NCAA Announces 15 All-Time March Madness Players
Duke star Christian Laettner was one of NCAA.com's best March Madness players of all-time. (Manny Millan/SI)
On Friday morning, as part of this season's celebration of the 75th NCAA tournament, NCAA.com announced its 15 All-Time March Madness players, compiled between public vote and "NCAA experts." Here's the list they came up with (in alphabetical order):
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, Bill Bradley, Patrick Ewing, Grant Hill, Earvin "Magic" Johnson, Michael Jordan, Christian Laettner, Jerry Lucas, Danny Manning, Hakeem Olajuwon, Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, Bill Walton, Jerry West.
It's hard to manage a ton of outrage about this list (or most lists in general) beyond them not spelling Hakeem's name without the H, like he had it at the University of Houston. It does feel like one or two guys are on there as much because they became NBA greats as they were a huge part of March Madness, but it's a predictably great list of great players. Yahoo's Pat Forde @YahooForde may have raised the most legitimate question:
In solely fan voting, the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers were named the All-Time Madness Team and Christian Laettner's shot to beat Kentucky in 1992 was the All-Time Madness Moment. Sorry, BBN.