SWC75
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(this is part 2: see "Scoring Champions: The Good Old Days")
1971 Maravich, Murphy and Carr went on to productive NBA careers for teams that tended to be out contention. The best NBA teams were no longer centered on high scoring gunners, but on balanced line-ups of star quality players. The best college teams were tending toward that as well. From here on in, the college scoring championship tended to be dominated by lesser players playing for marginal majors where they could be “the star” and get the ball all the time. There would still be some famous names in the top ten but rarely at the very top of the list.
In 1971, a Maravich clone, also playing for an SEC school that hadn’t had a glamorous basketball history won the title. JOHNNY NEUMANN averaged 40.1 points per game, the last major college player to top the 40ppg mark. Neumann was about the same size as Maravich, (actually a little bigger: 6-6, 200 vs. 6-5, 197), and surely knew of the comparisons when he threw down 63 points on LSU. If freshmen had been eligible, he and the Pistol might have had quite a duel. Spencer Haywood’s lawsuit had opened up jumping to the pros under a “hardship clause” and Neumann declared himself a hardship case and signed with the ABA’s Memphis Pros. His pro career got off to a good start with averages of 18.3ppg and 19.6ppg his first two years but he declined after that with his coaches complaining about his not passing the ball enough. He wound up playing and coaching abroad. Austin Carr was still around for his senior year at Notre Dame and finished second with 38.0ppg. Also in the top ten were George McGinnis of Indiana (30.0) and Jim McDaniels of Western Kentucky (29.3). McDaniels’ team had the most success, making it to the Final Fou, pn;y to have that result voided because McDaniels had signed with an agent. McDaniels later became famous for walking out on his team, the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, during the playoffs in a contract dispute. His career never recovered and he wound up playing abroad. “I was just young and things started going bad for me there and I didn't know how to handle them.” (Wikipedia)
1972 The school is now called Louisiana-Lafayette but in 1972 they were the Ragin Cajuns of Southwestern Louisiana and they raged up and down the basketball court, scoring 98.7 points per game. Their big gun was DWIGHT ‘BO’ LAMAR, who led the nation with 36.7ppg. They whacked Marshall in the NCAA tournament, 112-102, which must have made an impression on the Thundering Herd’s star player, Mike D’Antoni. Then they almost upset Denny Crum’s first Louisivlle team, losing 84-88 in a game where Lamar attempted 42 shots- and made 14. The NCAA decided to investigate the Ragin’ Cajuns and came up with 125 violations. Their coach, Beryl Shipley responded “Is that all they could find?” Their basketball program was given the NCAA’s first “death penalty” and suspended for two years after the 1973 season. SWL had just emerged from the small college ranks and so had the schools that provided the next two high scorers after Lamar, Richard Fuqua of Oral Roberts, (35.9) and Doug Collins of Illinois State (32.6). Greg Kohls of Syracuse finished 7th at 26.7ppg. No Syracuse player has made the top ten since.
1973 Two California kids battled it out for the 1973 scoring title. BIRD AVERITT of Pepperdine won it with 33.9ppg over Ray Lewis of Los Angeles State, 32.9. Averitt had made a name for himself as a freshman when he scored 87 points in two games against the Walton Gang, even dunking, (at 6-1) on Bill Walton. He left after his junior year for the ABA and, like Neumann, had some moderate success early but then faded. Ray Lewis, (no relation to the linebacker), scored 40 on the UCLA frosh a year after Averitt and 73 against Santa Barbara. He led all freshman scorers, (this was two years before freshmen became eligible for the varsity) with 39.8ppg. Lewis also jumped to the pros after this season but got involved in an acrimonious dispute with the 76ers because Doug Collins was being paid more than him and he was besting Collins in practice. He never played for the 76ers and the Sixers refused to allow him to play for any other team. Lewis wound up being LA’s all-time playground legend, famously scoring 53 on the Laker’s Michael Cooper in 1983, the season after Cooper was named the NBA’s defensive player of the year. Lewis died of a leg infection at age 48 in 2001.
Pepperdine played LA State in 1973 and won 87-80. Searching the net, I was able to find out that Ray Lewis scored 34 points in that game. I did not find Averitt’s point total but the Pepperdine Media Guide doesn’t list that game in their making of single game scoring, which extends down to 30 points. Bo Lamar finished 6th with 28.9ppg and Doug Collins 10th with 26.0.
1974 When Southwestern Louisiana had its program suspended, their players were allowed to transfer to other schools and play immediately. Fred Saunders, a forward found his way to Syracuse where he averaged 9.8 points per game in his only season here. LARRY FOGLE landed at Canisius were he led the country in scoring with a 33.4 average. Fogle later got suspended for accepting “improper financial aid” and played exactly 2 games in the NBA for the Knicks. After that he seems to have disappeared, from the headlines anyway. The best player in the top ten was David Thompson, who lead North Carolina State to the national championship. He finished at #5, (26.0).
1975 The 1975 champ was Richmond’s BOB MCCURDY (32.9), beating out Adrian Dantley of Notre Dame, (30.4) and Thompson (29.9). Both Dantley and Thompson went on to become NBA scoring champions. Per Wikipedia:
“Kevin Eastman, the starting point guard alongside shooting guard McCurdy, was in awe at his ability to score. Many years later, Eastman was quoted as saying, "Looking back now, it was a remarkable feat. [McCurdy] had virtually no quickness. He didn't really have dribbling skills. He couldn't jump that high. He couldn't run real fast. He was a prime example of how will and enthusiasm and effort allowed him to rise to another level." Jokingly, Eastman added, "He worked harder than anybody else on the team, but he was very focused on one skill, and that was shooting. I'm not sure I saw him in a defensive stance all year, and the one or two assists that he got were mistakes."
McCurdy was drafted by the Bucks but never played a game in the NBA. “With professional basketball out of the picture, McCurdy focused on becoming a successful businessman. Later in life, after admitting to skipping classes while in college to work on his jump shot, he said, "I was almost incoherent when I got out of college. Here I was, hoping to be a businessman, and I couldn't even talk basketball." So he hired a tutor to catch him back up to speed in statistics, and within a few years he was a successful employee at Katz Marketing Solutions.[6] He eventually moved his way all the way up to his current position of company president.”
