Georgetown Basketball History Project

Georgetown Basketball History: Top 50 Players Of The Thompson Era

1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50

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(A note on the rankings. Each player is listed with the years that they played - 92 for example means the 1991-92 season - height, and the position (s) played, roughly in order of frequency.)

41. Jahidi White (95-98) (6-9) (5) - You know that your college career is not going well when the adjective most used to describe you switches from "imposing" when you are recruited to "oft-injured" by the time you are a junior. It's worse when those injuries are often to your wrists and hands, hands that have a hard enough time catching the ball when they are completely healthy. Still, through the first 12 games of his senior season he was averaging 10.5 points and 8.4 boards until he got hurt yet again - this time for good.

He had serious rebounding skills though, good enough to be among the NBA leaders in rebounds per 48 minutes for several seasons in the seven years he has played so far. And he has earned over $25 million in a pro career that has continued to feature the adjectives imposing and oft-injured.

42. Ed Hopkins (75-78) (6-9) (4, 5) - On the short list - along with Tom Skates and Jahidi White - for worst Hoya hands ever. One of the best parts of watching Hoya basketball during the 1977-78 season was identifying "Hop-assists" which consisted of perfect entry passes bouncing off Hopkin's body to Big Sky Shelton who would proceed to jam the ball.

We often speculated as to whether John Duren was trying to make "Hop-assists" for fun. When he did manage to catch the ball, however, this 6-9 forward was a surprisingly fluid scorer with either hand. His 29(?) point performance at Dayton in the 1978 NIT quarter finals was a classic.

43. Horace Broadnax (83-86) (6-0) (2) - A great long range shooter trapped behind a long list of quality guards during the Ewing years. Born a few years too soon, he would have been a major beneficiary of the 3 point shot (along with Sleepy, Jon Smith, Michael Jackson and Craig Esherick). He finally got a chance to start in 85-86 and had a surprisingly underwhelming senior year.

44. George Butler (94-95) (6-2) (2) - Muscular and aggressive juco transfer whose game resembled that of World B. "Lloyd" Free complete with the foul inducing leg kick on the jump shot. He left school in the middle of his senior season under 'mysterious" academic circumstances.

45. Anthony Perry (99-01) (6-3) (2) - Anthony Perry had a hard career to come to grip with. It makes no sense that a player could go from High School All-American to a team leading 14 ppg in his first (sophomore) year to almost not playing his senior year, especially a player who seemed to be trying so hard. Maybe the signs were there in his 33.8% shooting percentage in the first year. Still, I don't really know what to say.

46. Larry Long (74-77) (6-7) (3, 4) - A quick, tough forward from the mid-seventies Hoyas, he had a nice 10 foot jump shot. Like many of the Hoya big men of his time he seemed to be perpetually fighting injuries which detracted from his career.

Tom Scates 47. Tom Skates (76-79) (6-11) (5) - For the first three seasons of Tom Skates' tenure, he looked like a wasted scholarship. He looked scary enough, 6-11, muscular and hulking, but he was arguably the worst offensive player to ever start for the Thompson era Hoyas. Tom was a quadruple threat who could not catch, pass, dribble or shoot. But he worked at it, hard, and emerged in his senior year as the first of the intimidating shot-blocking Hoya centers. His signature game was in a victory at Penn (which went to the final four that year) in which he recorded 7 blocks and also scored - including an up and under double pump scoop reverse layup straight out of Dr. J that remains to this day the most incomprehensibly bizarre thing I have ever seen at a Hoya game.

And then he got hurt at the worst time possible, near the end of the NCAA play-in blowout of Old Dominion. Without him, we were unable to control Rutgers All-American center James Bailey and we lost in the first round of the NCAA. Had we prevailed, we would have been in a regional final four along with Penn (who we had beaten), St John's (who we had beaten) and Syracuse (who we had beaten.) For a program that had never been to the mountaintop this felt like a massive missed opportunity.

In reality, injuries played a significant role in thwarting Hoya NCAA hopes from 1977 through 1989. A brief chronology:

Cheikh Dia 48. Cheikh "Ya Ya" Dia (94-97) (6-9) (5, 4) - Like Tom Skates, a non-factor his first three seasons, Ya Ya improbably led the Big East in rebounding his senior year and captained an over-achieving Hoya team to an NCAA bid. At times he seemed to be outmanned on the boards three or four to one. His 96-97 effort is a sleeper nominee for most courageous season by a Hoya.

49. Lee Scruggs (00-01) (6-11) (4, 3) - Frustrating. Lee Scruggs should be 25 places higher on this list - at least if talent would have had anything to do with it. The 6-11 juco transfer was a wonderful three point shooter and had a feathery touch with the mid-range jumper. Despite his pencil thin stature he was an OK rebounder and a surprisingly adept shotblocker - his shot blocks per minute probably would rank him fourth behind the holy trio of Deke, Zo and Patrick.

Despite the skills, Scruggs never really seemed to find his role with the Hoyas. Although it is easy to suggest coaching malfeasance, it often seemed as if Lee was determined to float and play farther away from the basket than directed. In the 2000 Big East Tournament upset of #1 seeded Syracuse he showed what might have been with 20 of the smoothest points ever put up by a Hoya.

Ed Spriggs 50. Ed "The Mailman" Spriggs (79-82) (6-9) (5, 4) - Ed was nicknamed "The Mailman" not because he always delivered but because he had actually been a postal carrier before coming to the Hoyas. Center was a position generally manned by committee during the two pre-Ewing seasons, and Spriggs was as important as anyone in that largely defensive slot.

Upon Ewing's arrival in 1981-2 his role was reduced, but he still played an important role in the 1982 NCAA run.

Note: My ranking of the Fifty Greatest Hoyas of the Thompson era is constantly evolving. Both Ashanti Cook and Darrel Owens would likely squeak their way onto the bottom of the list with good seasons and I believe that Roy Hibbert is destined to achieve a much higher position. Even a cursory glance at these rankings makes it clear that most of the best players to have worn the blue and gray are a decade or more removed from the hilltop. Hopefully, we are now entering a renaissance period that will see new and wonderful careers added to this listing.

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