't care about Final Fours.

1. Alcindor
2. Wilt
3. Walton
4. Pistol
5. Oscar
6. Russell
7. West
8. Magic
9. Bird
10. Elvin Hayes

There's 10 guys I'd rather have had. And way to act mature with the name calling


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

No need for the tone Gtown07. You hurt your cause when you get excited like that. He was a great college player and did a lot but many other players did things to the same level.


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## JuniorNoboa (Jan 27, 2003)

Patrick Ewing was the Christian Laettner of the 80's (pure winner), but I would say he was more completely dominant (offense + defence)

He is a top 10 player - better then Hayes or Bird.


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## Quasi-Quasar (Jul 18, 2002)

Shaq wasn't even the best player on his team, he's not a top 100 college player, period, despite his NBA accomplishments. Where's Gail Goodrich or Maques Johnson... Emeka Okafor is a joke on that list...Was this randomly voted or something? TonyM's list is pretty good. Here's mine:
1. Alcindor
2. Magic
3. Walton
4. Wilt
5. Oscar
6. West
7. Russell
8. Pistol
9. Bird
10. Marques Johnson


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

Ah yes, Goodrich, Hazzard, etc. Now THAT was a good ball team.


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## Quasi-Quasar (Jul 18, 2002)

Pick any UCLA team from '67-'73/74 and you have at least one top 50 all-time player. It's too bad Reggie, Don McLean, Ed O'Bannon and Tracy Murray are the only real notables since though (Ty Edney, Toby Bailey, Charles O'Bannon and that type isn't so notable)...It's too bad Ariza didn't stay. Farmar should should soon join at least the UCLA ranks, and Keefe should as well in two years...Damn Taylor King and his "decommit" though...Bozo did the same thing but eventually ended up at UCLA, but King is much better than Ced already. 

I just noticed that the list was voted, that's why it was so skewed...all of Indiana must have voted on this poll... Isiah Thomas is a racist when he does his Larry Bird routine, but Bird isn't top 5 all-time guy either.


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## JuniorNoboa (Jan 27, 2003)

TheGoods said:


> Shaq wasn't even the best player on his team, he's not a top 100 college player, period, despite his NBA accomplishments. Where's Gail Goodrich or Maques Johnson... Emeka Okafor is a joke on that list...Was this randomly voted or something? TonyM's list is pretty good. Here's mine:
> 1. Alcindor
> 2. Magic
> 3. Walton
> ...


Shaq was CLEARLY the best player on his team as a sophomore and a junior - and it's not even close (acknowledge that Chris Jackson was much better when they were both frosh). LSU had really sad supporting talent for him in his junior and soph years ... unless your a big Clarence Ceaser fan. He should be in the top 100 - back to back first team all-americans should be on the top 100.

As for Emeka Okafor at #35.... why is this a joke? He was clearly the player of the year and helped lead his team to the national title. What player below him has those two credentials. There have only been about 50-55 players of the year. Why would being at 35 be unreasonable?

Personally I think your living in the UCLA glory years and not giving enough credit to the past generation.


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## JuniorNoboa (Jan 27, 2003)

TonyM said:


> 1 nat'l championship. I don't care about Final Fours.
> 
> 1. Alcindor
> 2. Wilt
> ...


0 Players in the last 25 years of basketball (1980-2004)
10 Players in the 25 year period of basketball (1955-1979)

Not saying your list looks that bad. Makes for an interesting topic.... Why is there no appreciation for the current generation of players? Should there be?


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## TM (Jun 30, 2003)

1) I don't think the competition was as good, therefore guys like Russell, Pistol, Wilt looked even better. Don't get me wrong, those guys were some of the greatest players ever to play basketball (any level), but can you honestly say guys were as "athletic" (I'm using this in its vaguest way)? 2) NBA careers added to a lot of these player's impressiveness. 3) A lot of the newer guys aren't staying in college long enough for us to know whether or not they're great. I know Magic left early, but did any of the others?

Would you consider anyone in the last 25yrs above those 10-15 guys? We've already talked about several (Jordan, Ewing, Laettner). I'll throw out a few more possibilities. Some of these are probably totally undeserving: 
- 3 guys, like I mentioned above, who may have climbed up the "greatest of all time" polls had they stayed all 4 yrs:Emeka Okafor, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Williams 
- like Heinze said, Ralph Sampson is easily Top 20.
- Danny Manning, Tim Duncan, Akeem, Len Bias


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

I am going to keep saying George Mikan. They had to invent rules to counter him...


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## Middy (Jul 16, 2002)

Diana Tuarasi? I'd like to see he go one on one with any of the top 200 men's college players. HAHAHAHHAAHA!!!!!


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## Diable (Apr 26, 2005)

I'm from North Carolina and the best college player I ever saw was David Thompson.Don't have any reason to worry about how the rest of the list goes.As
for Michael Jordan he was nowhere close to being a truly great college player.Truthfully he was probably on the best
player at UNC his junior year and then he opted for early
entry.He was extremely good,but even in the State of North
Carolina you could probably list fifteen or twenty guys who
made a bigger impact at the college level.Hell even Billy
Packer's annoying a$$ probably makes that list


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## Pistolballer (May 9, 2003)

Pistol Pete was totally the king
not winning a championship cant always be held against someone, if its their team's fault ex: Marino, Ewing, Bird(college)

and he was born with a congenital heart defect that slowed him down his whole life, so he was at a permanent disadvantage athletics-wise


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## Hoopla (Jun 1, 2004)

JuniorNoboa said:


> 0 Players in the last 25 years of basketball (1980-2004)
> 10 Players in the 25 year period of basketball (1955-1979)
> 
> Not saying your list looks that bad. Makes for an interesting topic.... Why is there no appreciation for the current generation of players? Should there be?


I think it only gets worse as time goes on as well. If we were to make a list of the best players over the past 25 years, very few would come from the late 90s/early 00s. That is in large part due to the high school to NBA leapers and increasing number of early entries.

For instance, there isn't anyone on this year's All-American team that would have come close to cracking the 1992 1st team AA of Shaq, Mourning, Laettner, Miner, and Jim Jackson.


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## ItalianStallion (Jun 8, 2005)

not anybody thinking about the Admiral??? hey navy might have sucked but i remember him scoring 50 POINTS in the first round of an NCAA tournament and averaging something like 15+rebounds and 5+blocks.


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## kamego (Dec 29, 2003)

The Admiral was good but Mikan scored 56 in the championship game while playing without a shot clock


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