1976 MARSHALL ROGERS of Pan American easily won the scoring title with 36.8ppg. In a distant second place was Freeman Williams of Portland State (30.9). Adrian Dantley was #4 (28.6). Otis Birdsong and Ernie Grunfeld were also in the top ten. Rogers played only 26 games in the NBA for the Warriors. Rogers wound up with legal troubles and diabetes. When he died at age 57, he no longer had the legs that had carried him to brief glory on the basketball court.
1977-78 FREEMAN WILLIAMS took over this year, shredding opposing defenses for 38.8 and 35.9 points per game and two national scoring titles. He managed 81 points against a team called Rocky Mountain. Trailing behind was Larry Bird of Indiana State, who finished 3rd (32.8) and 2nd (30.0). Otis Birdsong was #4 in 1977 (30.3). The rest of the two top tens consisted of Rich Laurel, Calvin Natt, Mike McConathy, Roger Phegley, Billy Reynolds, Tony Hanson, Purvis Short, Oliver Mack, Frankie Sanders, John Gerdy, Michael Brooks and Mike Mitchell. I remember Brooks and Mitchell. Freeman Williams played 6 seasons in the NBA and averaged as high at 19.3, (for the Clippers). He might be more famous as Duck Johnson, the streetball legend in “White Men Can’t Jump”.
1979 Scoring started to calm down a bit. LAWRENCE BUTLER of Idaho State won the crown with 30.1ppg, beating out Bird who was #2 with the lowest average of his career, (286), which didn’t prevent him from leading his team to the NCAA title game. The rest of the top ten: Nick Galis, James Tillman, Paul Dawkins, John Gerdy, Ernie Hill, John Stroud, John Manning and Steve Stielper. I have no idea who any of them are. Butler was drafted by the Bulls but never played a game in the NBA. In researching Butler, I found this quote (Infobarrel Sports):
“Ask any Idaho State Basketball fans who Lawrence Butler is. The vast majority of them do not have a clue even though he was inducted into ISU's sports hall of fame in 1991.”
1980 TONY MURPHY of Southern U. was the champ with 32.1. Looking through the rest of the top ten I recognize Earl Belcher of St. Bonaventure (26.9) because he played at CBA with Marty Headd. But the most prominent players are in the 9-10 spots: Mark Aquirre of DePaul (26.8) and Andrew Toney of Louisiana-Lafayette (26.1).Murphy was drafted by the Kings but never made their roster. He went to work for the post office as a truck driver.
1981 We finally had a scoring champion form a big-time school again, ZAM FREDERICK of South Carolina, ((28.9). Belcher was again in the top ten (24.5). Again the most prominent guys in the top ten were the 9-10 guys, Danny Ainge of BYU and Mike McGee of Michigan (both 24.4). Frederick played pro ball for a decade- in Europe before becoming a highly successful high school coach in South Carolina, where he won 5 state titles and had an 81 game winning streak. Belcher was drafted by the Spurs but broke all the bones in his right ankle in an exhibition game, ending his basketball career. He’s presently a jazz musician.
1982-83 HARRY KELLY of Texas Southern won the next two scoring championships (29.7 and 28.8). Of his pursuers I recognize Ricky Pierce of Rice (26.8) Danny Callandrillo (25.9) of Seton Hall and Waymon Tisdale of Oklahoma (24.5). They were surrounded by players like Mitchell Wiggins, Joe Jakubick, Carlos Yates, Greg Goorjian and Alfredrick Hughes. “Machine Gun Kelly” was cut by the Hawks before he ever played a game in favor of Doc Rivers. Per an article on the SWAC Conference website, he became disillusioned with basketball after that and didn’t even watch a game for two years. "The NBA was all politics.''
1984 JOE JAKUBICK of Akron was the scoring champion with 30.1ppg. Tisdale was 5th at 27.0. Steve Burtt of Iona was #9 at 24.2. I remember Burtt for dueling with Gene Waldron the night Gene scored 40 points. Burtt scored 30 and “forced Syracuse to abandon their full-court press and man-to-man defense”. SU won 109-92 thanks to Waldron who scored 26 second half points. “Most of Waldron’s shots came from 15-20 feet, in areas of the floor vacated by the Iona defense.” (Finger Lakes Times) Jakubick, a 6-5 guard, was drafted by the Cavalliers but never played in the NBA. He was “turned off by the business aspects of the NBA” (Mansfield News Journal). “Jakubick was the gangly kid with the weird, knuckleballing delivery who never saw an off-balance shot he didn’t like.” The NBA was probably turned off by that.
1985 At last we had a scoring champion who went onto a significant NBA career: XAVIER MCDANIEL of Wichita State. He led the nation in both scoring (27.4) and rebounding (15.0) and went onto a 12 year NBA career in which he score dover 13,000 points. Tisdale was again on the list (25.2) along with Joe Dumars of McNeese State (25.8) and Ron Harper of Miami-Ohio (24.9)
1986 TERRANCE BAILEY of Wagner was the champ (29.4), beating out Scott Skiles of Michigan State (27.4), Reggie Miller of UCLA (25.9), Harper (24.4), Del Curry of Virginia Tech (24.1), Reggie Lewis of Northeastern (23.8), Len Bias of Maryland (23.2) and Walter Berry of St. John’s. it was a pretty good top ten that year, if a tragic one. The Hawks drafted Bailey but he never played. He wound up playing abroad and then becoming a pre-school teacher in Trenton.
1987 KEVIN HOUSTON of, of all places, Army, led the country in scoring with 32.9ppg, the most since Freeman Williams. Also in the top ten were David Robinson of Navy (28.2) , Hersey Hawkins of Bradley (28.1) and Bryon Larkin of Xavier, (Barry’s brother- 24.7). Houston did his Army stint and went into coaching at the high school level.
1988 HERSEY HAWKINS had a huge year, scoring 36.3ppg. he went onto a 14 year NBA career and scored over 14,000 points. Anthony Mason of Tennessee State was #3 (28.0) and Larkin averaged 25.3
1989-90 We now entered the brief Loyola Marymount era of racehorse basketball. HANK GATHERS (32.7) and BO KIMBLE (35.3) won consecutive scoring titles. Gathers died of a heart attack during a game on 3/4/90. Kimble honored his friend with a left handed free throw to begin each subsequent game. Bo became an end of the bench guy in the NBA and then A CBA guy. He’s also campaigned against heart disease ever since his friend died. (Both players had transferred from USC, where they were on the team that Syracuse blew out of the Carrier Dome, 102-68 on 11/29/85.) Chris Jackson of LSU was second in 1989 (30.2) and 8th in 1990 (27.8). He played 9 years in the NBA as Mamoud Abdul-Rauf, averaging 14.6ppg.
