Great Question- Big East Hall of Fame

[Jasper67]

Billy Jack, no room for Bill Curley or Gerry McNamara on a list that big?

Here are a couple of guys who won’t appear on anyone’s list:

Gene Smith - He and John Thompson changed how defense would be played forever after.
Peyton Siva - His numbers don’t impress, but he was the heart & soul of Louisville’s 2013 national champions.

[billyjack]

Billy Jack, no room for Bill Curley or Gerry McNamara on a list that big?

Here are a couple of guys who won’t appear on anyone’s list:

Gene Smith - He and John Thompson changed how defense would be played forever after.
Peyton Siva - His numbers don’t impress, but he was the heart & soul of Louisville’s 2013 national champions.

Curley would be deserving too, but in my heavily biased opinion, he would be behind all 3 Friar bigs of that era-- Dickie Simpkins, Michael Smith, and Eric Williams.... not to mention Brian Shorter of Pitt.

i actually might force Simpkins onto my list somehow. Curley also has the disadvantage of being a Boston College alum, and along with Shorter, each of their schools is traitorous. Curley bsck then also benefited from the "Boston is the center of the universe" hype-machine factor... bleeech.

McNamara i thought about and confused him with Devendorf. My artificial 12-player limit hurts his chances.

Siva-- great player... disadvantage was the vacated championship... also, not sure i noticed him much on a 1st or 2nd All Big East team. Also, that Louisville team lost by 31 points to the Lee Goldsbrough Friars.

Also, when Gtmo opens this museum in Providence, does anyone really want to see a bust of Gerry McNamara's head?

My 12-player per era limit could change however... maybe go to 16...

[billyjack]

Also, this museum on South Main Street will have an affordable $3 entry fee. $1 for kids under 12 years old. Open 7am to 10pm every day of the year except Christmas.

Food service provided by Geoff's Sandwiches from down the street, including "Bill Raftery onion rings" and "Al McGuire french pastry". In the back parking lot we'll put up a couple of hoops.

Lecture series every Saturday 4pm.

[billyjack]

To be honest, some of the players i left out of this Hall is insane... Freddie Brown, Eric Murdock, Willie Glass, Boo Harvey, Gary McLain, Dwayne McClain, Billy Goodwin, Clyde Vaughan, Cliff Robinson, Tate George, John Wallace, Arturas Karnishovas, Lawrence Moten, Pat Garrity, the aforementioned McNamara, Shabazz Napier, Davante Gardner, Kyron Cartwright, LaDontae Henton, Ethan Wragge, Ben Bentil, D'Angelo Harrison, Davaunte Smith-Rivera, Kyle Lowry (geez), Isaiah Whitehead, Jimmy Butler (geez)... i might need to expand...

[billyjack]

Sorry Stever to have hijacked this thread while also expanding its scope of players. Obviously i had prevoously written a rough draft of this Hall topic, put in on the back burner a while back, and now just dusted it off based on your thread here.

[Jasper67]

To be honest, some of the players i left out of this Hall is insane... Freddie Brown, Eric Murdock, Willie Glass, Boo Harvey, Gary McLain, Dwayne McClain, Billy Goodwin, Clyde Vaughan, Cliff Robinson, Tate George, John Wallace, Arturas Karnishovas, Lawrence Moten, Pat Garrity, the aforementioned McNamara, Shabazz Napier, Davante Gardner, Kyron Cartwright, LaDontae Henton, Ethan Wragge, Ben Bentil, D'Angelo Harrison, Davaunte Smith-Rivera, Kyle Lowry (geez), Isaiah Whitehead, Jimmy Butler (geez)... i might need to expand...

Yes, I was going to bring up Eric Murdock in particular.

[Xuperman]

Bluiett over Wragge. Likely the only Musketeers worthy at this point.

[Jasper67]

Billy Jack, no room for Bill Curley or Gerry McNamara on a list that big?

