Which Big East school has produced the best pros? (Old schools as well) | The Boneyard

Which Big East school has produced the best pros? (Old schools as well)

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Which Big East school, including past members, has produced the best pros? Not the most pros, but the most, really good nba players.

*If they played for the school before the school joined the big east, or after the school left the BE, those players will still count.

What counts as "really good" is your call.
 
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If I'm being 100% objective, and I will get killed for this opinion, I feel like UConn isn't a program I would categorize as producing very many "really good" pros in comparison to programs of similar stature. Yes, we have one of the greatest players of all time and a HOF in Ray, plus a few multiple time All-Stars (Caron, Rip, Andre, Kemba), as well as a few guys that played for 10+ years and/or were quite good for a portion of their careers (Cliff, Rudy, BG, Ollie, Emeka, Donyell) but we are definitely lacking star power. The only guys that we've produced that were truly stars in the league for a number of years were Ray, Rip, and Kemba. You can make an argument for Caron, BG, and Andre as well, but overall I think we haven't produced many "really good" NBA players, keyword MANY.

I feel like we were always great in terms of getting guys into the league, but I definitely want to see us have more stars in the Hurley era and hopefully Hawk, Donovan, and Steph are the beginning of that.
 
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Looking at this years all stars, most are either international players, never played college, or were top 5 prospects coming out of high school. UConn has had very few top 5 prospects. The only one I can think of is Andre Drummond. I think Rudy Gay and Villanueva were top 10 but not top 5.

Very few big east schools have landed a top 5 prospect since Georgetowns hey day.
 
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If I'm being 100% objective, and I will get killed for this opinion, I feel like UConn isn't a program I would categorize as producing very many "really good" pros in comparison to programs of similar stature. Yes, we have one of the greatest players of all time and a HOF in Ray, plus a few multiple time All-Stars (Caron, Rip, Andre, Kemba), as well as a few guys that played for 10+ years and/or were quite good for a portion of their careers (Cliff, Rudy, BG, Ollie, Emeka, Donyell) but we are definitely lacking star power. The only guys that we've produced that were truly stars in the league for a number of years were Ray, Rip, and Kemba. You can make an argument for Caron, BG, and Andre as well, but overall I think we haven't produced many "really good" NBA players, keyword MANY.

I feel like we were always great in terms of getting guys into the league, but I definitely want to see us have more stars in the Hurley era and hopefully Hawk, Donovan, and Steph are the beginning of that.
I'm not really sure how we should look at it.

Does it make JC's accomplishments that much more impressive that he got dominant team performances out of guys like Armstrong, Boone, Thabeet, Marcus Williams, and tremendously inflated their draft stock, despite them not really being NBA players?

Or does it reflect badly on our players and their talent or work ethic? (Or both?)
 

Inyatkin

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If I'm being 100% objective, and I will get killed for this opinion, I feel like UConn isn't a program I would categorize as producing very many "really good" pros in comparison to programs of similar stature. Yes, we have one of the greatest players of all time and a HOF in Ray, plus a few multiple time All-Stars (Caron, Rip, Andre, Kemba), as well as a few guys that played for 10+ years and/or were quite good for a portion of their careers (Cliff, Rudy, BG, Ollie, Emeka, Donyell) but we are definitely lacking star power. The only guys that we've produced that were truly stars in the league for a number of years were Ray, Rip, and Kemba. You can make an argument for Caron, BG, and Andre as well, but overall I think we haven't produced many "really good" NBA players, keyword MANY.

I feel like we were always great in terms of getting guys into the league, but I definitely want to see us have more stars in the Hurley era and hopefully Hawk, Donovan, and Steph are the beginning of that.
I just think this overstates what other programs are doing. Look at Kansas. So many dominant regular seasons in college, and how many NBA stars in the past generation? Not a whole lot. Duke and Kentucky get by on the one-and-done guys who in a different era might have gone straight to the NBA. Villanova has an incredibly rare outcome where three guys are playing big minutes on one contender at the same time.

Looking big picture, by any rational analysis, UConn is up there with anyone in this category.
 

Matrim55

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If I'm being 100% objective, and I will get killed for this opinion, I feel like UConn isn't a program I would categorize as producing very many "really good" pros in comparison to programs of similar stature. Yes, we have one of the greatest players of all time and a HOF in Ray, plus a few multiple time All-Stars (Caron, Rip, Andre, Kemba), as well as a few guys that played for 10+ years and/or were quite good for a portion of their careers (Cliff, Rudy, BG, Ollie, Emeka, Donyell) but we are definitely lacking star power. The only guys that we've produced that were truly stars in the league for a number of years were Ray, Rip, and Kemba. You can make an argument for Caron, BG, and Andre as well, but overall I think we haven't produced many "really good" NBA players, keyword MANY.
This is only true if you compare us to our peers in terms of titles -- UNC, UK, Duke, UCLA.

