Calling Pudner (Bama)...if he wasn't so damn busy electing Presidents...from his book it is Bo, George, DW3, Butch and Dean. I don't know where Jae would fit in statistically but I assume high." - Dr. Blackheart on MU ScoopI'm sure this is an evil plot - get that guy who writes for Cracked Sidewalks and is a National Co-Chair for Romney's Faith and Values Coalition sidetracked by asking him who Marquette's all-time Starting 5 should be. I get it. OK, just kidding. But to be sure I was answering this correctly, I did run Crowder's final numbers based on the Ultimate Hoops Guide - Marquette University methodology, and he came in 9th all-time.
| ||||
sg | 1 | Dwyane Wade | 03 last year | |
sf | 2 | Maurice (Bo) Ellis | 77 last year | |
pg | 3 | Alfred (Butch) Lee | 78 last year | |
pf | 6 | Jim Chones | 72 last year | |
c | 7 | Maurice Lucas | 74 last year | |
All-Time Second Team | ||||
sg | 4 | George Thompson | 69 last year | |
pg | 5 | Dean Meminger | 71 last year | |
pf | 8 | Don Kojis | 61 last year | |
sf | 9 | Jae Crowder | 12 last year | |
c | 11 | Terry Rand | 56 last year | |
All-Time 3rd Team | ||||
sf | 10 | Earl Tatum | 76 last year | |
sg | 12 | Jerel McNeal | 09 last year | |
c | 14 | Jerome Whitehead | 78 last year | |
pf | 16 | Larry McNeil | 73 last year | |
pg | 20 | Glen (Doc) Rivers | 83 last year | |
Rest of the Top 50 | ||||
13 | Dave Quabius | 39 last year | ||
15 | Tony Smith | 90 last year | ||
17 | Travis Diener | 05 last year | ||
18 | Jim McIlvaine | 94 last year | ||
19 | Lloyd Walton | 76 last year | ||
21 | Wesley Matthews | 09 last year | ||
22 | Bernard Toone | 79 last year | ||
23 | Dominic James | 09 last year | ||
24 | Ed Mullen | 35 last year | ||
25 | Gary Brell | 71 last year | ||
26 | Michael Wilson | 82 last year | ||
27 | Bob Lackey | 72 last year | ||
28 | DJO | 12 last year | ||
29 | Jimmy Butler | 11 last year | ||
30 | Joe Thomas | 70 last year | ||
31 | Gene Berce | 48 last year | ||
32 | Steve Novak | 06 last year | ||
33 | Joseph (Red) Dunn | 25 last year | ||
34 | Richard Quinn | 25 last year | ||
35 | Aaron Hutchins | 98 last year | ||
36 | Allie McGuire | 73 last year | ||
37 | Lazar Hayward | 09 last year | ||
38 | Tony Miller | 95 last year | ||
39 | Walt Mangham | 60 last year | ||
40 | Amal McCaskill | 96 last year | ||
41 | Chris Crawford | 97 last year | ||
42 | Ric Cobb | 70 last year | ||
43 | Ron Curry | 93 last year | ||
44 | Marcus Washington | 74 last year | ||
45 | Cordell Henry | 02 last year | ||
46 | Brian Wardle | 01 last year | ||
47 | Damon Key | 94 last year | ||
48 | Russ Wittberger | 55 last year | ||
49 | Robert Jackson | 03 last year | ||
50 | Kerry Trotter | 86 last year |
Powell was a
hard-nosed board man, very good inside who scored when he needed to.
Younger people just do not realize how good Bo Ellis was. Played on 1974 NCAA runner up team and 1977 national championship. He anchored the back of McGuire's press. With his height and agility nobody was going to try to beat the press going long. He was on teams that had other strong rebounders and still averaged 10 boards a game. I believe both he and Lucas averaged 10 boards the year they teamed together. He could score, but did not need to, because there were other great scorers on the team with him. Ignoring the pro years, I could make an argument that Ellis was a better college player than Wade. Adding either to this year's team would be great. Ellis would guarantee us being a final four. Wade would make us a likely final four team. Wade would become the focal point on offense, while Ellis would blend in and do everything needed to win.
How do you factor in that there were no three pointers and being forced to play on the freshman team instead of the varsity for those players that played in the seventies and before.Great question.
Great question.
The 3-pointer does not throw anything off because you are judged in the context of how many points your team gives us, and your opponents can make 3-pointers if you can. For example, if you average 10 points a game and your team gives up 50 points a game when there are no three pointers then you are scoring 20% of what it takes to win, and then if you counted three pointers and you hit 2 of them and your opponent hit 10 during the same game then you would have 12 points and they would have 60, so you are still scoring 20% of what you need to win. A particular style of player such as Cubillan would be better in a 3-point era, while Gardner would be even more valuable in an era without 3-pointers, but overall each player has a different chance.
