Vitale said that the book only covers the 50 best players in the past 20 or something like that, and if it was of all time it would have had UCLA players. He mentioned UCLA have had great player recently, like Ed O’bannon but they didn’t make the cut.

I am annoyed by him too, but I doubt he is stupid enough to exclude Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor if it was an all time top 50.

crowed about Nolan Richardson and how the Hogs would handle the Bruins. He and Phelps probably hurt more than Richardson did after the O’Bannons, Zidek, Dollar, Toby, et al, destroyed the Arkies.

Despite all of his posturing, he has always had a strong east coast (ACC) bias, and he’s even more obnoxious than Packer.

we live in a free market and obviously his publisher told him to east-coast-bias the book to sell more copies. if i want to hear about kareem and wooden, i read kareem’s books and wooden’s books. vitale can’t compete with these guys when it comes to writing.

to discuss the merits of specific UCLA players over the past 20 years, along with an argument as to why they’re better than the other players selected to Vitale’s list. Most of the past 20 years has been a down period for UCLA basketball, but I’m sure a case can be made for a player or two during that period (although I do suspect they’d be in the bottom half of the list).

It was more surprising to hear that no Arizona players from the past 20 years made the list as it was a relatively bright period for them – with quite a few all-americans.

I know of no one who thinks he has an ounce of sense or basketball knowledge. I have never heard him utter any remotely intelligent thing about basketball, but then once I hear his dulcet tones, I turn the sound off instantly. He is the only guy worse than Tim McCarver.

That said, his book is irrelevant. It will be bought by the idiots who think civilization ends at the Hudson River.

.. no doubt about it. In his little universe, college basketball begins and ends with Duke – UNC. His opinions on basketball are seriously deficient.
However, one thing I do have to give him credit for is the strong support he gives to the Jimmy V fund for cancer research.

Considering that Duke and North Carolina have each won more titles in the last thirty years than all of the Pac-10 and just as many as the whole west coast, I’d say they’ve had some better players.
Oh yea and 13.5 Points per game, 5.1 ast per game, 3.6 TO per, 1.1 stl per, and shooting 41% from field, with 33.3% from 3. Do those sound like top 50 stats to you. And that was Jordan Farmar’s best year. Ouch!