We've produced six all-stars, which is tied for 10th all-time. Our players have earned 22 all-star appearances, which is good for 12th.

We've actually got more guys with 10,000 career points than Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, Michigan State, Georgetown, Villanova*, Louisville, NC State, Syracuse, Arizona, Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas...

(*) Even if all three Knicks, Saddiq Bey and Cam Whitmore top 10,000 career points, we'd still have more 10k scorers all-time than 'Nova does.

And the wild thing is we've done basically all of this over the past 35 years. Since Uncle Cliffy was drafted we've put more 10,000-point scorers into the league than anybody except UK and Duke.

What sucked about missing out on Flagg was that we've never put an MVP-caliber guy into the league, and he could've been it. Maybe we'll get Dybansta.
 
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Let's break it down, give each team their best NBA top 5. I went on Bball Ref and sorted by career NBA points and assigned positions to keep it realistic. Obviously some guys who have less points might have been "better" but I think the longevity of being in the NBA to score 10k points is very impressive. These are the top 6:

UConn (9 w/ 10k+ points)
Kemba, Ray, Rip, Rudy Gay, Cliff Robinson

Gtown (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Iverson, Sleepy Floyd, Jeff Green, Mourning, Ewing

St. John's (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Mark Jackson, Kevin Loughery, Mullin, Ron Artest, Billy Paultz

Cuse (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dave Bing, Sherman Douglas, Melo, Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly

Marquette (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dic Rivers, Wade, Wes Matthews, Jimmy Butler, Maurice Lucas

Villanova (2 w/ 10k+ points)
Lowry, Brunson, Paul Arizin, Mikal Bridges, Jim Washington
 
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Let's break it down, give each team their best NBA top 5. I went on Bball Ref and sorted by career NBA points and assigned positions to keep it realistic. Obviously some guys who have less points might have been "better" but I think the longevity of being in the NBA to score 10k points is very impressive. These are the top 6:

UConn (9 w/ 10k+ points)
Kemba, Ray, Rip, Rudy Gay, Cliff Robinson

Gtown (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Iverson, Sleepy Floyd, Jeff Green, Mourning, Ewing

St. John's (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Mark Jackson, Kevin Loughery, Mullin, Ron Artest, Billy Paultz

Cuse (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dave Bing, Sherman Douglas, Melo, Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly

Marquette (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dic Rivers, Wade, Wes Matthews, Jimmy Butler, Maurice Lucas

Villanova (2 w/ 10k+ points)
Lowry, Brunson, Paul Arizin, Mikal Bridges, Jim Washington
DePaul (4 w/10k+ points)
Terry Cummings, Mark Aguirre, Rod Strickland, George Mikan (Quentin Richardson, Wilson Chandler, Tyrone Corbin all just shy of 10k)
 
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I'm not really sure how we should look at it.

Does it make JC's accomplishments that much more impressive that he got dominant team performances out of guys like Armstrong, Boone, Thabeet, Marcus Williams, and tremendously inflated their draft stock, despite them not really being NBA players?

Or does it reflect badly on our players and their talent or work ethic? (Or both?)

I don't think either. What makes a good NBA player versus a good college player can be very different, and sometimes it just doesn't translate. Guys like Hilton, Boone, and Marcus were all at least rotation players for a bit, which still indicates they're better than 95% of college players.
 
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DePaul (4 w/10k+ points)
Terry Cummings, Mark Aguirre, Rod Strickland, George Mikan (Quentin Richardson, Wilson Chandler, Tyrone Corbin all just shy of 10k)
This is a very impressive list.
 

Dutch Boyd

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Let's break it down, give each team their best NBA top 5. I went on Bball Ref and sorted by career NBA points and assigned positions to keep it realistic. Obviously some guys who have less points might have been "better" but I think the longevity of being in the NBA to score 10k points is very impressive. These are the top 6:

UConn (9 w/ 10k+ points)
Kemba, Ray, Rip, Rudy Gay, Cliff Robinson

Gtown (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Iverson, Sleepy Floyd, Jeff Green, Mourning, Ewing

St. John's (6 w/ 10k+ points)
Mark Jackson, Kevin Loughery, Mullin, Ron Artest, Billy Paultz

Cuse (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dave Bing, Sherman Douglas, Melo, Derrick Coleman, Rony Seikaly

Marquette (3 w/ 10k+ points)
Dic Rivers, Wade, Wes Matthews, Jimmy Butler, Maurice Lucas

Villanova (2 w/ 10k+ points)
Lowry, Brunson, Paul Arizin, Mikal Bridges, Jim Washington
Dic Rivers lol
 

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