Top 15 Seniors

SI Staff | Oct 17, 2008

Top 15 Seniors /

Top 15 Seniors

Tyler Hansbrough

Hansbrough does everything. Scores (22.6 ppg). Rebounds (10.2 rpg). Hustles (immeasurably). Stays out of foul trouble (not once did he foul out as a junior). Wins awards (Wooden, Naismith, many others). Jumps off balconies into pools (at UNC fraternities in the offseason). All he has left to do is win a national title.

Darren Collison

Collison should be on everyone's preseason All-America team -- and he should also be a first-round pick next June. While he did get schooled by Derrick Rose in the Final Four, Collison shot an unbelievable 52.5 percent from long distance last season and hit his share of clutch shots, including the eventual game-winner against Texas A&M in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

A.J. Price

Price handled the bulk of the Huskies' backcourt scoring (14.5 ppg) last season while posting an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.5-to-1. He suffered a torn ACL in UConn's opening-round loss to San Diego in the NCAA tournament but is expected to be fully healthy for his senior season, in which the Huskies are legitimate national-title contenders.

Jon Brockman

Brockman fell off the national radar last year while his Huskies stumbled to a 16-17 record, but he still averaged 17.8 points and 11.6 rebounds per game. If he can improve his free-throw shooting -- he hit just 94 of his 181 attempts from the stripe, a 51.9 percent clip -- Brockman could join UNC's Tyler Hansbrough and Notre Dame's Luke Harangody in the 20-and-10 club.

Terrence Williams

Williams tore the medial meniscus in his right knee on Tuesday and will be out 4-6 weeks, but is expected to make a full recovery. When T-Will re-enters the Cards' lineup, he'll be the focal point of their offense, and is a triple-double threat on any given night. He averaged 11.1 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists as a junior.

Lester Hudson

Hudson played just one year of high school basketball due to grades. He never graduated, but worked his way into the college ranks as a 23-year-old junior after earning his GED and spending two years at a juco. He then took the Ohio Valley Conference by storm, recording the first quadruple-double in D-I history in just his third game, and finishing with averages of 25.7 points and 7.8 rebounds (despite being only 6-foot-3).

Tyrese Rice

To see some vintage Rice, cue up tape of North Carolina's trip to Chestnut Hill last season. That's when the Eagles' star went off for 46 points, hitting 8-of-12 three-pointers in a 10-point loss to the ACC champs. Rice doesn't have a lot of offensive help on BC's roster, but he's perhaps the nation's most dangerous scoring guard.

Sam Young

Young made a smart decision to pass on the NBA Draft, where he would have been a marginal first-rounder. If he offers a strong follow-up to his breakout junior year -- in which he averaged 18.1 points and was named MVP of the Big East tournament -- he should earn a guaranteed big pro contract.

A.J. Abrams

Abrams scored 16.5 points per game -- hitting 118 three-pointers -- as D.J. Augustin's backcourt mate last season, when the 'Horns reached the Elite Eight. Now he faces the challenge of either playing with a new point guard (Dogus Balbay) or having to take over some of Texas' floor-general duties himself. The latter situation could limit his effectiveness as a long-range gunner.

Robert Vaden

If Vaden (21.1 ppg, 40.0 percent threes) were still at Indiana, where he played his first two years under Mike Davis, he'd be garnering far more preseason attention than he is out of Conference USA. As it stands, Vaden is one of the nation's top shooting swingmen, and given his size (6-foot-5) and extensive range, he's unlikely to be bothered by the new three-point line.

Jack McClinton

McClinton, a 6-foot-1 gunner who transferred from Siena in 2005, led the 'Canes' resurgence last season by averaging 17.7 points per game and shooting 42.7 percent from long distance. He and James Dews, another quality shooter, make up the best ACC backcourt outside of Chapel Hill.

Jerel McNeal

McNeal, who declared for the Draft in April but quickly opted to return to the Golden Eagles, is the Big East's best defensive stopper on the perimeter. He was the league's Defensive Player of the Year in 2006-07 (last season, UConn shot-swatter Hasheem Thabeet took the honor) and can hold his own on the offensive end, too, averaging a team-high 14.9 points as a junior.

Lee Cummard

Cummard, the Mountain West co-Player of the Year last season, pulled out of the NBA Draft when it appeared unlikely that he would get a first-round guarantee. As a junior, Cummard shot an ultra-efficient 56.9 percent from the field and 47.2 percent from long distance en route to averaging 15.8 points per game.

Eric Maynor

Maynor (17.9 ppg, 5.9 apg) burst onto the national scene as a sophomore, when he hit a game-winner to upset Duke in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. Since then, he's developed into the mid-major ranks' best pure point guard and was named the CAA's Player of the Year as a junior.

Levance Fields

Fields has been nagged by an unfair amount of injuries at Pitt, and he's currently recovering from bone-graft surgery in his left foot. When he's healthy, Fields is one of the best distributors in the country (he had a 2.96-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio last season). He also loves taking shots in crunch time, like the game-winner he hit against Duke in overtime last December at Madison Square Garden.

Published Oct 17, 2008

SI STAFF