1991 KEVIN BRADSHAW of US International, (now Alliant International) won the title with 37.6ppg, a figure nobody has been close to since. He broke Pete Maravich’s scoring record vs. a Division 1 team with 72 vs. Loyola Marymount in a 150-186 loss. That’s right, a 150-186 loss. That’s more than three times the points in the SU-Dayton game. He “failed to catch on in the NBA” but scored 101 points in a game in Israel. Shaquille O’Neal finished 7th for LSU (27.6).
1992 BRETT ROBERTS of Morehead State led the country with a 28.1 average, beating out Vin Baker of Hartford, (27.6). The one other name I recognize in the top ten is Harold Miner of USC, (26.3) one of many “next Jordans” who weren’t. Roberts, a 6-8 forward, was drafted by the Kings but never played a game in the NBA. After several minor league seasons, he became a high school principal. Vin Baker’s NBA career got off to a great start with 4 all-star game appearances but his production decline sharply after than his career came to an end, largely attributable to alcoholism. Miner won three NBA slam-dunk contests in a four year career. He retired due to a series of knee injuries. All those dunks took a toll.
1993 Pam American was back on top with GREG GUY ((29.3), who beat out JR Rider of UNLV (29.1). Vin Baker was 4th (28.3). Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson of Purdue was #9 (24.1). Despite Guy’s efforts, Pan-Am finished 2-20 that season, the worst team ever to have a nation’s leading scorer. A 6-1 guard, he played his post-graduate basketball abroad, including Mexico, just across the border form his old school. Rider ended his career being suspended because someone else was taking his tests for him. He’s the only guy to defeat Harold Miner in the NBA slam dunk contest, (1994). He averaged 16.7ppg in an 8 year NBA career. Like Baker, his career was probably shortened by substance abuse and legal problems.
1994 GLENN ROBINSON became that modern rarity: a scoring champions who was actually a top player on a top team. He averaged 30.3ppg and 11.2 rebounds while leading Purdue to a Big Ten title and the Elite 8 The Boilermakers finished 29-5, (a bit better than Pan American). The Big Dog was named the Big Ten and national player of the year. He averaged 20.7ppg in a 12 year NBA career. The rest of the top ten consisted of Rob Feaster, Jervaughn Scales, Frankie King, Rukcer Neale, Eddie Benton, Doremus Bennerman, Tony Dumas, Otis Jones and Izett Buchanan. Didn’t Dumas write The Three Musketeers?
1995 KURT THOMAS of TCU led the nation with a 27.0 average. (Wasn’t he also a gymnast?) Basketball’s Kurt Thomas was a little bigger than gymnastics’ Kurt Thomas at 6-9, 230 and went on to a very lengthy, (18 years), NBA career, mostly as a back-up. He averaged 8.1 points and 6.6 rebounds a game. The guys below him are mostly from the previous year’s list.
1996 KEVIN GANGER of Texas Southern won the title with 27.0, the lowest leading average since 1950, but one that was to become typical. Granger played abroad for 3 years, then came home to become a high school and college coach. He was promised the job at his alma mater but the AD was fired and he sued when the new guy wouldn’t hire him. Marcus Brown of Murray State was #2 at 26.4. Brown was an end of the bench guy for the Trail Blazers for a year, then went off to Europe, where he has been described as “one of the top U.S. players ever to play abroad.” He’s this century’s the second leading scorer in the Euroleague where’s he’s taken teams to their “final four” three times. He’s now a coach there. Two names below him stand out: Allen Iverson was #7 with 25.0 and Ray Allen was #10 with 23.4.
1997-98 CHARLES JONES of Long Island U. won the scoring championship Sherman White didn’t seem too interested in back in 1951: in fact he won consecutive titles (30.1 and 29.0). The most recognizable names he beat out were Adonal Foyle of Colgate (24.4) and Earl Boykins of Eastern Michigan (25.7). Jones, a 6-3 guard, spent two years on the Bull’s bench in the post-Jordan Era, (3.5ppg) before winding up in Argentina. Boykins, a 5-5 133 “mighty mite”, had a 14 year NBA career averaging 8.9. He became the shortest player ever to score 30+ points in an NBA game when he dropped 32 on the Nuggets in 2004. You know Foyle’s story. He had a ten season NBA career but only averaged 4.1ppg. His ambiton was to someday be Prime Minister of his country, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “Politically motivated, he founded the organization Democracy Matters, which tries to curb the effects of money on politics.” (Wikipedia) Good luck with that.
1999 Calvin Murphy never won an NCAA scoring championship for Niagara but ALVIN YOUNG did (25.1). He was a national scoring champion who was neither recruited out of high school nor drafted by the NBA. Young had been unable to make his high school team. But blossomed in junior college, averaging 43.6ppg in the national tournament as a sophomore. He then was finally recruited by Niagara, where he became a star. He’s been playing in Europe ever since. The one prominent member of the top ten was Wally Szczerbiak of Miami-Ohio (24.2). (He should have played for Mike Krzyzewski: zcz playing for zyz).
2000 The new millennium began with COURTNEY ALEXANDER of Fresno State winning the scoring title, the first champions to average less than 25 points a game (24.8) since 1949. Alexander started his career at Virginia but was one of many transfers Jerry Tarkanian was using to try to build the Fresno State program up into what he had had at UNLV, with fairly good results on the field and fairly bad ones off of it. Alexander had been kicked out of Virginia after punching his girlfriend.
“He led the team in scoring at 14.8 points per game but had no interest in the team concept. Not surprisingly, he was almost universally despised by his teammates: "My problem was that I didn't have a stable peace of mind," he said. "I had a bad attitude. I was moody - nobody ever knew what to expect from me. I was selfish. I couldn't care less about the outcome of a game, I only cared about the points I scored. It's sad to say that, but it's brutal honesty. And to grow up, you have to look your mistakes in the face." (Daily Press).
