Ray was 49-5 in his Big East career. I'm not sure that gets enough respect on this board in general. That's insane. Don't ask him what second place feels like - he and Doron never knew.
Truth is, though, that Ray wasn't in that many down to the wire games, other than Florida as a freshman reserve and the Georgetown final when his clutch shot was a little but of luck more than anything. Most of those 49 wins involved putting teams away before the final minute or two - and our losses were often bad ones (Villanova, Kansas, Gtown). In our NCAA run, we beat Maryland and Cincy by 10 before falling to UCLA despite his 36 keeping us in striking distance (Cincy made it 5 at the end, but it wasn't that close).
There's always the Mississippi State game to hold against him, which is a fair point I guess, even though he was the only reason we weren't blown out by halftime. He did miss a contested three down by five with 20 seconds left and us holding on to a sliver of hope.
However, when it comes down to it in my opinion, going against Ray when it comes to three-pointers is like going against Shakespeare when picking a Renaissance playwright or going against Patoni when picking a ceiling tile artisan. Usually you start by saying "other than Shakespeare, who ya got?"
