Slam Dunks - outstanding college players

Basketball Digest, May, 2001 by Peter Abraham

Among many outstanding collegians, five players stood far and away above the crowd

SELECTING AN ALL-AMERICA team can get you into a long philosophical discussion or a bar fight, depending on your location. There are 100 different ideas about what qualities are most important in an All-American, and in most seasons there are at least a dozen players you can make a solid case for. Or, if you're Digger Phelps trying to kill time on ESPN, three dozen.

Not this year. Picking the BASKETBALL DIGEST All-America team for the 2000-01 college basketball season was only as hard as we wanted to make it.

Duke's Shane Battier and Jason Williams are absolute locks. And if you can find a better shooting guard than North Carolina's Joseph Forte, you're looking in the NBA.

"The North Carolina-Duke games had as much talent on the floor as any games in years," CBS analyst Billy Packer says. "You just don't see that as often? with so many players leaving early for the NBA. It was a treat."

Outside of the ACC, there were two other players who were clearly deserving of First-Team accolades. Stanford was No. 1 for most of the season and its best player, Casey Jacobsen, needs to be on the team. He's only a sophomore, but no small forward is better. Notre Dame junior center Troy Murphy, a two-time player of the year in the Big East, is an obvious choice. He's played three seasons and nobody has figured out how best to defend him.

There were some other intriguing possibilities. Jamaal Tinsley, the trick-or-treat Iowa State point guard, certainly has his supporters. But he shot just over 40% from the floor and committed nearly four turnovers per game. Michael Bradley of Villanova? He had a great season, but you need to play in the NCAA Tournament to have any first-team credibility.

Have any other ideas? Didn't think so. Our five is everybody's five. Or at least should be. The only real question is who you think the player of the year is, and we like Williams over Battier in a close. race. Williams is profiled on page 64; here is the rest of the BASKETBALL DIGEST All-America Team:

FIRST TEAM

SHANE BATTIER, DUKE: College basketball needs more people like Battier. It was never a question that he would stay for four years or that he would give every ounce of energy he had in every game. coaches all but drooled talking about how well he set screens or played help-side defense. He also was an academic All-American and president of the new Student Basketball Council. Oh yeah, he averaged nearly 20 points and seven rebounds per game. "I'm just wired differently than other people," Battier says.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has a Grant Hill-Hike fondness for Battier: "I can't wait to see what Shane does with his life. I think he's going to be an important person regardless of what field he enters. We're not going to see somebody like him in our game for a long time."

JOSEPH FORTE, NORTH CAROLINA: Under Dead Smith and Bill Guthridge, North Carolina ran a balanced offensive attack. The Tar Heels had many stars, but none of them lit up the scoreboard--not even Michael Jordan or Vince Carter. New coach Matt Doherty, a product of the Carolina system, broke with tradition and turned Forte loose this season with impressive results. The 6'4" sophomore guard averaged nearly 22 points and played almost every minute of every game. No wonder Doherty visited Forte at his Maryland home three days after he took the Carolina job; he knew what kind of star power he had.

"My job isto be the shooter," says Forte, whose range and confidence are unrivaled. "I have to thank Coach Doherty for letting me do what I do. It has been a great opportunity and I think I've taken advantage of it."

TROY MURPHY, NOTRE DAME: "I don't look like an All-American, I admit it," Murphy says. "I'm a white kid who went to a private school in New Jersy. I think I sneak up on people."

Not anymore he doesn't. Murphy averaged 22 points and nine rebounds and met his preseason goal of leading the Irish to a long-awaited NCAA Tournament berth for first-year coach Mike Brey.

He also has a krug memory. Murphy was selected for a college All-Star squad last summer that played against Team USA. The two coaches, Mike Jarvis and Bob Huggins, didn't use him much and Murphy vowed revenge during the season. He got it by scoring 30 points against Huggins and Cincinnati before putting 34 on Jarvis and St. John's. Clearly, this is a guy you don't want to mess with.

CASEY JACOBSEN, STANFORD: He can score--just take a look at the 18 points he averaged on 50% shooting from the field. But this 6'6" sophomore swingman also showed this season he could make other players better. "That was the next step in his development," Cardinal coach Mike Montgomery says, "Casey came to us with a lot of talent and now he's learned how to best utilize it."

His 26-point performance in a victory against Duke on December 21 was ample evidence just how special a player Jacobsen is. "He's as good as everybody says he is," Krzyzewski said after seeing Jacobsen up close. "He's a very difficult player to defend because he can shoot it or put it on the floor."