At Fresno he somehow stayed out of trouble while a couple of his teammates tried to commit a robbery with a samurai sword. He had an injury-shorted three year NBA career.
2001 RONNIE MCOLLUM of Centenary easily won the title with 29.1ppg, 5.3 more than anyone else. But he wasn’t drafted by the NBA so he went abroad to pay for 7 different teams in 10 years before rupturing his Achilles tendon. The rest of the top ten: Kyle Hill, DeWayne Jefferson, Tarise Bryson, Rashad Phillips, Brandon Wolfram, Rasual Butler, Brandon Armstrong and Marvin O’Connor.
2002 JASON CONLEY of Virginia Military won the title at 29.3. He had to overcome dyslexia to be able to do the school work to get him into college and he became the first freshman ever to win the national scoring title. He must not have liked being at a military school or perhaps he wanted a bigger challenge so he transferred to Missouri, where he averaged 7.6 and 10.2 points per game. That seems to illustrate what most scoring champs are these days: guys who would be part of an ensemble of good players on a a top team who score so much because they are the only good player on a lesser team. He never made and NBA roster and has been playing in Europe since.
2003 RUBEN DOUGLAS of New Mexico led with 28.0. Troy Bell of Boston College (25.2) was #5 and Mike Sweetney of Georgetown was #9 with 22.8. Carmelo Anthony was just out of the top ten at 22.2. Douglas went undrafted and has played in Europe since.
2004-05 KEYDREN CLARK came out of Rice High School in New York City. He was considered the lowest rated recruit on his team, which had every starter go on to play Division 1 basketball. His 5—1 height may have been a factor. St. Peters gave him a scholarship But he finished 6th in 2003 with 24.9ppg, then won the next two national scoring titles with 26.7 and 25.8, beating out our old pal Taylor Coppenwrath of Vermont who scored 24.1 and 25.1. The most prominent players in either top ten were JJ Redick of Duke and Ryan Gomes, (remember him, Jim Calhoun?) who were 9th (21.8) and 10th (21.6) in 2005. Clark then averaged 26.3 in 2006, finishing 3rd to Adam Morrison and Reddick, making him the only player ever to be among the top ten scorers four years in a row. He’s also played out his pro career in Europe.
2006 Three recognizable names were at the top: ADAM MORRISON of Gonzaga, (28.1), Reddick (26.8) and Clark. Two names I recognize below that are Rutgers’ gunner, Quincy Douby (25.4) and Steve Burtt of Iona, (25.2), the son of the Steve Burtt who had dueled with Gene Waldron that night in 1984. Morrison and Reddick were co-players of the year. Morrison played a couple of years in the NBA before moving on to Europe. Reddick is still in the NBA and has averaged 9.4ppg for his career.
2007-08 REGGIE WILLIAMS, not of Georgetown but of VMI won two straight titles, (28.1 and 27.8). he spent his subsequent career in the D-league and Europe. Kevin Durant was #4 in 2007 with 25.8. Stephen Curry of Davidson was #9 that year with 21.5 and #4 in 2008 with 25.9.
2009 STEPHEN CURRY won the scoring title in his senior year with 28.6. Luke Harangody of Notre Dame was #8 (23.3) and Jeremy Hazell of Seton hall was 10th with 22.7. Curry, of course, has become a big star in the NBA for the Warriors, probably the best pure shooter in the game.
2010 Elvin Hayes never led the NCAA in scoring, even with his 36.8 average as a senior. But AUBREY COLEMAN led the NCAA in scoring in 2010 with a 25.6 average. Jimmer Fredette finished 7th with 22.1 and Harangody brought up the rear with 21.8 for 10th. Coleman averaged 11.4ppg for the Hornets summer league team but wound up, like so many recent scoring champions, playing in Europe. He’s presently in Finland, which is pretty far from his hometown of Houston .
2011 This was JIMMER FREDETTE’S year. He led the country in scoring by a solid margin, (28.5-24.6) and led his BYU team to a 32-5 record and the Sweet 16. The 6-2 Fredette went on to became a reserve for the Sacramento Kings, averaging 7.0ppg thus far in his NBA career. He’s not with the Bulls. Kemba Walker was 4th with 23.5ppg for national champions Connecticut. He’s averaged 15.2 for the Charlotte Bobcats.
2012 Another REGGIE, HAMILTON of Oakland instead of Williams of VMI , won the scoring title with 25.7. Doug McDermott showed up in the rankings for the first time at 3rd (23.2). Hamilton went undrafted and is now playing in Poland.
2013 ERIC GREEN of Virginia Tech led the nation at 25.0, beating out McDermott (23.1. Green was the 46th player taken in the NBA draft. The Jazz chose him but then traded him to the Nuggets for a future draft choice. “Denver had too many contracts on their roster and needed Green to play elsewhere for one season.” (Wikipedia). They sent him to Italy to play for a team there.
2014 DOUG MCDERMOTT, in a year similar to Fredette’s, won the scoring title with a 26.9 average and led Creighton to a 27-8 record, a national ranking and the NCAA tournament. He’s also like Pistol Pete Maravich in that he plays for his father. And, like Larry Bird, he posed for the cover of Sports Illustrated with two cheerleaders making the “quiet” sign with their fingers because, although he’d finished among the top four scorers in the country for three straight years, McDermott was “the best kept secret in college basketball”.
The irrelevance of the national scoring champion in the modern era of basketball is a sign of the game’s growth. There are so many good players now that the best teams are balanced with several players who would have been the high-scoring stars of a team built around them in the old days. No the national scoring champion is typically a player of comparatively modest skills, (for a high scoring player) playing for a bad or marginal team than has no other options for getting the ball in the basket. Even the abilities of the game’s best players have no doubt advanced. I wonder if Frank Selvy was really any better than Trevor Cooney. Maybe Rakeem Christmas, with his little baby hook, is a modern Bill “the Hill” McGill, playing against bigger, better players that prevent him from scoring the way McGill did.
Still, a chunk of the glamour has gone from the game. When was growing up we wanted not only to know if the top ranked teams had won or lost but how many points the top scorers had scored. And those top scorers were the stars of those top teams. We still get an occasional taste of that with a Fredette or McDermott but once upon a time it was a regular part of the college basketball experience.
