All-Time Best: NC State vs Michigan

General Media NCS Basketball Tradition11

ESPN’s Page 2 is running an interesting feature – “The Greatest College Hoops Tournament” where the supposed All-Time best of 32 different schools are matched in a fantasy hoops match-ups.

Unfortunately for us, the #10 Michigan Wolverines is predicted to wax #23 NC State in both predictions.

The Blue and Gold give the partisan crowd reasons to go bucknoodles, as they dominate the game in every facet possible. NC State doesn’t lie down quietly, though. David Thompson plays like a man being exorcised, screaming after every bucket, “The devil made me do it.” No one, not even Steve Fisher’s diamond-and-one zone can stop him. Monroe, Whittenberg and Gugliotta contribute, but it’s not nearly enough. Thompson (who finishes with his number, 44), can’t do it alone, but he tried.

This burns me up in so many different ways that I don’t know where to begin. Random thoughts:

* A look at Scoop and friends’ focus becomes obvious when the seeding of teams is investigated. Putting LSU and Georgetown at #3 & #4 and the University of Houston at #6 (not to mention Duke & Kentucky at #9 & #11) highlights that Scoop’s focus is to apply what players did AFTER their college careers in the NBA to the composition of the teams. It feels some kind of dirty to soil the college game, especially the purity of a tournament format, with the selfishness and growing irrelevance of professional basketball.

* ^ If you want to emphasize professional careers so heavily, then why is Derek Whittenburg even on the team? and why isn’t Nate McMillan & Vinny Del Negro included?

* Seeded #23. Wow. NC State is seeded #23 in HISTORY despite having given up basketball for almost the last 15 years!? On one hand, this kind of respect is flattering; on the other hand, it is so painful to see where we have fallen in recent years.

* You didn’t like my “giving up basketball for the last 15 years” comment? Before you get too pissy about it, why don’t you share with us how many of the players on NC State’s all-time squad have been recruited over the last 15 years? Cat got your tongue? For comparison/contrast, check and see how many other squads originate from that exact same time frame?

* How much does “recent success” count to the rest of the world’s perspective of programs? Take a quick look at almost all of the names and realize how much we have fallen behind the rest of the country in the last decade and a half. For an extreme example, UConn checks in 8 spots ahead of NC State at #15 with an ENTIRE squad of players recruited over the last 15 years. Anyone want to tell us about how UConn’s facilities, tradition, and fan support dwarf those of NC State? How about all of that pre-1990 tradition upon which they had to build? Exactly how did they do it?

* No direct offense to old “Scoop” Jackson….but, how much legitimacy exists for an all-time team that omits one of the members of the ACC’s 50th Anniversary Team and the NCAA’s all-time assist leader at the end of his career? I don’t think that Chris Corchiani is the greatest point-guard of all time, but I also don’t think that these teams would only play with 7 players.

General Media NCS Basketball Tradition

11 Responses to All-Time Best: NC State vs Michigan

  1. TVP 11/15/2005 at 10:21 PM #

    I personally would put both Corch and Hodge among our top 7.

    I also think that the 74 team alone would wax that Michigan team.

  2. Class of '74 11/16/2005 at 7:04 AM #

    The ’73 team and the ’74 team would beat the immortal snot out of all but two or three of any college teams that have exisited since 1962. Ask Lefty Drisell and he’ll tell you.

  3. Alpha Wolf 11/16/2005 at 8:13 AM #

    I think that the ’72/’73 was a bit better than the edition that came the next year, and that team was one of the top five all time teams in the history of the college game.

    To my thinking, they had the “it” that is so elusive in sports — keep in mind that this was a period when not winning the ACC Tourney meant not going to the NCAAs. And that during the 72-74 time frame, that Maryland was a simply awesome squad, and their best team ever — even better than their NCAA title team. State beat them every single time, and in the 1974 ACCT, they played the game that is the gold standard of college basketball games.

    State would erase Michigan like an incorrect answer on a chalkboard.

  4. Jeff 11/16/2005 at 10:51 AM #

    Another thing about this item that perturbed me was how mortal they treated David Thompson. They talk about him having personal success in a vacuum as if his performance wouldn’t have opened up success for everyone else.

  5. bl 11/16/2005 at 11:23 AM #

    This game isn’t close. Pack all the way. Those two must write up captions for the games to entertain themselves because they don’t seem to know much about college hoops.

  6. Sacco 11/16/2005 at 8:40 PM #

    This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read regarding college basketball. First, it’s the dumbest debate because, as someone else pointed out, it’s based ENTIRELY on performance in the NBA and not performance in college. Second, what does “Scoop” Jackson know about basketball anyway? He’s almost as knowledgeable as Vitale, who is the least intelligent basketball mind in history. Lastly, the “analysis” of NC State’s basketball alumni is so short-sighted, that it leaves out Corch (who had the record for career assists in the NCAA upon his finishing college) and other greats from the Case years, like Ronnie Shavlik and Vann Williford (both All-Americans). Once more, we’re given more reasons why ESPN should be banned from “analyzing” sports. The total analysis given by this alleged network doesn’t closely merit a media pass, let alone a section of broadcasting bandwidth. Now that basketball season is here, I will do what I can to never watch ESPN again.

  7. Sacco 11/16/2005 at 8:49 PM #

    One more thing, did anyone else notice that NO ONE on Michigan’s lineup is above 6’8″ and NC State has Gugliotta (6’10”) and Burleson (7’4″) and apparently Chris Webber would beat both these guys? Burleson was ACC tournament MVP in 1974 and was on the 1972 Olympic Team, which means he was at least seven times tougher than Chris Webber EVER HAS BEEN. These guys are experts???????? IDIOTS!!

  8. Jeff 11/17/2005 at 7:26 AM #

    If you want to highlight only pro careers…why isn’t Nate McMillan & Vinny Del Negro on the team?

  9. Ben 11/17/2005 at 12:36 PM #

    Personally, I liked their choice of Rodney Monroe at the point, instead of Corchiani (who must have been a better point than Rodney since … uh … Corchiani *played* the point while Monroe was at the 2) or Sidney Lowe or Nate McMillan.

    No, the discussion here is — to my mind — absolutely correct: the ESPN conversation is about what team would win an NBA game. But even then… Imagine us going with Lowe/Whittenberg/Thompson/Gugliotta/Burleson for the first 10 minutes, then Corchiani/Monroe/Thompson/Shavlik/Bailey for the next 10, and going full-out, end-to-end, high tempo. I doubt Michigan would have that kind of depth; by the end of the game, they’d be so tired, they’d … I can’t resist … run out of timeouts.

    And, besides… in a one-game coaching matchup? I gotta think Coach Case and his assistants (Sloan, Maravich, and Valvano) would come up with a way to shut them down.

  10. PackMan97 05/02/2006 at 5:11 PM #

    Let’s see….

    I’ll take Burrelson, Gugliatta, Thompson, Corchiani and Monroe as the starters and take Shavlik and Lowe as the reserves.

    No way can Michigan match that frontline (or backcourt for that matter)

  11. zahadum 12/11/2006 at 9:08 AM #

    Now that is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. Don’t know which is nuttier, the idea that Jalen Rose could guard Thompson more than 15 minutes without fouling out or that Glen Rice could guard Kenny Carr and even survive the experience.

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