Current NBA Players Who Were March Madness Legends
Selection Sunday is in the books and the field is set for the 2023 NCAA Tournament. In other words, the very best kind of madness is upon us.
Though it'll take a backseat for a couple of weeks, the NBA season is also in the midst of one of its most exciting stretches. Time is running short for late-stage surges, and every game counts a little extra with so much unsettled in the standings. The added pressure won't faze Anthony Davis, Stephen Curry, Al Horford and several others who'll feature heavily in the closing run of the 2022-23 season.
They've seen it all before—both as pros and as amateurs.
Here, we'll run through the current NBA players who shone brightest at this time of year in college. We're talking about March Madness luminaries with national titles, cinderella runs or gleaming individual hardware. Most have carried their collegiate success over to the league, and many of them are established superstars who'll end up in the Hall of Fame.
These guys live for the NBA Finals in June nowadays. But for everyone covered here, the real path to greatness began in March.
Al Horford, Boston Celtics
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We have to hop in the way-back machine to give two-time NCAA champ Al Horford his due. For some context, there are human beings legally driving cars today who weren't born when Horford and the Florida Gators won their first of back-to-back national titles in 2006.
A refresher for those who can't quite remember the only team to win two chips in a row since the 1991 and 1992 Duke Blue Devils: This group was loaded. In addition to Horford, future NBA players Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and (briefly) Taurean Green and Chris Richard gave Florida uncommon size and defensive potency. Head coach Billy Donovan had an embarrassment of riches from a talent perspective and still managed to coax incredible intensity out of his top players.
All of Horford, Noah and Brewer could have left for the NBA after the first title, but they returned to Florida with a repeat in mind. Nothing dates this achievement quite so clearly as that fact. Anyone in their position would bolt for the pros today.
Horford didn't earn Most Outstanding Player honors in either the 2006 or 2007 national championship runs. Those went to Noah and Brewer, respectively. But he was then (as he is now) an absolute rock-solid high-end contributor known for making winning plays. Horford's consistency was laughably metronomic.
He started 39 games in 2005-06 and 36 in 2006-07, shooting an identical 60.8 percent from the field in both years. He scored in double figures in five of Florida's six 2006 tournament wins and put up 14 points, seven boards, three assists and two blocks in the championship game. The following year, he managed at least 15 points in four of six tourney games, saving his best for last.
In a heated Final Four rematch against UCLA, whom Florida beat in the 2006 title game, Horford posted a team-high 17 rebounds. In the Final against Greg Oden, Mike Conley and Ohio State, he was even better, tallying a team-best 18 points and 12 boards to go with three assists. That earned Horford one of just five All-Tournament team spots after he had to settle for an All-Regional selection in 2006.
Seventeen years after his first collegiate title, Horford, a five-time All-Star, has as good of a chance as ever to add an NBA championship to his trophy case.
Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors
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A four-time NBA champion with two MVP awards (one of which was unanimous), the all-time record for three-point makes and a credible case as the guy who transformed basketball more substantially than anyone in the last 50 years, Stephen Curry is now among the world's most celebrated and recognizable humans.
Back in 2008, things were different. Diehard college basketball fans knew who he was, but to most of the planet, Curry was just a rail-thin guard for mid-major Davidson. In hindsight, the run he went on during the 2008 tournament seems completely on-brand. But back then, we didn't yet know what Curry's brand was, even if he'd finish the year averaging 25.9 points and flinging an at-the-time unheard of 10.3 long-range attempts per game.
We should start with Steph's efforts against No. 7 Gonzaga in the first round. Down by double figures, Curry scored 30 of his 40 points in the second half, hauling Davidson into the second round for the first time since 1969. Then came second-seeded Georgetown, which seemed to have Davidson in hand. The Hoyas led by 11 at the half and ran their advantage to 46-29 just a couple of minutes after the break.
Curry had other ideas. Georgetown smothered him with multiple bodies and face-guard tactics throughout that first half, but Curry found a way to beat a defense designed to limit him in the second half. Still blanketed by multiple defenders wherever he went, Curry managed to crank out 25 of his 30 points after halftime.
It wasn't all threes, either. The intuitive off-ball movement and unselfish passing that would make Curry such a force as a pro were also present back then. A slick backdoor cut for an and-one layup gave Davidson a 60-58 lead with under five minutes to play that it would never relinquish.
Curry hung another 33 points on Wisconsin in the Midwest Regional final. By that point, it was clear something special was happening. The star power in the crowd validated Curry's status as a national story, and LeBron James was courtside to watch Davidson advance again.
Top-seeded Kansas—which had future pros Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers, Darrell Arthur, Cole Aldrich, Sherron Collins, Darnell Jackson and Sasha Kaun— held him to 25 points on 9-of-25 shooting in the Elite 8. Davidson had a chance to tie or win on its final possession, but Curry gave up the ball when double-covered, and teammate Jason Richards couldn't convert what would have been the game-winning triple.
Curry cemented his legendary status with that run, to the point that nobody even remembers Davidson failed to win its conference and had to settle for the NIT in 2009. Despite even more defensive attention, Curry led the nation in scoring that season.
Things have gone pretty well for him since.
Gordon Hayward, Charlotte Hornets
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Let's begin at the end. Because if you don't recall the entire 2010 tournament, you at least remember the very last shot.
Having led Butler to a somewhat improbable berth in the Finals against powerhouse and top seed Duke, Gordon Hayward almost pulled off one of the greatest buzzer-beaters in recent NCAA history.
How close was it to going in? Really, really close.
Elephant in the room: Hayward had a terrible Final. He scored 12 points but hit just two of his 11 field-goal attempts and managed only a single assist in 40 minutes. He still deserves a spot here for what he did to get Butler all the way to the deciding contest and for a pantheon entry on the all-time list of "what if he'd made it?" shots.