1971 Maravich, Murphy and Carr went on to productive NBA careers for teams that tended to be out contention. The best NBA teams were no longer centered on high scoring gunners, but on balanced line-ups of star quality players. The best college teams were tending toward that as well. From here on in, the college scoring championship tended to be dominated by lesser players playing for marginal majors where they could be “the star” and get the ball all the time. There would still be some famous names in the top ten but rarely at the very top of the list.
In 1971, a Maravich clone, also playing for an SEC school that hadn’t had a glamorous basketball history won the title. JOHNNY NEUMANN averaged 40.1 points per game, the last major college player to top the 40ppg mark. Neumann was about the same size as Maravich, (actually a little bigger: 6-6, 200 vs. 6-5, 197), and surely knew of the comparisons when he threw down 63 points on LSU. If freshmen had been eligible, he and the Pistol might have had quite a duel. Spencer Haywood’s lawsuit had opened up jumping to the pros under a “hardship clause” and Neumann declared himself a hardship case and signed with the ABA’s Memphis Pros. His pro career got off to a good start with averages of 18.3ppg and 19.6ppg his first two years but he declined after that with his coaches complaining about his not passing the ball enough. He wound up playing and coaching abroad. Austin Carr was still around for his senior year at Notre Dame and finished second with 38.0ppg. Also in the top ten were George McGinnis of Indiana (30.0) and Jim McDaniels of Western Kentucky (29.3). McDaniels’ team had the most success, making it to the Final Fou, pn;y to have that result voided because McDaniels had signed with an agent. McDaniels later became famous for walking out on his team, the ABA’s Carolina Cougars, during the playoffs in a contract dispute. His career never recovered and he wound up playing abroad. “I was just young and things started going bad for me there and I didn't know how to handle them.” (Wikipedia)
1972 The school is now called Louisiana-Lafayette but in 1972 they were the Ragin Cajuns of Southwestern Louisiana and they raged up and down the basketball court, scoring 98.7 points per game. Their big gun was DWIGHT ‘BO’ LAMAR, who led the nation with 36.7ppg. They whacked Marshall in the NCAA tournament, 112-102, which must have made an impression on the Thundering Herd’s star player, Mike D’Antoni. Then they almost upset Denny Crum’s first Louisivlle team, losing 84-88 in a game where Lamar attempted 42 shots- and made 14. The NCAA decided to investigate the Ragin’ Cajuns and came up with 125 violations. Their coach, Beryl Shipley responded “Is that all they could find?” Their basketball program was given the NCAA’s first “death penalty” and suspended for two years after the 1973 season. SWL had just emerged from the small college ranks and so had the schools that provided the next two high scorers after Lamar, Richard Fuqua of Oral Roberts, (35.9) and Doug Collins of Illinois State (32.6). Greg Kohls of Syracuse finished 7th at 26.7ppg. No Syracuse player has made the top ten since.
1973 Two California kids battled it out for the 1973 scoring title. BIRD AVERITT of Pepperdine won it with 33.9ppg over Ray Lewis of Los Angeles State, 32.9. Averitt had made a name for himself as a freshman when he scored 87 points in two games against the Walton Gang, even dunking, (at 6-1) on Bill Walton. He left after his junior year for the ABA and, like Neumann, had some moderate success early but then faded. Ray Lewis, (no relation to the linebacker), scored 40 on the UCLA frosh a year after Averitt and 73 against Santa Barbara. He led all freshman scorers, (this was two years before freshmen became eligible for the varsity) with 39.8ppg. Lewis also jumped to the pros after this season but got involved in an acrimonious dispute with the 76ers because Doug Collins was being paid more than him and he was besting Collins in practice. He never played for the 76ers and the Sixers refused to allow him to play for any other team. Lewis wound up being LA’s all-time playground legend, famously scoring 53 on the Laker’s Michael Cooper in 1983, the season after Cooper was named the NBA’s defensive player of the year. Lewis died of a leg infection at age 48 in 2001.
Pepperdine played LA State in 1973 and won 87-80. Searching the net, I was able to find out that Ray Lewis scored 34 points in that game. I did not find Averitt’s point total but the Pepperdine Media Guide doesn’t list that game in their making of single game scoring, which extends down to 30 points. Bo Lamar finished 6th with 28.9ppg and Doug Collins 10th with 26.0.
1974 When Southwestern Louisiana had its program suspended, their players were allowed to transfer to other schools and play immediately. Fred Saunders, a forward found his way to Syracuse where he averaged 9.8 points per game in his only season here. LARRY FOGLE landed at Canisius were he led the country in scoring with a 33.4 average. Fogle later got suspended for accepting “improper financial aid” and played exactly 2 games in the NBA for the Knicks. After that he seems to have disappeared, from the headlines anyway. The best player in the top ten was David Thompson, who lead North Carolina State to the national championship. He finished at #5, (26.0).
1975 The 1975 champ was Richmond’s BOB MCCURDY (32.9), beating out Adrian Dantley of Notre Dame, (30.4) and Thompson (29.9). Both Dantley and Thompson went on to become NBA scoring champions. Per Wikipedia:
“Kevin Eastman, the starting point guard alongside shooting guard McCurdy, was in awe at his ability to score. Many years later, Eastman was quoted as saying, "Looking back now, it was a remarkable feat. [McCurdy] had virtually no quickness. He didn't really have dribbling skills. He couldn't jump that high. He couldn't run real fast. He was a prime example of how will and enthusiasm and effort allowed him to rise to another level." Jokingly, Eastman added, "He worked harder than anybody else on the team, but he was very focused on one skill, and that was shooting. I'm not sure I saw him in a defensive stance all year, and the one or two assists that he got were mistakes."
McCurdy was drafted by the Bucks but never played a game in the NBA. “With professional basketball out of the picture, McCurdy focused on becoming a successful businessman. Later in life, after admitting to skipping classes while in college to work on his jump shot, he said, "I was almost incoherent when I got out of college. Here I was, hoping to be a businessman, and I couldn't even talk basketball." So he hired a tutor to catch him back up to speed in statistics, and within a few years he was a successful employee at Katz Marketing Solutions.[6] He eventually moved his way all the way up to his current position of company president.”
