Grantlands Bizarre 50 Greatest College Basketball Players List

[Letsgohuskies11]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7185970/the-50-greatest-college-basketball-players-all-time

Only one uconn player....KEA??!?
And how the heck did Jimmer Fredette make the list and at 25?!

48- Gerry McNamara?????

25. Jimmer Fredette (BYU, 2007-2011): As a senior, Jimmer took 765 shots. That's about 235 fewer than he should have.

22. Khalid El-Amin (UConn, 1997-2000): Did you ever play intramural basketball against a short, fat, confident kid who kept driving the paint and effortlessly scoring over every clown who tried to stop him? And no matter how hard you played him, he never seemed excited or intimidated or even particularly interested? And then — when the game was finished, and everyone else was exhausted — he casually decided to jump into some other random intramural game and scored anoth

 

[bobbygt]

Absolutely awful; don't click on any more Grantland articles about cbb.

KEA 'never particularly interested' ???????

 

[benjordan]

It's clear they dont know anything about college bball. They called Oriakhi "one of the best shot blockers in college" he was 7th in the big east at 1.6/game last year. I mean he's not bad but come on.

 

[UCHuskies08]

My ranking criteria is as follows:

• Talent. This is the most important quality. However — and I cannot stress this enough — it's not the only quality. It's 50 percent of the equation, and sometimes less.
• The individual's college career must be more meaningful than his pro career. This doesn't mean the player had to be a professional bust, or even a professional disappointment — the candidate could be still be the league MVP, win multiple Larry O'Brien trophies, and spend his summers playing Clue in Billy Hunter's boathouse with Hubie Brown.1 It does not require anyone to be a terrible NBA product. However, the peak of the player's career needs to happen when they're working for free (or at least pretending to work for free). If an objective, informed fan hears this person's name, they should reflexively associate that individual's greatness with the idiom of college basketball. That's the key — any theoretical pro career is just something semi-irrelevant that happened later in life.
• Ideally, the player should possess an unorthodox game. Are you an undersized two-guard with no conscience? Do your unnaturally long arms compensate for your lack of a natural position? Do your physical limitations give you a paradoxical advantage? Were you the "one man" on a "one-man team"? Are there no other players comparable to your rarified version of weirdness? If so, congratulations. These are the qualities that make you memorable.
• There needs to be something vaguely "collegiate" about the individual's persona.This, obviously, is an abstraction; ranking college players on how "collegiate" they seem is a little like ranking filmmakers on how "cinematic" they act. But there's still something to this, even if it's impossible to quantify: I like unfinished people. I like players who are still figuring out who they are. I like guys who wear sweaters instead of suits. You can disagree with the logic of my argument, but it's not really based on logic, so your argument will fail.
• As with any historical list, my age is a bias. I am 39. I'm aware that human nature causes us to (a) romanticize players we remember from childhood, (b) lionize people we've only read about, and (c) undervalue modern players who seem like lesser versions of people we've seen before.

 

[bobbygt]

OK- I read it again and he is referring to the most unorthodox, great players in college who fizzled in the NBA- not the greatest of all time.

I stand by my motto of not reading their cbb stuff . . . .

 

[61cygni]

Guys who stick around your head when you think about college-basketball, from his point of view. Don't see anything wrong with this kind of list. Interesting to read about some of these players from the 80's and earlier that I've never had the pleasure to see.

 

[alexrgct]

Chuck Klosterman is awesome. This column is far better than Simmons's endless column about Eddie Murphy. Not sure at what point Bill Simmons decided he had any insight, qualifications, or other quality that would inspire anyone to give a crap what he thinks about pop culture. If you want to have pop culture on your site, pay talented and qualified writers to handle that.

 

[intlzncster]

No Selvie?

 

[willie99]

why is that admitted hater being linked here?

never mind UConn players, that was just a weird list

painful head-shaking read

 

[tayjlaw]

I love how upset everyone gets about these articles. The first line is "A very specific, purely subjective, totally infuriating list".

 

[progrocks]

people, he had a point to it and it was not to list the 50 best college players. you want to bitch, fine, but at least take a moment to realize what his intention was.

At least we are not seeing any KEA should have been rated higher posts though...

 

[asuwish]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7185970/the-50-greatest-college-basketball-players-all-time

Only one uconn player....KEA??!?
And how the heck did Jimmer Fredette make the list and at 25?!

48- Gerry McNamara?????

25. Jimmer Fredette (BYU, 2007-2011): As a senior, Jimmer took 765 shots. That's about 235 fewer than he should have.

22. Khalid El-Amin (UConn, 1997-2000): Did you ever play intramural basketball against a short, fat, confident kid who kept driving the paint and effortlessly scoring over every clown who tried to stop him? And no matter how hard you played him, he never seemed excited or intimidated or even particularly interested? And then — when the game was finished, and everyone else was exhausted — he casually decided to jump into some other random intramural game and scored anoth

Here are a few names close who should have made what is a fun, I have nothing better to do, and I get paid to do it list. Pearl Washington - talk about fat kids with skill, he was amazing to watch. Chris Mullin - does anybody really care about his pro career?, He was and is St John's hoops. Okafor may also find his way here - he was soooooooo dominant at the college level title and all, and lets not forget one of the greatest shotblockers in college, went to a final 4, defensive player of the year, and as a pro eh! - Thabeet