Detroit News Ranks the 20 Greatest Players in Michigan MBB History
They're filling the sports pages with whatever content they can.
Not a bad list, IMHO. I correctly guessed the first four in order, so good for me. Most lists I've seen like this greatly undervalue Henry Wilmore, but I think they got it right.
It's a decent list but I wouldn't put Bullock so high. I think Stauskas, Mills and Vaught all deserve to be higher.
Stauskas was absolutely better than Rumeal Robinson and Louis Bullock.
rumeal robinson hit the 2 greatest FT's in michigan history to win the '89 nat'l championship. down a point, a few seconds left, and shooting one-and-one. he made them both.
he, like tarpley, were excellent players whose pro careers got crushed by substance abuse. very sad.
Trey Burke was not a better player than Gary Grant.
Gary Grant isthe best guard that I have seen play at Michigan. Ricky Green comes in 2nd. Trey Burke is next.
GG was indeed awesome during his 4 years. Only wish for him that his pro career was as amazing.
You're comparing a 2 year guy to a 4 year guy. Burke as a sophomore was better than Grant as a sophomore.
Your thought process......is fascinating.
In what way?
I guess it really comes down to your criteria - best Michigan career or best player? Who knows how good Burke and Stauskas could've been in an era where they stay for their 3rd or 4th years
So you just don't count Grant's junior and senior seasons?
I don't think the question is "Who became the best player after they left Michigan?"
but "Who was the best player for Michigan?"
That is, "Who played the best as a Michigan player?"
If it’s "Who became the best player after they left Michigan?" then Jamal Crawford comes in at #1.
I'd rather have Tractor than Bullock
Yeah, there are a couple of guys who could be on the list ahead of Bullock. He was a small-ish shooting guard who scored tons of points, and that's about it. He was on some forgettable teams, with I guess a career highlight of winning the inaugural Big Ten tournament. His teams had exactly one NCAA tournament win in an era unlike what, say, Rudy T faced. Granted, if Bullock had been white in Indiana on the same kind of teams, he would have statues all over the state and the leading actress from "Speed" would have named her kid after him.
Nice player, but that one statistical accomplishment overstates his case.
I need Craig Ross' opinion on this one.
I haven't looked at the list but I can't almost assure you that Rudy T and Tarpley will be in top 10. I will be disappointed if Loy Vaught isn't in the top 20. He deserves it and was so overlooked and his NBA career proved he was a great UM player.
Tarpley is criminally underappreciated. Guy rebounded and blocked shots and scored. For goodness sakes...he was the NBA 6th man of the year....twice.
You will have a hard time convincing me that Webber was better in college than Tarpley. In fact, try and convince me Webber was better than Tarpley in the pro's.
Go ahead. Give it a shot.
Tarpley was just a guy his freshman and sophomore seasons. His junior season looks like a Webber season, but a 15.9 ppg / 8.8 rpg line is kinda disappointing for a senior year.
Yeah, the 1986 team had forwards coming out of their ears -- Frieder did an odd job of recruiting, considering what he had at forward the next year, although I guess Prop 48 messed up his plans -- but it's not like Rellford was as talented as Juwan Howard.
Tarpley only had one year in the NBA where he played 2,000 minutes. Just a lot of obvious what-ifs with him.
Well, you don’t really sound like a guy who wants to be convinced, so I won’t invest too much time in this. I’ll just say that Chris Webber made an All NBA team 5x, which is pretty darn impressive. Tarpley, of course, made zero such teams. An all nba selection is obviously a way more prestigious recognition that 6th man of the year.
while you can certainly argue tarpley could have been a better pro, had he not had his issues, there is really no argument to be made that he was a better pro.
Yeah, I could hear an argument that Tarpley was a better college player than a pro, but Chris Webber was a demonstrably better player than Tarpley in the pros. Maybe Tarpley would have been better without the substance abuse problems, but 1 all-Rookie team and 1 6th-man of the year are not better than ROY, 5 All-Star appearances, and 5 All-NBA (including 1 first-team).
I got to admit where I am wrong, on the Pro side of the equation. He was only 6th man of the year once. My bad. You are right.
I saw both of these guys play. Webber was certainly flashier but Tarpley was a much better all around player. Wasn't Tarpley on two teams who won Big Ten titles?
In fact, here is something you will disagree with but Juwan Howard was the go to guy for offensive buckets. Webber was more raw and Howard more polished. If Webber had refined his skills like Howard earlier in his career he would have been one of the all time collegiate greats.
I am not saying Webber wasn't a fine college player but Tarpley was the man on the team. He stirred the drink. Webber benefited from Howard down low.
It's a close contest. I will backtrack somewhat. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jKDC0VVtgo
1986 UM vs. IU
That's a nice list of basketball players.
