Please dont misinterpret my post. I love DC - he was fabulous that game until the missed FTs. I do not blame DC for the loss, but the context of the post is our GOAT player and comparing DC to Melo within the context of a GOAT discussion, and the fact remains one guy won the title and the other guy did not.
If you're going to assign blame for a one-point loss to individual plays that happened throughout a game, you'd have a long list of culprits.
The '96 season is maybe my second favorite (at least most enjoyable). And there were so many magic moments: against GA - Cipolla's shot, Wallace's shot, etc. Against UK, Wallace getting us within a couple on a MEAN dunk, before hope is lost when he fouls out. Cuse is in the house. McNabb's antics on the sidelines, and that other dude who became an actor. Wallace lifted us on his back, and Z played well. Also Wallace tipped well (I was delivering pizza around campus at the time). And Wallace also gave us relevance after the dark days of probation. He came to us during probation, and then got us a F4 after probation. For these reasons, Wallace deserves to be high on the list. Honestly, he is probably my #2, but I ranked Melo higher for the NC and Pearl for everything he represented. I wasn't paying attention to SU in Pearls years, as I was not yet into basketball, or even sports. We didn't have cable, so I didn't see the games, and I wasn't yet playing sports myself.