Here are a couple of guys who won’t appear on anyone’s list:

Gene Smith - He and John Thompson changed how defense would be played forever after.
Peyton Siva - His numbers don’t impress, but he was the heart & soul of Louisville’s 2013 national champions.

Curley would be deserving too, but in my heavily biased opinion, he would be behind all 3 Friar bigs of that era-- Dickie Simpkins, Michael Smith, and Eric Williams.... not to mention Brian Shorter of Pitt.

i actually might force Simpkins onto my list somehow. Curley also has the disadvantage of being a Boston College alum, and along with Shorter, each of their schools is traitorous. Curley bsck then also benefited from the "Boston is the center of the universe" hype-machine factor... bleeech.

McNamara i thought about and confused him with Devendorf. My artificial 12-player limit hurts his chances.

Siva-- great player... disadvantage was the vacated championship... also, not sure i noticed him much on a 1st or 2nd All Big East team. Also, that Louisville team lost by 31 points to the Lee Goldsbrough Friars.

Also, when Gtmo opens this museum in Providence, does anyone really want to see a bust of Gerry McNamara's head?

My 12-player per era limit could change however... maybe go to 16...

Your eras are different numbers of years, so allowing 12 players per year let’s in a lot of players in short eras but leaves out deserving players in longer eras IMO.

Curley was always one of my favorite players, so I don’t hold his school’s sins against him. I agree that BC was traitorous and deserves to be shunned, but that wasn’t his fault and his time was about a decade before all that happened anyway.

What Curley has going for him is that he took his team to an Elite 8. He was the best player on that team (20,9). He not only scored at a high rate (56 FG%) as big men are supposed to do, but he hit FTs (79%) at a time when big men didn’t do that. He was fundamentally sound, being an excellent passer and position player. My #1 criterion for great players is whether they made their team a winner. Curley was a winner who made the other players around him better. He was to that BC team what Austin Croshere was to the ‘97 Friars except that he had less help.

I understand that Louisville was vacated, but I care about what happened on the court. I’ll let the suits fight out the other stuff. Siva always amazed me with the way that he ran that offense and the way he made big plays at both ends of the floor. Whenever that team made a run, he was in the middle of it and whenever they needed a stop, he did that too. The numbers don’t tell the story, but when I watched their games, I was in awe. Russ Smith was their leading scorer, but Siva made them go. I might compare him to God Shamgod if the Friars except I thought Siva was even better - note of course that I’m comparing a senior at his peak to a sophomore who was still getting better.

McNamrara deserves to be on the list on the basis of his 2006 tournament run alone. It was Kemba-sequel. He literally put that 9th place Syracuse team on his back and carried them to 4 straight BE tournament wins in 4 nights, making every big shot and every big FT. Two 1-point wins, another by 2 in OT, and then an “easy” 4-point win over Pitt in the championship game. He averaged an incredible 37.5 minutes per game in that tournament! I don’t know how he did, as exhausted as he must have been. But as impressive as that was, there’s more. He was the PG on their 2003 national champions - as a freshman! Carmelo was the star but it was Gerry who had the ball in his hands most of the time. He not only led the team in assists but he was their only reliable 3-point shooter, hit 91% of his FTs, and led the team in steals. Plus he left everything he had on the court. Carmelo was the star, but he was one-and-done. Gerry McNamara gave us 4 years of thrills. Pure grit. He was definitely a “heady” player, so yeah, I’ll take the bust. Haha.

[stever20]

Sorry Stever to have hijacked this thread while also expanding its scope of players. Obviously i had prevoously written a rough draft of this Hall topic, put in on the back burner a while back, and now just dusted it off based on your thread here.

No worries. I've done that to a few threads in my days. Turnabout is fair play.

It's a fun topic for sure. If they don't do a hall of fame, I hope in 5 years when the Big East turns 50 they do like what you see pro leagues do and do like a top 50.

[kayako]

If we're mixing players and coaches...

Ewing
Mullin
Thompson
Calhoun
Wright

I think those 5 are pretty indisputable.