1976 MARSHALL ROGERS of Pan American easily won the scoring title with 36.8ppg. In a distant second place was Freeman Williams of Portland State (30.9). Adrian Dantley was #4 (28.6). Otis Birdsong and Ernie Grunfeld were also in the top ten. Rogers played only 26 games in the NBA for the Warriors. Rogers wound up with legal troubles and diabetes. When he died at age 57, he no longer had the legs that had carried him to brief glory on the basketball court.
1977-78 FREEMAN WILLIAMS took over this year, shredding opposing defenses for 38.8 and 35.9 points per game and two national scoring titles. He managed 81 points against a team called Rocky Mountain. Trailing behind was Larry Bird of Indiana State, who finished 3rd (32.8) and 2nd (30.0). Otis Birdsong was #4 in 1977 (30.3). The rest of the two top tens consisted of Rich Laurel, Calvin Natt, Mike McConathy, Roger Phegley, Billy Reynolds, Tony Hanson, Purvis Short, Oliver Mack, Frankie Sanders, John Gerdy, Michael Brooks and Mike Mitchell. I remember Brooks and Mitchell. Freeman Williams played 6 seasons in the NBA and averaged as high at 19.3, (for the Clippers). He might be more famous as Duck Johnson, the streetball legend in “White Men Can’t Jump”.
1979 Scoring started to calm down a bit. LAWRENCE BUTLER of Idaho State won the crown with 30.1ppg, beating out Bird who was #2 with the lowest average of his career, (286), which didn’t prevent him from leading his team to the NCAA title game. The rest of the top ten: Nick Galis, James Tillman, Paul Dawkins, John Gerdy, Ernie Hill, John Stroud, John Manning and Steve Stielper. I have no idea who any of them are. Butler was drafted by the Bulls but never played a game in the NBA. In researching Butler, I found this quote (Infobarrel Sports):
“Ask any Idaho State Basketball fans who Lawrence Butler is. The vast majority of them do not have a clue even though he was inducted into ISU's sports hall of fame in 1991.”
1980 TONY MURPHY of Southern U. was the champ with 32.1. Looking through the rest of the top ten I recognize Earl Belcher of St. Bonaventure (26.9) because he played at CBA with Marty Headd. But the most prominent players are in the 9-10 spots: Mark Aquirre of DePaul (26.8) and Andrew Toney of Louisiana-Lafayette (26.1).Murphy was drafted by the Kings but never made their roster. He went to work for the post office as a truck driver.
1981 We finally had a scoring champion form a big-time school again, ZAM FREDERICK of South Carolina, ((28.9). Belcher was again in the top ten (24.5). Again the most prominent guys in the top ten were the 9-10 guys, Danny Ainge of BYU and Mike McGee of Michigan (both 24.4). Frederick played pro ball for a decade- in Europe before becoming a highly successful high school coach in South Carolina, where he won 5 state titles and had an 81 game winning streak. Belcher was drafted by the Spurs but broke all the bones in his right ankle in an exhibition game, ending his basketball career. He’s presently a jazz musician.
1982-83 HARRY KELLY of Texas Southern won the next two scoring championships (29.7 and 28.8). Of his pursuers I recognize Ricky Pierce of Rice (26.8) Danny Callandrillo (25.9) of Seton Hall and Waymon Tisdale of Oklahoma (24.5). They were surrounded by players like Mitchell Wiggins, Joe Jakubick, Carlos Yates, Greg Goorjian and Alfredrick Hughes. “Machine Gun Kelly” was cut by the Hawks before he ever played a game in favor of Doc Rivers. Per an article on the SWAC Conference website, he became disillusioned with basketball after that and didn’t even watch a game for two years. "The NBA was all politics.''
1984 JOE JAKUBICK of Akron was the scoring champion with 30.1ppg. Tisdale was 5th at 27.0. Steve Burtt of Iona was #9 at 24.2. I remember Burtt for dueling with Gene Waldron the night Gene scored 40 points. Burtt scored 30 and “forced Syracuse to abandon their full-court press and man-to-man defense”. SU won 109-92 thanks to Waldron who scored 26 second half points. “Most of Waldron’s shots came from 15-20 feet, in areas of the floor vacated by the Iona defense.” (Finger Lakes Times) Jakubick, a 6-5 guard, was drafted by the Cavalliers but never played in the NBA. He was “turned off by the business aspects of the NBA” (Mansfield News Journal). “Jakubick was the gangly kid with the weird, knuckleballing delivery who never saw an off-balance shot he didn’t like.” The NBA was probably turned off by that.
1985 At last we had a scoring champion who went onto a significant NBA career: XAVIER MCDANIEL of Wichita State. He led the nation in both scoring (27.4) and rebounding (15.0) and went onto a 12 year NBA career in which he score dover 13,000 points. Tisdale was again on the list (25.2) along with Joe Dumars of McNeese State (25.8) and Ron Harper of Miami-Ohio (24.9)
1986 TERRANCE BAILEY of Wagner was the champ (29.4), beating out Scott Skiles of Michigan State (27.4), Reggie Miller of UCLA (25.9), Harper (24.4), Del Curry of Virginia Tech (24.1), Reggie Lewis of Northeastern (23.8), Len Bias of Maryland (23.2) and Walter Berry of St. John’s. it was a pretty good top ten that year, if a tragic one. The Hawks drafted Bailey but he never played. He wound up playing abroad and then becoming a pre-school teacher in Trenton.
1987 KEVIN HOUSTON of, of all places, Army, led the country in scoring with 32.9ppg, the most since Freeman Williams. Also in the top ten were David Robinson of Navy (28.2) , Hersey Hawkins of Bradley (28.1) and Bryon Larkin of Xavier, (Barry’s brother- 24.7). Houston did his Army stint and went into coaching at the high school level.
1988 HERSEY HAWKINS had a huge year, scoring 36.3ppg. he went onto a 14 year NBA career and scored over 14,000 points. Anthony Mason of Tennessee State was #3 (28.0) and Larkin averaged 25.3
1989-90 We now entered the brief Loyola Marymount era of racehorse basketball. HANK GATHERS (32.7) and BO KIMBLE (35.3) won consecutive scoring titles. Gathers died of a heart attack during a game on 3/4/90. Kimble honored his friend with a left handed free throw to begin each subsequent game. Bo became an end of the bench guy in the NBA and then A CBA guy. He’s also campaigned against heart disease ever since his friend died. (Both players had transferred from USC, where they were on the team that Syracuse blew out of the Carrier Dome, 102-68 on 11/29/85.) Chris Jackson of LSU was second in 1989 (30.2) and 8th in 1990 (27.8). He played 9 years in the NBA as Mamoud Abdul-Rauf, averaging 14.6ppg.
