FUNNY SPORTS QUOTES \ Source: mercextra.com

espn.com and the greatest players ever: Who should be Nos. 1-10

By Jon Wilner
Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm in General.

Don't know if you've seen it, but espn.com is in the process of ranking the 25 greatest players in college basketball history.

I'm not sure how often the list is updated, but they've reached the top 10.

I spent 10 or 15 minutes before the Cal-Stanford game in the Maples press room discussing the list with the Oakland Tribune's Jeff Faraudo and the Chronicle's Jake Curtis.

We came up with 10 players we think should sit atop the list.


First, here are espn.com's Nos. 11-25, and remember: It's based on what the players did in college — NBA performance has nothing to do with it (that will be clear when you see who's No. 12).

25. George Mikan
24. David Robinson
23. Calvin Murphy
22. Austin Carr
21. Tim Duncan
20. Bob Kurland
19. Elgin Baylor
18. Ralph Sampson
17. Tom Gola
16. Patrick Ewing
15. Magic Johnson
14. Elvin Hayes
13. Michael Jordan
12. Christian Laettner
11. Jerry Lucas

On the whole, it's a pretty strong 15. But there are a few names I would have included: North Carolina's Phil Ford, Kentucky's Alex Groza and Stanford's Hank Luisetti.

OK, so we came up with our top-10 list.

It's not necessarily the players we think are the 10 best; it's the players we think espn.com will think are the 10 best (in most case, they are one in the same).

*** Our second five:

N.C. State's David Thompson: Best player in the history of the best conference.

Kansas' Wilt Chamberlain: Would be in the top five except he only played two years.

Princeton's Bill Bradley: Took the Tigers to the Final Four. College career immortalized in John McPhee's classic, A Sense of Where You Are.

West Virginia's Jerry West: Because he's, um, Jerry West.

Indiana State's Larry Bird: Along with Magic, responsible for the most important game in college basketball history: ISU vs. Michigan State for the '79 title.

*** Our top five

Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson: Good enough to have his name on the trophy given to the nation's top player by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

LSU's Pete Maravich: Averaged more than 40 points per game in each of his three seasons.

USF's Bill Russell: Led the Dons to back-to-back national titles and dominated the game defensively like nobody before or since.

UCLA's Bill Walton: We wondered who will be No. 2: Walton or Russell.

UCLA's Lew Alcindor: If he's not at the top, espn.com's list loses all credibility.




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