Top 10 College Basketball Players of All Time

This Is a slide show of my opinion on who was and is the best of all time in Men's NCAA Basketball. I'm sure you will like some of my picks and some maybe you won't like, but you're entitled to your opinion, as am I.

I Hope you enjoy it and please please don't leave some crap comments; be nice. Well, at least try to.Comments are appreciated though so go ahead and leave your opinion.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Heavily sought by collegiate basketball programs, he played for the UCLA Bruins from 1966 to 1969 under coach John Wooden, contributing to the team's three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses, one to Houston and the other to crosstown rival USC who played a "stall game"—no shot clock.

During his college career he was twice named Player of the Year (1967, 1969), was a three-time First Team All-American (1967-69), played on three NCAA Basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, 1969), was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969), and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969.

In 1967, 1968 he also won USBWA College Player of the Year which later became the Oscar Robertson Trophy. Alcindor became the only player to win the Helms Foundation Player of the Year award three times.

Note: Freshmen were not eligible to play, so Alcindor only had three years to play, not four. The 1965-1966 UCLA Bruin team was the preseason No. 1.

But on Nov. 27 1965, the freshmen team led by Alcindor defeated the varsity team 75-60 in the first game in the new Pauley Pavilion. This defeat had no effect on the varsity's national ranking. It was still No. 1 the following week.

Larry Bird

Bird received a basketball scholarship to Indiana University in 1974. However, he was overwhelmed by the size of the campus and number of students and, as he would later admit in his biographies, wasn't mentally ready for this stage of life.

Bird was also treated poorly by an established IU star, Kent Benson; as Bird recalled, the other upperclassmen of the team treated him well.

He dropped out of Indiana and went home to French Lick where he enrolled in the nearby Northwood Institute before dropping out and getting a job with the Street Department for a year.

He played AAU basketball for Hancock Construction and, after that year, decided to enroll at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, where he was coached by Bob King.

Wilt Chamberlain

In 1955, Chamberlain joined KU. Cherry described how shocked the young teenager was when he first arrived in the still-segregated city of Lawrence, Kansas: After being treated like a star in his native Philadelphia, he now saw places black people were prohibited to enter.

Chamberlain reacted by simply ignoring these signs, eating, and going out wherever he wanted.When he discovered that nobody heckled him, he gave up his antipathy, and as a result black people in Lawrence were eventually treated better.

Chamberlain enjoyed living in Kansas, especially enjoying the rich jazz scene in nearby Kansas City.

At KU, Chamberlain became a player for the Kansas Jayhawks freshman team under future Hall-of-Fame coach Phog Allen, whom he admired, and also a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc, where he was the president of his pledge class.

Announced as "looking lighter than his 240 pounds, reach 9'6" up in the air , and a wingspan of 7'2", his debut was highly anticipated, and he delivered: in Chamberlain's debut game for the freshman squad, the freshman Jayhawks were pitted against the varsity Jayhawks, who were favored to win their conference that year.

Chamberlain dominated his older college mates by scoring 52 points, grabbing 29 rebounds and registering four blocks. However, Chamberlain's prospects of playing under Allen ended when the coach turned 70 shortly after and was forced to retire by KU regulation.

Chamberlain had a bad relationship with Allen's successor Dick Harp fueled by resentment and disappointment: Cherry has doubted whether Chamberlain would have chosen KU if he had known that Allen was going to retire.

Patrick Ewing

Ewing, one of the most highly touted freshmen ever, signed a letter of intent to accept a scholarship to play for Coach John Thompson at Georgetown University.

As a freshman during the 1981-1982 season, Ewing became one of the first college players to start and star on the varsity team as a freshman.

In the 1982 NCAA final against the University of North Carolina, Ewing was called for goal-tending several times in the first half, setting the tone for the Hoyas and making his presence felt.

The Hoyas had a shot at winning the game until Fred Brown threw an infamous bad pass to James Worthy at the tail end of the game. Media focus on the bad pass obscured several earlier blown chances by the Hoyas and the unlikely fact of a made basket with only a few scant seconds remaining on the clock.

In the 1983-'84 season, Ewing and Georgetown took the NCAA title with an 84-75 win over the University of Houston.

In Ewing's senior year of 1985, Georgetown was ranked number one in the nation and was heavily favored to beat unranked Villanova in the title game, but the Wildcats shot a record 78.6 percent from the floor to upset the Hoyas 64-62.