1991 KEVIN BRADSHAW of US International, (now Alliant International) won the title with 37.6ppg, a figure nobody has been close to since. He broke Pete Maravich’s scoring record vs. a Division 1 team with 72 vs. Loyola Marymount in a 150-186 loss. That’s right, a 150-186 loss. That’s more than three times the points in the SU-Dayton game. He “failed to catch on in the NBA” but scored 101 points in a game in Israel. Shaquille O’Neal finished 7th for LSU (27.6).
1992 BRETT ROBERTS of Morehead State led the country with a 28.1 average, beating out Vin Baker of Hartford, (27.6). The one other name I recognize in the top ten is Harold Miner of USC, (26.3) one of many “next Jordans” who weren’t. Roberts, a 6-8 forward, was drafted by the Kings but never played a game in the NBA. After several minor league seasons, he became a high school principal. Vin Baker’s NBA career got off to a great start with 4 all-star game appearances but his production decline sharply after than his career came to an end, largely attributable to alcoholism. Miner won three NBA slam-dunk contests in a four year career. He retired due to a series of knee injuries. All those dunks took a toll.
1993 Pam American was back on top with GREG GUY ((29.3), who beat out JR Rider of UNLV (29.1). Vin Baker was 4th (28.3). Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson of Purdue was #9 (24.1). Despite Guy’s efforts, Pan-Am finished 2-20 that season, the worst team ever to have a nation’s leading scorer. A 6-1 guard, he played his post-graduate basketball abroad, including Mexico, just across the border form his old school. Rider ended his career being suspended because someone else was taking his tests for him. He’s the only guy to defeat Harold Miner in the NBA slam dunk contest, (1994). He averaged 16.7ppg in an 8 year NBA career. Like Baker, his career was probably shortened by substance abuse and legal problems.
1994 GLENN ROBINSON became that modern rarity: a scoring champions who was actually a top player on a top team. He averaged 30.3ppg and 11.2 rebounds while leading Purdue to a Big Ten title and the Elite 8 The Boilermakers finished 29-5, (a bit better than Pan American). The Big Dog was named the Big Ten and national player of the year. He averaged 20.7ppg in a 12 year NBA career. The rest of the top ten consisted of Rob Feaster, Jervaughn Scales, Frankie King, Rukcer Neale, Eddie Benton, Doremus Bennerman, Tony Dumas, Otis Jones and Izett Buchanan. Didn’t Dumas write The Three Musketeers?
1995 KURT THOMAS of TCU led the nation with a 27.0 average. (Wasn’t he also a gymnast?) Basketball’s Kurt Thomas was a little bigger than gymnastics’ Kurt Thomas at 6-9, 230 and went on to a very lengthy, (18 years), NBA career, mostly as a back-up. He averaged 8.1 points and 6.6 rebounds a game. The guys below him are mostly from the previous year’s list.
1996 KEVIN GANGER of Texas Southern won the title with 27.0, the lowest leading average since 1950, but one that was to become typical. Granger played abroad for 3 years, then came home to become a high school and college coach. He was promised the job at his alma mater but the AD was fired and he sued when the new guy wouldn’t hire him. Marcus Brown of Murray State was #2 at 26.4. Brown was an end of the bench guy for the Trail Blazers for a year, then went off to Europe, where he has been described as “one of the top U.S. players ever to play abroad.” He’s this century’s the second leading scorer in the Euroleague where’s he’s taken teams to their “final four” three times. He’s now a coach there. Two names below him stand out: Allen Iverson was #7 with 25.0 and Ray Allen was #10 with 23.4.
1997-98 CHARLES JONES of Long Island U. won the scoring championship Sherman White didn’t seem too interested in back in 1951: in fact he won consecutive titles (30.1 and 29.0). The most recognizable names he beat out were Adonal Foyle of Colgate (24.4) and Earl Boykins of Eastern Michigan (25.7). Jones, a 6-3 guard, spent two years on the Bull’s bench in the post-Jordan Era, (3.5ppg) before winding up in Argentina. Boykins, a 5-5 133 “mighty mite”, had a 14 year NBA career averaging 8.9. He became the shortest player ever to score 30+ points in an NBA game when he dropped 32 on the Nuggets in 2004. You know Foyle’s story. He had a ten season NBA career but only averaged 4.1ppg. His ambiton was to someday be Prime Minister of his country, St. Vincent and the Grenadines. “Politically motivated, he founded the organization Democracy Matters, which tries to curb the effects of money on politics.” (Wikipedia) Good luck with that.
1999 Calvin Murphy never won an NCAA scoring championship for Niagara but ALVIN YOUNG did (25.1). He was a national scoring champion who was neither recruited out of high school nor drafted by the NBA. Young had been unable to make his high school team. But blossomed in junior college, averaging 43.6ppg in the national tournament as a sophomore. He then was finally recruited by Niagara, where he became a star. He’s been playing in Europe ever since. The one prominent member of the top ten was Wally Szczerbiak of Miami-Ohio (24.2). (He should have played for Mike Krzyzewski: zcz playing for zyz).
2000 The new millennium began with COURTNEY ALEXANDER of Fresno State winning the scoring title, the first champions to average less than 25 points a game (24.8) since 1949. Alexander started his career at Virginia but was one of many transfers Jerry Tarkanian was using to try to build the Fresno State program up into what he had had at UNLV, with fairly good results on the field and fairly bad ones off of it. Alexander had been kicked out of Virginia after punching his girlfriend.
“He led the team in scoring at 14.8 points per game but had no interest in the team concept. Not surprisingly, he was almost universally despised by his teammates: "My problem was that I didn't have a stable peace of mind," he said. "I had a bad attitude. I was moody - nobody ever knew what to expect from me. I was selfish. I couldn't care less about the outcome of a game, I only cared about the points I scored. It's sad to say that, but it's brutal honesty. And to grow up, you have to look your mistakes in the face." (Daily Press).
