Thursday, March 06, 2008
Virginia's best all-time point guard?
You make the call
Doug Doughty
Doug Doughty's UVa Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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Ricky Stokes probably could go a lot of places and not be as well-received as he is at the University of Virginia.
Stokes has been to John Paul Jones Arena several times this season in his new job as an NBA scout, most recently for the Cavaliers’ game Wednesday night with Duke.
Stokes didn’t like being put on the spot when he was the head coach at Virginia Tech and later East Carolina, but he didn’t beg out of the conversation Wednesday when talk turned to UVa’s great point guards.
Before sportswriters arrived at his table, Stokes had been talking to Tom Calloway, a Charlottesville native who began his college career at Old Dominion, transferred to UVa and has been working in game operations for many years.
Stokes and Calloway both played point guard at UVa; in fact, they were in the program at the same time but were never on the floor at the same time while Calloway was sitting out the 1983-84 season as a transfer.
Calloway said that Othell Wilson, who played from 1981-84, has to be mentioned in any conversation of the school’s top point guards. While he trails UVa’s other point top point guards in points and assists, Wilson is the Cavaliers’ all-time steals leader.
The funny thing about Virginia’s top point guards is that many of them were on the floor together. Wilson teamed with Jeff Jones and Stokes. Cory Alexander played with Harold Deane. John Crotty, at least briefly, played with John Johnson.
As Sean Singletary approaches the 2,000-point mark for his career, he probably has the best combination of numbers of any of the Virginia point guards. But, is he the best? We ask the readers to vote in the accompanying poll. (Click here to take the poll)
One player who isn’t on the ballot but probably could be is Donald Hand, who stands 16th on UVa’s all-time scoring list, fourth in assists and sixth in steals.
Here are the finalists:
Alexander: 1,286 points; 401 assists, 99 steals.
Crotty: 1,646 points; 683 assists, 129 steals
Deane: 1,763 points; 468 assists, 179 steals.
Jones: 850 points; 598 assists, 189 steals.
Parkhill, Barry: 1,437 points; 369 assists, steals (not kept).
Singletary: 1,957 points; 541 assists, 191 steals
Wilson: 1,469 points; 493 assists; 222 steals
Keep in mind that freshmen were not eligible when Parkhill enrolled in 1969. He played in only 79 varsity games, as opposed to a Jones, who played in 129, or Wilson (127).
Alexander was at Virginia for four years but played in only 85 games. He played one game as a junior in 1993-94, when he suffered a broken ankle; saw a redshirt-junior season end when he broke the same ankle in the 20th game of the 1994-95 season, then passed up a possible fifth year to turn pro.
Of course, numbers aren’t everything. Singletary, in all likelihood, will play in the NCAA Tournament once in four years. Wilson played in four of them and Crotty played in three, but, of course, they had better supporting casts.
There are other stats that could be considered, such as assist-turnover ratio and shooting percentage, both from the field and from the line, but it’s like a beauty contest. Point guard play is in the eye of the beholder.