Ewing was one of the best college basketball players of his era, as Georgetown reached the championship game of the NCAA tournament three out of four years. He was a first-team All-American

Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan's jersey hangs in the rafters of The Dean Smith Center. In 1981, Jordan earned a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in cultural geography.

As a freshman in coach Dean Smith's team-oriented system, he was named ACC Freshman of the Year after he averaged 13.4 points per game on 53.4 percent shooting.

He made the game-winning jump shot in the 1982 NCAA Championship game against Georgetown, which was led by future NBA rival Patrick Ewing. Jordan later described this shot as the major turning point in his basketball career.

During his three seasons at North Carolina, he averaged 17.7 ppg on 54.0 percent shooting, and added 5.0 rebounds per game . After winning the Naismith and the Wooden College Player of the Year awards in 1984, Jordan left North Carolina one year before his scheduled graduation to enter the 1984 NBA Draft.

The Chicago Bulls selected Jordan with the third overall pick, after Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie. Jordan returned to North Carolina to complete his degree in 1986.

Tyler Hansbrough "Physco T"

Tyler Hansbrough led the University of North Carolina in scoring with an average of 18.9 points per game. He was second in the ACC in scoring behind J. J. Redick of Duke.

Additionally, Hansbrough was unanimously selected as the 2006 ACC Freshman of the Year and was also a unanimous selection to the 2006 All Conference Team.

This marked the first time that a freshman had ever been unanimously given first team All-ACC honors.He was second to Redick in voting for the ACC Player of the Year award.

Hansbrough’s best game as a freshman came on Feb. 15, 2006 when he scored 40 points in a home game against Georgia Tech.This mark set the record for most points ever scored by a freshman in a game in ACC history and for the most points scored in the Dean Smith Center.

David Thompson "Skywalker"

After leading North Carolina State University to an undefeated season (27-0) in 1973 he led them to an NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship in 1974, including vanquishing the reigning national champions, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

His nickname was "Skywalker" because of his incredible purported 48-inch vertical leap.

The alley-oop pass, now a staple of today's high-flying, above-the-rim game was "invented" by Thompson and his NC State teammate Monte Towe, and first used as an integral part of the offense by NC State coach Norm Sloan to take advantage of Thompson's leaping ability.

NC State's game against the nationally fourth-ranked University of Maryland in the 1974 ACC Tournament finale, in an era in which only conference champions were invited to the NCAA Tournament, is considered one of the best, if not the greatest, college basketball games of all time.

Thompson and teammate Tommy Burleson led the No. 1-ranked Wolfpack to a 103-100 win in triple overtime. Thompson and the Wolfpack would go on to win the National Championship that year while Maryland sat at home.

Maryland's exclusion from the NCAA Tournament due to the loss despite their high national ranking would lead to the expansion of the NCAA Tournament the very next season to include teams other than the league champions.

"Pistol" Pete Maravich

A native Pennsylvanian, Maravich starred in college at Louisiana State University (LSU) and for three NBA teams. He is still the all-time leading NCAA Division I scorer with 3,667 points scored and an average of 44.2 points per game.

He accomplished this without the benefit of a three-point line and despite the fact that NCAA rules prohibited him from playing on the varsity team as a freshman.

Years later former LSU head basketball coach Dale Brown charted every college game Maravich played, taking into consideration all shots he took.

Maravich died suddenly at age 40 as a consequence of a previously undetected congenital heart defect. His last words, spoken less than a minute before he was stricken and died, were "I feel great."

Oscar Robertson "The Big O"

The 6'5", 220-pound Robertson played the shooting guard/point guard position, and was a 12-time All-Star, 11-time member of the All-NBA Team, and one-time winner of the MVP award in 14 professional seasons.

He is the only player in NBA history to average a triple-double for an entire season, and he is regarded as one of the best and most versatile NBA players of all time. He was a key player on the team which brought the Bucks their only NBA championship in the 1970-'71 NBA season.

However, his playing career, especially during high school and college, was plagued by racism.

Bill Walton

He played college basketball for John Wooden at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1971 to 1974, winning the national title in 1972 over Florida State and again in 1973 with an 87-66 win over Memphis State, in which the big redhead from San Diego made an impressive 21 of 22 field goal attempts and scored 44 points.

Some regard this as the greatest ever offensive performance in American college basketball.

The Walton-led 1971-'72 UCLA basketball team had a record of 30-0, in the process winning its games by an average margin of more than 30 points. He was the backbone of two consecutive 30-0 seasons and was also part of UCLA's NCAA record 88 game winning streak.