A history lesson, for our newest college basketball fans

Feel free to add if I've left any great players off the list. I'll just start with these two and add some as I go, by all means add your own favorite players that you've seen in your life.



This picture is of perhaps the most pure shooter in all of college basketball and one of the best ACC players in history, JJ Redick. He is 1/100th of a percentage point from being the all time career leader in best three point percentage, and is two made 3's from having more threes made than anyone in history. He's leading the country in scoring this year, and is also the career best free throw shooter in history, although this year he's shooting several percentage points lower than his average. There have been other great shooters and better scorers of course. The best also had skills like a point guard with uncanny passing ability, Harlem Globetrotter like dribbling, and was apparently a better shooter than JJ Redick, which quite frankly is pretty tough to imagine. He averaged 44 ppg in his career, and is my father's favorite player of all time. He could have gone to NC State, but couldn't pass his sat's :imagestor His father, the coach at State, instead took the job at LSU. His son was 'Pistol' Pete Maravich. He is the career leader in NCAA points for a career, despite only being allowed to play 3 years (freshmen couldn't play varsity then) and not having a three point line. With his dribble he was as close to unguardable as has ever existed, and also had the ability to create for others at an equally high level. Don't sleep on JJ though, it's gonna be a long time until we see his equal in a shooter I think. We'll never see Pistol Pete's equal.







The last three pictures encapture what is the ending to what is commonly called the best basketball game ever played, Duke vs Kentucky in 1992. Duke was defending National Champions, and this game went into overtime for a berth in the Final Four. Neither team would give up, Kentucky made a near miracle shot to go up by one with 2.1 seconds left in the game. Their guard, a 6'4 player threw a bank shot over the man in the pics, Christian Laettner, who is 6'11. The shot was a prayer that was answered with a bank off the glass from 15 feet out. Duke called an immediate timeout. Grant Hill threw a perfect length of the court pass about 8 feet in the air that arrived at the opposite foul line. Laettner used all his height to grab the ball, while two shorter Kentucky players flanked him. Not content to just shoot, he actually dribbled once to his right, before reversing back to his left and hitting a fallaway shot from 16 feet as time expired. If you look carefully at the first picture of Laettner, you will see the scoreboard timer at 0 and Kentucky winning 103 to 102, magnificent picture. Duke won 104 to 103 and went on to win back to back National Championships. Laettner made all 12 of his shots that day, and all 8 of his free throws.

Christian Laettner is likely the most decorated college basketball player of our time, and potentially the last one to dominate for so long. Some UCLA players such as Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and his teammates won three National Championships, some like Bill Walton, Oscar Robertson, and Jerry Lucas won two NCs, but those were in the 60's and before. Christian Laettner helped his team get to three straight National Championship games, winning the last two his junior and senior year. To get to that game you must win 5 games, more than in the 60's. In his freshman year, he was a key starter on a Duke team that lost in the Final Four. He became the only player in history to start on four Final Four teams. He also hit another buzzer beater in the NCAA tournament his sophmore year against UConn to spur Duke into the Final Four. He made over 50% of his three pointers his senior year, a touch unheard of for a man his size. This man was a legend in his own time. Just so I won't sound too biased, I know, too late, the Duke team his sophmore year continues to hold the record for largest loss in a NC game, to UNLV. Duke's first NC the next year came at UNLV's expense in the Final Four however, so Laettner got his revenge.

Alright, some of you guys saw Michael Jordan, Len Bias, Ralph Sampson, David Thompson and Mark Price play college basketball, just to name some of the ACC superstars (many individually greater than the two I highlighted, believe it or not :imagestor). Throw in a Chris Mullins, Patrick Ewing, James Worthy and what have you. Who did you remember just being awed by? What are some of the great individual moments you saw that you'll never forget?

I ask because we're in the midst of what may be the weakest college basketball season in a long time, especially in the area. The ACC is horrible (still whooped UNCCs ass with our worst team), and what's weird, there have been no 'breakout' players in all of the country. Perhaps Tyler Hansbrough is the only player really contributing strongly to a good program that we didn't know last year. Rudy Gay, Josh Brown, Adam Morrison, Allen Ray, JJ and Sheldon Williams, we all knew about those players last year. There have been little to no other players that anyone is talking about as 'must see.' So since none of the newer kids are stepping up, let's take time to remember some of the greats that made this game what it is today. Let's remind the HS kids what makes college basketball so much more timeless and special than the NBA. Let's remind ourselves what basketball is really about.

 

And with his third three pointer in the first 13 min of the game, JJ Redick becomes the career leader with 414 made threes and counting. I don't know the percentages, but I imagine his 3-5 so far would also put him in the lead percentagewise as far as made threes. Let's give it up for the most prolific and accurate three point shooter in college basketball history

 

Redick is definitely an awesome player, but all those images really make it seem like you have want to have dirty, barnyard sex with him. I'd dial down the "love" a little bit if I were you.

 

Thanks for your contribution

 

thanks math for getting this thread under control.

 

I'm there for you.

 

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