Because of the long injury, I don’t think we can really compare it to other real-life performances whether at Duke or elsewhere. Heck, even Willis Reed only scored 4 points in his famous game coming back from injury. Really, the only proper comparisons are to Hollywood movies.
Hoosiers (1986) is a fictionalized account of the true story of a rural Indiana high school basketball team in the 1950s that makes it way to the state championship where it beats a more heralded team from a metropolitan area. According to a
box score projected by Bill Simmons, Jimmy Chitwood played 32 minutes and had 30 points, going 14-18 from the field. As we know, Ryan played 32 minutes and had 36 points, going 10-14 from the field. While Jimmy had a higher percentage of his team’s total points and he did score the game-winning bucket, I’m giving the edge to Ryan because he scored his 36 against a very athletic top-5 D1 team rather than a team of high school players. I mean, how many would Jimmy have scored with 25-year old 6’11” Kenny Kadji in his face?
In
Space Jam (1996), Michael Jordan leads a team of Looney Tunes cartoon characters against a team of NBA stars. Jordan scores 44 out of the 78 points scored by the Tunes team, according to an online box score. While Jordan had more points than Ryan, nevertheless I give the edge to Ryan for the following reason: If Ryan’s teammates were a bunch of cartoon characters, obviously Ryan would have had to score more to pick up the slack. He might well have had more than 36. Also, we know what a ball hog MJ was. All of Ryan’s points came completely within the flow of the offense.
In
Air Bud (1997), Buddy the golden retriever, with the help of his friend Josh, escapes from the mean Mr. Snively in time to join his team in the state finals basketball game. As to who had the better game, I note the following: Buddy only played the last few minutes of the game, whereas Ryan played 32 minutes. Buddy only had a few field goals (although he did hit key foul shots down the stretch), whereas Ryan went for 36. Buddy was not coming off injury, unlike Ryan; however Buddy had been chained up for a while by Mr. Snively. Having said that, we must take into account the fact that Ryan has opposable thumbs and Buddy does not, making it difficult for Buddy to hold the ball with his paws. So unlike Buddy, Ryan is not forced to shoot the ball with his nose. Because of this last point I would have to give the edge to the performance by Buddy the golden retriever.
In summary, I would put Ryan’s individual performance above that of Jimmy in Hoosiers and that of Jordan in Space Jam, but below that of Buddy the golden retriever in Air Bud.