SI's top 10 NCAA Tournament players

Dan Dakich said no way.

 

I may be a little out of my depth, but you don't list Jesus when talking about the Apostles either.

 

13 points. Five fouls. 72-68.

Suck it, Mike.

 

Austin Carr was the name that immediately came to mind.

He should definitely be on here--probably very near the top of the list.

 

He was only 9 years old and was playing with 1 lung and a wooden leg.

 

Bird and Magic in 1979 made the NCAA Final something that the average fan would take time out and watch. Maybe the growth of the tournament would have eventually happened anyway with the growth of television, but that's the thing that really kicked it into high gear.

Bird and Magic were more than just basketball players, at both the collegiate and professional levels. They represented a crossing of American society. Here was Bird, the white, Indiana country boy, the "Hick from French Lick (Ind.)" who spoke with an accent and represent rural, white America. Magic was the black kid from the inner city of Michigan (forget which town, Flint or Lansing), who grew up playing on the blacktop and represented urban, black America. A love of basketball brought them together. I was in high school at the time and it was an interesting development to watch. The white kids rooted for Bird and the black kids rooted for Magic.

 

can you imagine what Walton vs. Alcindor would have been like if they had played at the same time on different teams?

We got a little taste of that in the pros later on. In college, it might have been off the charts.

 

Bird absolutely carried his team way farther than it should have gone.

 

Yep. He and Danny Manning were the closest to a one-man team that I can recall in the last 35 years.

 

The 79 tournament had a lot of good story lines and compelling characters. In additiona to Bird and Magic, the Final Four also had the Ray Meyer/Mark Aguirre led DePaul Blue Demons and an Ivy League representative in Penn.

Penn was a 9 seed and beat 10th seeded St. Johns in the regional final. And this was when the tournament had only 40 teams, so you had the bottom two seeds in the region playing for the regional title.

Also looks like 3 of the 4 final four teams were not ranked in the pre-season top 20 (everyone except Sparty).

 

Just one correction, Vers. He was implicated while in the NBA (and it ended his career there) but the point-shaving was for his time at Kentucky. It was for an NIT tourney so it should keep him out of any discussion of the top 10 NIT players of all-time, which is led by Voshon Lenard.

 

Well, I had it wrong. Thanks. That's good to know.