There is a slight disadvantage for players like George Thompson who lost a varsity year be not being allowed to play freshman year. It is not a huge disadvantage, because the system focuses heavily on your best season so you are just losing what is almost every players weakest season - his freshman year. However, I did pose a question in the book, "If George Thompson were allowed to play as a freshman, could have have equaled Ellis for the best career?" The 1967 Media Guide shows that Thompson shattered the freshman scoring record while averaging 23.7 points and 12.5 rebounds per game in freshman play. He then moved up and improved MU from 14-12 to 21-9 even though their star Tom Flynn had graduated. Since Thompson had 5.7 Win Credits as a sophomore he might have been able to get the 5.2 he needed as a freshman to tie Bo Ellis all-time career Marquette total of 25.7. However, in the overall rating, even adding a freshman year at that level would have left him just short of 3rd place Butch Lee in the overall rating.
All-Time First Team
Last Season
sg 1 Dwyane Wade 03 last year
sf 2 Maurice (Bo) Ellis 77 last year
pg 3 Alfred (Butch) Lee 78 last year
pf 6 Jim Chones 72 last year
c 7 Maurice Lucas 74 last year
Bingo. Marquette in at #17 and you nailed the first team.
All-Time First TeamI am going to protest Chones being on this list, since he left 3/4th of way through his last season. He was good enough to be on list, but his leaving diluted it. I was a freshmen at MU when he left. We went from being the second best team to UCLA at 22-0 to finishing 24-5 (?). That does show his impact he had, but it also shows the impact of him leaving.
Last Season
sg 1 Dwyane Wade 03 last year
sf 2 Maurice (Bo) Ellis 77 last year
pg 3 Alfred (Butch) Lee 78 last year
pf 6 Jim Chones 72 last year
c 7 Maurice Lucas 74 last year
Bingo. Marquette in at #17 and you nailed the first team.
Butch Lee a better player than Dean Meminger? Most likely true.
Butch Lee a better PG than Dean Meminger? Delusional.
The three pointer does throw the statistics off. Players like Bob Wolf, Jeff Sewell and Gary Rosenberger would have benefited grealy by current day three point line. Ellis was a freshemn the second year they were eligible to play. Besides the two final four teams he was on he was also on what I consider to be MU's best team. 1975-76 team that went 27-2, losing to the undefeated Indiana national championship team. In his four year career he won a national champiosip and lost to the national champion twice. His sophomore year his team lost to Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.
I believe without looking it up the difference was Lloyd Walton and Earl Tatum.
1975-76
C. Whitehead
PF Ellis
SF Tatum
2g Lee
PG Walton
vs
1976-77
C. Whitehead
PF Ellis
SF Neary
2G Lee
PG Boylan
Tatum was significantly better than Neary and Walton was better than Boylan.
The 75-76 team was better than championship team in my opinion. Both great teams but Earl Tatum and Lloyd were special players.
Will we be having this debate about teams that will arise in the next 10 years?????
Will we be having this debate about teams that will arise in the next 10 years?????
Will we be having this debate about teams that will arise in the next 10 years?????
Pretty much impossible.
If we had a three-point shot from 1974 until 1978, Gary Rosenberger would have been graduated as Marquette's all-time leading scorer and probably one of the best guards we ever had.
I believe without looking it up the difference was Lloyd Walton and Earl Tatum.
1975-76
C. Whitehead
PF Ellis
SF Tatum
2g Lee
PG Walton
vs
1976-77
C. Whitehead
PF Ellis
SF Neary
2G Lee
PG Boylan
Tatum was significantly better than Neary and Walton was better than Boylan.
Pretty much impossible.
The 76-77 group was just one of those teams that got hot at the right time. Al often said it wasn't his best team, said "several" others were better. There were many national observers who felt the Warriors didn't even deserve an NCAA bid that year.
By every measure but one, the 75-76 Warriors were hands down better than the 76-77 Warriors. That one measure, of course, was the big one!
The 1977-78 team was better in talent than the the 76-77 Warriors. Every player (of course Al was gone) of consequence was back except Bo (and glue Neary). Toone, a healthy Payne, Dudley, Byrd and a frosh Oliver Lee on the front line....with Odell Ball added to back up Jay as a transfer. Boylan, Lee, Rosie all back for their senior year. Wasn't this the only MU team ever to actually hit #1 in the polls?
Bo was an all-time great...MU has always been at its most elite with a quality, face-up power forward.
No, the 1971-1972 team hit number 1 for a few weeks before Chones left. UCLA had an uncharacteristic loss somewhere in there and we were undefeated at the time.
Butch Lee a better player than Dean Meminger? Most likely true.
Butch Lee a better PG than Dean Meminger? Delusional.
One thing in Dean's defense is that Al elected to go to the N I T in 1969-1970 instead of the NCAA tournament. They won the NIT championship but Dean most likely would have led them to the final four that year.I hate to be a wet blanked on the NIT champs, but I just keep coming back to the fact that they did not beat a single ranked team all year. As good as they were, that puts them in that Murray State category of, "they sure look like they could beat anyone, but how can you tell?"
Here are those glorious weeks: w/o 1/26/72 through 2/2/72
http://statsheet.com/mcb/rankings/AP?id=1971-01-26
Doc - I think that's 1/26/71 and 2/2/71 (70/71 team) where we're #1. That year we hit #2 in early January and were 1 or 2 the rest of the year (finished #2 even after losing to OSU in the regionals)
Goose, that SI cover with Butch on it hangs framed in my office.