I was going to argue he should be higher up the list, but Roy Tarpley isn't as good as I remembered.
Tarpley was a beast in college. Not quite as dominant as Ewing on defense, but pretty close.
I'm glad they didn't put Mike McGee any lower. He was there when I was and I saw him play a lot, and that guy was a flat out shooter in the pre-three point line era. He had a distinctive-looking shot with a flatter trajectory than most great shooters, but the ball just seemed to rip the basket when it tore through. Mike McGee was not a swisher; he was a ripper. He went on to start next to Magic Johnson for the Lakers on a couple of their great teams. One of the great sports moments of my life was at Crisler in 79 when McGee, Phil Hubbard and company upset Magic's State team 49-48 on two free throws with no time on the clock by a freshman named Keith Smith.
Stauskas is a bit underappreciated. He carried a team that won the big ten by 3 games. Disappointing pro career, but definitely should be ahead of Bullock. Heck, Simpson should be ahead of Bullock.
LeVert will probably be an NBA all star in the next year or 2, but didn't make the list (which I'm fine with). Any all stars not on the list?
M.C. Burton played in the late 1950's, and was the star of the team during that period. In his senior year, he averaged nearly 21 points and over 17 rebounds per game, leading the Big Ten in both categories, the first player to do that. He also played school better than almost everyone else, foregoing the NBA to attend U-M medical school. On top of all that he was a fine person.
Great athlete. An even better person.
A Muskegon guy. His brother Ed was voted the best high school basketball player in Muskegon history.
M.C. Burton played in the late 1950's, and was the star of the team during that period. In his senior year, he averaged nearly 21 points and over 17 rebounds per game, leading the Big Ten in both categories, the first player to do that. He also played school better than almost everyone else, foregoing the NBA to attend U-M medical school. On top of all that he was a fine person.
Love the list. Not sure about Louis Bullock though. Would you take him over Loy Vaught, Sean Higgins, Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor or Manny Harris?
Bullock scored a lot of points and had a nice senior year. Probably a bit ahead of his time in terms of being a pure shooter from distance in college. But maybe I'm dating myself a bit, but Daniel Horton struck me as an underrated basketball player at UM who suffered at the tail end of the Amaker era. He did have an arrest for domestic violence while in college and that can and should absolutely be factored in, but on the court I thought hr was a really solid player who helmed teams that won 20+ games 3 out of the 4 years he was there.
Louis Bullock was great for what he was. An elite 3pt shooter before it was in vogue and a good distributor.
That said of the last 3 players on your list (the ones who I actually remember playing), I would only take him over Manny, especially if putting him on a team with talent. Manny was perfect for shit roster (except Sims) because he was a ballhog scorer.
I am always amazed at the amount of talent that comes out of the state of Michigan and yet UM and MSU have won a combined three championships.
That seems out of kilter.
No Antoine Joubert? /s, mostly
Glen Rice was placed about right. Maybe a little low, but I never watched M bball before Tarp, Joubert, Wade, Rellford, Grant so I can't speak to the before then guys.
why are you throwing shade at the Judge?
Lazy of the Detroit News to have done this article as a gallery, all too obvious that trying to generate clicks is a priority for them.
For that matter, the writer got several of them wrong too. Louis Bullock top 20 all-time?
If I can have a second bite at the apple, I believe consideration should have been given to a player who averaged 16+ points and more than 7 rebounds per game during his three year career, with highs his junior year of 20 and 9. He did all this while never participating or participating fully in pre-season practices because his actual "day job" was playing football. I'm referring to one of Michigan's legendary athletes, Ron Kramer, an All-American and all-Pro end
The Ancient
The General should be #3. The rest are fine.
Seems like these are career rankings. Even with that you’d think with the success of the program guys from the 2010s would get some love, but when you think about it only Burke and Stauskas were major players at the national level, with Levert, Wagner, and Walton lagging behind for different reasons.
What these players did in the NBA shouldn't really be considered. It should be about their time at Michigan. That being said, I can't say much about guys from before the Amaker years because I started watching at the end of Amakers tenure.
This list makes me feel like I missed a lot of great players and teams. Which I obviously did.
The late 80’s to early/mid 90’s were incredible.
I would place both Juwan and Rose ahead of Webber. We weren't making either of those two finals games without any one of the 3.Without Webber, Juwan and Jalen took us to the regional finals where we lost a close game to National Champion Arkansas. That 3rd year should matter.
Jalen and Juwan should be above Webber on this list. Especially Jalen, who was the leader of the Fab Five and if I remember correctly was the most outstanding player in the region one of those tourney years. Unfortunately, he didn't have a great tourney as a Junior. Maybe i'm a little biased as he's my favorite player.