At Fresno he somehow stayed out of trouble while a couple of his teammates tried to commit a robbery with a samurai sword. He had an injury-shorted three year NBA career.
2001 RONNIE MCOLLUM of Centenary easily won the title with 29.1ppg, 5.3 more than anyone else. But he wasn’t drafted by the NBA so he went abroad to pay for 7 different teams in 10 years before rupturing his Achilles tendon. The rest of the top ten: Kyle Hill, DeWayne Jefferson, Tarise Bryson, Rashad Phillips, Brandon Wolfram, Rasual Butler, Brandon Armstrong and Marvin O’Connor.
2002 JASON CONLEY of Virginia Military won the title at 29.3. He had to overcome dyslexia to be able to do the school work to get him into college and he became the first freshman ever to win the national scoring title. He must not have liked being at a military school or perhaps he wanted a bigger challenge so he transferred to Missouri, where he averaged 7.6 and 10.2 points per game. That seems to illustrate what most scoring champs are these days: guys who would be part of an ensemble of good players on a a top team who score so much because they are the only good player on a lesser team. He never made and NBA roster and has been playing in Europe since.
2003 RUBEN DOUGLAS of New Mexico led with 28.0. Troy Bell of Boston College (25.2) was #5 and Mike Sweetney of Georgetown was #9 with 22.8. Carmelo Anthony was just out of the top ten at 22.2. Douglas went undrafted and has played in Europe since.
2004-05 KEYDREN CLARK came out of Rice High School in New York City. He was considered the lowest rated recruit on his team, which had every starter go on to play Division 1 basketball. His 5—1 height may have been a factor. St. Peters gave him a scholarship But he finished 6th in 2003 with 24.9ppg, then won the next two national scoring titles with 26.7 and 25.8, beating out our old pal Taylor Coppenwrath of Vermont who scored 24.1 and 25.1. The most prominent players in either top ten were JJ Redick of Duke and Ryan Gomes, (remember him, Jim Calhoun?) who were 9th (21.8) and 10th (21.6) in 2005. Clark then averaged 26.3 in 2006, finishing 3rd to Adam Morrison and Reddick, making him the only player ever to be among the top ten scorers four years in a row. He’s also played out his pro career in Europe.
2006 Three recognizable names were at the top: ADAM MORRISON of Gonzaga, (28.1), Reddick (26.8) and Clark. Two names I recognize below that are Rutgers’ gunner, Quincy Douby (25.4) and Steve Burtt of Iona, (25.2), the son of the Steve Burtt who had dueled with Gene Waldron that night in 1984. Morrison and Reddick were co-players of the year. Morrison played a couple of years in the NBA before moving on to Europe. Reddick is still in the NBA and has averaged 9.4ppg for his career.
2007-08 REGGIE WILLIAMS, not of Georgetown but of VMI won two straight titles, (28.1 and 27.8). he spent his subsequent career in the D-league and Europe. Kevin Durant was #4 in 2007 with 25.8. Stephen Curry of Davidson was #9 that year with 21.5 and #4 in 2008 with 25.9.
2009 STEPHEN CURRY won the scoring title in his senior year with 28.6. Luke Harangody of Notre Dame was #8 (23.3) and Jeremy Hazell of Seton hall was 10th with 22.7. Curry, of course, has become a big star in the NBA for the Warriors, probably the best pure shooter in the game.
2010 Elvin Hayes never led the NCAA in scoring, even with his 36.8 average as a senior. But AUBREY COLEMAN led the NCAA in scoring in 2010 with a 25.6 average. Jimmer Fredette finished 7th with 22.1 and Harangody brought up the rear with 21.8 for 10th. Coleman averaged 11.4ppg for the Hornets summer league team but wound up, like so many recent scoring champions, playing in Europe. He’s presently in Finland, which is pretty far from his hometown of Houston .
2011 This was JIMMER FREDETTE’S year. He led the country in scoring by a solid margin, (28.5-24.6) and led his BYU team to a 32-5 record and the Sweet 16. The 6-2 Fredette went on to became a reserve for the Sacramento Kings, averaging 7.0ppg thus far in his NBA career. He’s not with the Bulls. Kemba Walker was 4th with 23.5ppg for national champions Connecticut. He’s averaged 15.2 for the Charlotte Bobcats.
2012 Another REGGIE, HAMILTON of Oakland instead of Williams of VMI , won the scoring title with 25.7. Doug McDermott showed up in the rankings for the first time at 3rd (23.2). Hamilton went undrafted and is now playing in Poland.
2013 ERIC GREEN of Virginia Tech led the nation at 25.0, beating out McDermott (23.1. Green was the 46th player taken in the NBA draft. The Jazz chose him but then traded him to the Nuggets for a future draft choice. “Denver had too many contracts on their roster and needed Green to play elsewhere for one season.” (Wikipedia). They sent him to Italy to play for a team there.
2014 DOUG MCDERMOTT, in a year similar to Fredette’s, won the scoring title with a 26.9 average and led Creighton to a 27-8 record, a national ranking and the NCAA tournament. He’s also like Pistol Pete Maravich in that he plays for his father. And, like Larry Bird, he posed for the cover of Sports Illustrated with two cheerleaders making the “quiet” sign with their fingers because, although he’d finished among the top four scorers in the country for three straight years, McDermott was “the best kept secret in college basketball”.
The irrelevance of the national scoring champion in the modern era of basketball is a sign of the game’s growth. There are so many good players now that the best teams are balanced with several players who would have been the high-scoring stars of a team built around them in the old days. No the national scoring champion is typically a player of comparatively modest skills, (for a high scoring player) playing for a bad or marginal team than has no other options for getting the ball in the basket. Even the abilities of the game’s best players have no doubt advanced. I wonder if Frank Selvy was really any better than Trevor Cooney. Maybe Rakeem Christmas, with his little baby hook, is a modern Bill “the Hill” McGill, playing against bigger, better players that prevent him from scoring the way McGill did.
Still, a chunk of the glamour has gone from the game. When was growing up we wanted not only to know if the top ranked teams had won or lost but how many points the top scorers had scored. And those top scorers were the stars of those top teams. We still get an occasional taste of that with a Fredette or McDermott but once upon a time it was a regular part of the college basketball experience.
