College Basketball "Position U"

[Big_Blue79]

This ESPN article is astoundingly dumb. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/i...etball-programs-produce-best-players-position. It attempts to rate each school by the players they produced at different "positions," with those "positions" being:

1. Point guard (good start).
2. Sharpshooter (I guess shooting guard?).
3. Wing (usually includes 2s, 3s, and 4s that can space but here it includes 2-5, see below).
4. Interior scorer (wut?).
5. Post defender (mmmkay).

I'm all for abolishing standard positions, but this particular method is... odd. Some other highlights:

• Grayson Allen is not a sharpshooter but a wing, along with Nick Collison and 6'11" center Justin Patton from Creighton. You know, similar player archetypes.
• Jabari Parker is not a wing but an interior scorer, along with guys like Embiid and Cousins.
• Cousins and Towns are interior scorers (accurate) and post defenders (... no), but AD is only listed as a post defender and not an interior scorer.
• Durant is a post defender but not anything else, and him and Chris Mihm rank ahead of UConn's combination of Emeka Okafor and Hasheem Thabeet for interior defense.
• Elton Brand is noted as a post defender (no) but not an interior scorer.
• Embiid is not a post defender, but he is an interior scorer. Meanwhile, Jeff Whithey is not even listed but Drew Gooden and Cole Aldrich are notable KU post defenders.
• ESPN "devised a formula," but there is zero insight into what the formula is or who was considered aside from the seemingly random grab-bag of names and "positions."

 

[lurkeraspect84]

 

[imajericho]

UNC not being PG U is funny.

 

[coryfly]

Just silly that UNC wouldn't be higher in PGs (Ed Cota, Ray Felton, Ty Lawson, Kendall Marshall, Marcus Paige, Joel Berry, Coby White, Cole Anthony) and number 1 in interior scorer. Roy must be the greatest coach of all time according to them. Somehow, I doubt it though. I'm sure they came up with some way to rank them to get what they wanted though. Surprised this hasn't gotten more play tbh, though I think people pay little attention to ESPN much now and this kind of shows why.

 

[huskitt]

Biggest surprise imo Creighton. Guess they're next on Gilligans list of schools paying players.

 

[Villian07]

Creighton already on the fbi list of paying players so......he’d be right.

The biggest joke was already mentioned by the OP. Texas with Durant and Mihm ranked over UConn with okafor and thabeet as better interior defenders. That’s absolutely ludicrous. Okafor and Thabeet were elite rim protectors in college and arguable should be number 1 as I don’t really believe UK should have cousins or KAT on that list, although they were incredible offensively. Davis belongs obviously, but WCS should be there wayyyyy before Cousins or KAT.

 

[Mike_Edwards]

AD, Kat, WCS, Big Cuz, Randle, Bam.......nobody even close for bigs, sorry, go ahead and try to argue that and look legit stupid.

 

[ExitFlagger]

AD, Kat, WCS, Big Cuz, Randle, Bam.......nobody even close for bigs, sorry, go ahead and try to argue that and look legit stupid.

Embiid, Azubuike, Robinson, Arthur, Morris twins, Withey, Aldrich, Lafrentz, Collison, Gooden, Simien, Pollard, Wright, Ellis, Lawson doesn’t even compare to your OAD brigade?

 

[Villian07]

The thing is they didn’t even have it separated into categories that include big men as a category, it was “interior scorer” and “post defender”

 

[Bruiser1]

Villanova should have been on the PG list. Alvin Williams, Kyle Lowry, Scottie Reynolds, Ryan Arcidiacono, Jalen Brunson.

 

[Quavarius]

Looks accurate to me