Fun isn’t totally absent from sports in a world that deals nonstop with the coronavirus.
Across all kinds of social media platforms, there are challenges and choices being offered. It’s to pass the time, things that would not otherwise be there.
Prime example is the Twitter feed of the ACC for men’s basketball. We’d be knee-deep or more in the four, maybe five, teams that made the NCAA Tournament this weekend. We’d want to see which of the brethren could survive and advance to the Sweet 16.
Instead, the attractive tweet went with the flavor of the month — brackets. After all, we were giddy and anxious to know who was last four in, first four out and all the other stuff since … well, January? Yeah, absolutely we were watching. This is Wolfpack Country after all.
So here we are this week, sports all on hold as they should be, and there are brackets being created for across more than just basketball. There was a fast-food restaurant bracket for crying out loud.
But team tweets asking for best of Duke or Carolina aside, we like the ACC’s tease for finding the best 64 players of the last 50 years. And it begged guesses for the top four seeds.
How could we resist?
And how could we resist not following the rules, because the ACC only began play in 1953-54. Why would we limit this to 1970 forward?
David Thompson of N.C. State, Ralph Sampson of Virginia, Len Chappell of Wake Forest and Billy Cunningham of North Carolina are as good as any and not necessarily the right answers.
Because, goodness gracious, there’s also Dickie Hemric and Tim Duncan of Wake Forest; Ronnie Shavlik and Tom Burleson of N.C. State; Art Heyman, Danny Ferry, Christian Laettner and J.J. Redick of Duke; Buzzy Wilkinson of Virginia; Lennie Rosenbluth, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Michael Jordan and Tyler Hansbrough of North Carolina; Buzzy Wilkinson of Virginia; and Len Bias of Maryland.
Just to name 20.
An argument could be made for all. Including Worthy before Jordan and Cunningham, or Rosenbluth first among all Tar Heels.
Thompson, for my dollar, was the greatest ever. Biased? Yes, because in front a young lad of 9 yet to be a scribe, Thompson led the Wolfpack to the national title over the machine known as UCLA, John Wooden and Bill Walton. Three times he was ACC Player of the Year.
So was Sampson. The 7-foot-4 wonder seemed to be playing with children around the rim.
Didn’t see Chappell and Cunningham, but each had career averages of 25 points. Cunningham got 16 boards a game, Chappell 14. Chappell won two league Player of the Year awards, Cunningham one. The old-timers of my younger day marveled at Chappell and Hemric and debated the best Demon Deacon.
Oh, there’ll be a younger set to make cases for the one-and-doners. And this list goes back to the beginning at Sedgefield Country Club, not just 50 years. So, yeah, we broke the rules, no we don’t think one-and-done makes the cut and yes we do believe this for college time not future pro.
But it’s all just for fun. Something to do until our sports come back.
So who you got?
David Thompson (44) drives past Lew Massey of UNC Charlotte in a game March 1, 1975, at Reynolds Coliseum.