Picking the best
The top players from the past decade
The Associated Press is putting together a few college basketball alldecade stories and has asked its Top 25 voters (which includes moi) for a little help.
Voters are asked to submit their topfive players (regardless of position), topfive teams, topfive NCAA tournament games and coach of the decade.
We’ll gladly oblige. It’s a fun exercise, but also a tricky one. For topfive players, do you go with the guys who had the most gaudy stats and went on to NBA fame, or guys who had the most oncourt success with their respective teams? Do you go with oneanddones like Zion Williamson and John Wall over three or fouryear standouts like Shabazz Napier or Buddy Hield?
For the topfive teams, do you simply go with national champions? That would seem logical, but what about teams that nearly went unbeaten (2014 Wichita State, 2015 Kentucky) or had great runs until the national finals? Topfive NCAA tourney games is also tough because there are so many great ones that go down to the wire, it’s actually hard to remember them all. We’re sure we forgot one or two on this list.
As for coach of the decade? That seems pretty easy.
Anyway, here’s our picks. Criticize all you’d like:
TOP FIVE PLAYERS
1. Kemba Walker, UConn: That 201011 season was truly magical. It started in Maui in November, when he almost singlehandedly led the Huskies to wins over Wichita State, Michigan State and Kentucky for the Maui Invitational title. He hit gamewinning shots against Texas and Villanova later that season, but his piece de resistance was the Big East tournament. Walker led UConn to an unprecedented five wins and five nights — highlighted by the famous buzzerbeating, stepback against Pittsburgh that permanently relegated poor Gary McGhee to posterized status — to win the title. The ensuing march to a national title was almost anticlimactic. Almost.
2. Anthony Davis, Kentucky: We’ll go with at least one oneanddone, since he was the consensus National Player of the Year in 2012 while leading the Wildcats to John Calipari’s only national championship to date.
3. Zion Williamson, Duke: OK, we’ll add one more oneanddone. Even though he didn’t win anything and, in fact, came a missed Aubrey Dawkins tipin away from being eliminated in the NCAA tourney’s second round, Zion lit up the college basketball world in 201819 like few other players have in the past 30 years.
4. Shabazz Napier, UConn: It’s not homerism, it’s having a frontrow seat to a remarkable twoyear run by Shabazz that truly rivals what Kemba did. We all know the gamewinners against Villanova (2012) and Florida (2013), the huge plays in overtime against St. Joseph’s and throughout
the 2014 NCAA tourney. But do you remember the lategame heroics against Wake Forest in the 2012 Paradise Jam? Or what about two nights later, when he scored 23 of his 26 points in the final 31⁄2 minutes and two overtimes to stave off what would have been a humiliating loss to Quinnipiac? There were so many more throughout his junior and senior seasons. And even when he didn’t make gamewinners, Napier always seemed to come up with a big basket to thwart an opponents’ rally or kick off a UConn run. And, of course, the “Hungry Husky” is a twotime national champion winner, as well, ably backing up Kemba on the 2011 run.
5. Jalen Brunson, Villanova: A twotime national champion, as well — in 2016, as a Big East AllFreshman performer, and as a junior in 2018, when he was National Player of the Year and a consensus First Team AllAmerican.
Runnersup: Jimmer Fredette, Doug McDermott, Buddy Hield, Trae Young, John Wall. No, UConn’s “TopFive” recruiting class of 2016 wasn’t a consideration!
TOP FIVE TEAMS
1. Kentucky, 2012: John Calipari’s lone national title team went 160 in the SEC, 301 in the regular season and 382 overall (most singleseason wins in NCAA history). The ‘Cats had a record six players selected in the 2012 NBA draft, including the top two overall picks: Anthony Davis and Michael KiddGilchrist.
2. UConn, 2011: No other team has won five games in five nights to win the Big East (or any other league) tournament. Then came a nationaltitle run that saw Jim Calhoun’s Huskies vanquish Kawhi
Leonard and San Diego State, Arizona, John Calipari’s Kentucky and, finally, Brad Stevens’s Butler in an admittedly ugly championship game. Earlier in the season, there was a Maui Invitational title. UConn featured a pair of future NBA lottery picks in Kemba Walker (2011) and freshman Jeremy Lamb (2012), not to mention a backup freshman point guard named Shabazz Napier.
3. Virginia, 2019: Yes, the Cavaliers’ defensiveoriented team wasn’t always pretty to watch. But we’ve got to give props to a group that bounced back from the embarrassment of becoming the first and only No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed the prior March. The Cavs had three whiteknuckler wins in the NCAA tournament, including an overtime win over Texas Tech for the title.
4. Villanova, 2018: The Wildcats’ second national champion in three years was probably their most dominant, capped by a 17point win over Michigan in the finals.
5. Duke, 2015: Maybe not Coach K’s greatest team in Durham, but probably his best of the decade, led by Jahlil Okafor, Quinn Cook, Tyus Jones and a punky freshman named Grayson Allen.
TOP FIVE NCAA TOURNAMENT GAMES
1. VillanovaNorth Carolina, 2016 title game: Ryan Arcidiacano eschews the shot and dishes back to Kris Jenkins for the buzzerbeating 3pointer to win the national title. Doesn’t get much better than that.
2. VirginiaPurdue, 2019 Elite Eight: Mamadi Diakite hits an unlikely jumper at the buzzer to send it overtime, and the Cavaliers survive an otherworldly performance by Carsen Edwards (42 points, 10 3pointers) to win 8075.
3. UMBCVirginia, 2018 opening round:
Sorry, Cavs fans — the first and only No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed is one that will always be remembered.
4. DukeButler, 2010 title game: Gordon Hayward backirons a halfcourt shot at the buzzer that would have given the Bulldogs an unlikely title win over the Blue Devils.
5. UConnSt. Joseph’s, 2014 opening round: The Huskies’ two title runs this decade strangely didn’t have a lot of great games, but we’ll add this one. Freshman Amida Brimah’s conventional 3point play with 39 seconds left saves the day for UConn, sending the game to overtime, where Shabazz Napier did most of the rest of the work. St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli graciously spoke with me six months later about Brimah’s play.
TOP FIVE COACHES
1. Jay Wright, Villanova: Two national titles in three seasons. Enough said.
2. Mike Krzyzewski, Duke: Coach K also won a pair of titles in the decade, but had more to work with than Wright.
3. Brad Stevens, Butler: We still think leading Butler to consecutive national title games, coming out of the Horizon League, is as amazing an accomplishment as there’s been.
4. John Calipari, Kentucky: Say what you want about him, it’s not easy blending together a whole new group of McDonald’s AllAmerican freshmen (and egos) each year.
5. John Beilein, Michigan: Except maybe Rick Pitino, nobody could get more out of the talent he had. Guided Wolverines to a pair of national title games, both of which they lost.