Originally Posted by
Olympic Fan
There's another Duke post player who belongs in this conversation -- Randy Denton. In three seasons (freshmen weren't eligible in his era), he scored 1,658 points and grabbed 1,067 rebounds. We don't know his blocked shot total because he played at a time when blocked shots were not an official statistic. Having been at Duke in that era, I can guarantee you that Randy had a lot more than 150 blocked shots ... like Bill Russell, we just don't have his blocked shot totals.
Denton averaged 19.7 points and 12.7 rebounds in his three-year career ... those are better career numbers than Gminski (19.0 and 10.2), Williams (13.9, 9.1) and certainly Parks (12.5, 6.7). It's much better than Mason (don't have the up to date averages, but as of two weeks ago, he was at 9.6 points, 7.6 rebounds).
The one knock against Denton is that he didn't play on any championship teams.
That doesn't apply to Mike Lewis, who played center for the 1966 Final Four team. Lewis topped 1,000 points and 1,000 rebounds for his career, averaging 16.9 points and 9.5 rebounds. I can't guaratee that he had 150 blocks -- he didn't block as many as Denton, but he had a bunch and could have been over the 150 block figure.
I checked Jay Buckley, who started three straight years in the early '60s (on two Final Four teams) and he didn't quite make 1,000 points or 1,000 rebounds ... but that's only because he was only able to play three seasons. He averaged 10.9 points and 8.4 rebounds for his career (and shot 60.0 percent from the floor). Again, we don't know his blocked shots, but he had a bunch.
He is a very comparable player -- with a very comparable career to Mason.
I guess my point is, when creating the statistical categories, keep in mind the change in the landscape -- the four-year rule has allowed players to pile up huge stat numbers. And the fact that we didn't start keeping blocked shots (and assists and steals) until the mid-1970s robs a lot of great players of their status.