Hayward made the All-Tournament team on the strength of steady scoring against tough competition. He put up 19 points against Michigan State in the semifinal, 22 against Kansas State in the Elite 8 and 17 versus Syracuse in the Sweet 16. Maybe he didn't capture the imagination of an entire country like Curry did, but Hayward made it deeper into the tournament and gave us an iconic miss—if there is such a thing.
Fun tidbit: Former Boston Celtics head coach Brad Stevens was Hayward's coach at Butler, which everyone knows. But current Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla was also prominently involved in the 2010 tournament. He made the East All-Regional team as a player for West Virginia and was joined there by DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall.
Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
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Anthony Davis pretty much ran the table in 2012.
The freshman led Kentucky to a 38-2 mark, won a national title, was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and went first overall in the NBA draft just a few short months later.
Davis had help during Kentucky's run to the championship. Teammate Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the second pick in that same draft. Though his pro career ultimately fizzled due to poor shooting form and persistent injuries, MKG was a terror alongside Davis at Kentucky. The 6'7" forward was a relentless rim-attacker and one of the best multi-position defenders in the country. Smart, preposterously athletic and always playing with max effort, MKG made it easier for the more polished Davis to pile up points inside and dominate the paint on D.
Forward Terrence Jones averaged 12.3 points and 7.2 boards while shooting 50.0 percent from the field that season, and he went on to play six NBA seasons. Not to be forgotten, Doron Lamb, who had a brief pro career with the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic, joined his teammates on the all-tourney team.
Davis scored inconsistently during Kentucky's run to the championship, registering single-digit point totals twice, including a six-point offensive clunker in the Final against Kansas. Never let anyone try to convince you he failed to earn that MOP honor; AD's scoring was secondary in college. It was his defensive impact that truly put the Wildcats over the top.
Across six tournament games, Davis averaged 12.3 rebounds and 4.8 blocks, completely controlling the paint and the boards. Looking back at the film, one forgets how unbelievably mobile Davis was. He wasn't just setting up shop at the rim and turning away close-rangers.
From floaters to pull-up jumpers to corner threes, AD flew around and swatted everything.
He had a shot to contend for it until injuries derailed him earlier this year, but watching his younger days, it's hard to understand how Davis never won a Defensive Player of the Year as a pro. He was beyond special in that 2012 run.
Tyus Jones, Memphis Grizzlies
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Davis' incredible 2012 run is a tough act to follow, but Tyus Jones' tournament performance in 2015 deserves some recognition. Though the current Memphis Grizzlies point guard didn't physically overwhelm the competition on defense, and though he wasn't the no-brainer No. 1 pick before he climbed the ladder to cut down the nets, Jones earned the same two distinctions AD did for his efforts.
He led Duke to the title and earned Most Outstanding Player honors, becoming just the fourth true freshman to win that award.
Running an offense that included an array of NBA talent, Jones earned the tourney's top individual honor over teammates Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow, Grayson Allen and Quin Cook. Even Marshall Plumlee and Amile Jefferson had cups of coffee in the league. Matt Jones was the only Dukie to play in the Final, a 68-63 win over Wisconsin, who didn't log at least a season in the NBA.
You might say so much surrounding talent made Jones' job a breeze. But it's not always easy to keep so many mouths fed, and Jones spread the wealth in the same manner we've come to know during his time in the league. Which is to say: He was basically a "correct basketball decision" machine, getting the ball to the right spots at the right times while rarely making mistakes.
Plus, his timely scoring made up for Okafor contributing just 10 points in the final due to foul trouble. Jones drilled two critical late threes to seal the game in the waning minutes, finishing with a team-high 23 points. The first gave Duke a lead it would never surrender.
Jones handed out 26 assists in the tourney against just seven turnovers, a 3.7-to-1 ratio that doesn't quite measure up to what he's done as a pro, but was still good enough to get the job done.
Jones may not have reached the same heights in the NBA as Davis, Hayward, Curry or Horford. But he was just as impactful as any of those guys while driving Duke to its 2015 title.
The Villanova Guys
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It's too hard to separate the various members of Villanova's 2016 and 2018 championship teams, and considering how players from that university have so consistently carved out niches as hard-nosed, team-first non-glory-seekers in the pros, maybe that's how they'd want it.
Start with Ryan Arcidiacono, the MOP of the 2016 Final Four. The senior scored in double figures across all six tourney games his Wildcats played that year, and he closed out Villanova's last two wins on a combined 11-of-15 shooting against Oklahoma and North Carolina.
Kris Jenkins was the one who hit the buzzer-beating game-winner that secured the 2016 title, but it was Arcidiacono who pushed the pace and shoveled him the rock for the trailing triple that unleashed celebratory bedlam.
Arcidiacono has been a journeyman third point guard for most of his time in the NBA, but he's hung around for five-plus seasons. Some of his teammates from that 2016 squad have fared even better: Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges are high-end starters, while Hart has been on an absolute tear since joining Brunson with the New York Knicks. Donte DiVincenzo is playing the best ball of his career with the Golden State Warriors.
Bridges, Brunson and DiVincenzo would go on to win a second title in 2018, led by a MOP performance from DiVincenzo, who scored 31 points off the bench in the championship-clinching blowout over Michigan.
His five threes, five boards, three assists and two blocks were part of a balanced, complete game that should probably be remembered as DiVincenzo's best collegiate performance. He couldn't have picked a better time to peak.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball Reference and Cleaning the Glass. Accurate through March 9. Salary info via Spotrac.
Grant Hughes covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@gt_hughes), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, where he appears with Bleacher Report's Dan Favale.
