Chris Collins: "I have never seen a more dominant player at the college level than Edey. I just never have."

[Abugabby]

Nice article. Collins talks about playing against Tim Duncan, Rasheed Wallace, Joe Smith. He's coached against Tyler Hansbrough. But he's never seen a more dominant player than Zach Edey in 30 years.

Top 10 players since Big Dog:

https://chicago.suntimes.com/2024/1...i-buckeyes-badgers-big-ten-college-basketball

 

[RDUBoiler]

Nice find. I get the argument for Mateen Cleves second and definitely see how others were included on that list. Depending on the scope (i.e., since Cleaves was at MSU), it seems like a few Purdue players had a case to be on that list. Maybe Swanigan or Carsen?

 

[Born Boiler]

Great praise, but too bad Chris didn’t get to watch his own dad. My dad and I did, when Doug Collins was a 6-footer playing on the sophomore team for Benton, Illinois, while their varsity was ranked No. 1 for all of Illinois and going 61-2 over two years. Doug would grow to 6-6 and became a first-team All-American for Illinois State, a Sports Illustrated cover boy, an Olympic team star, the No. 1 pick in the 1973 NBA Draft, a four-time NBA All-Star, Michael Jordan’s first and last hand-picked coach and a Hall of Fame television analyst, all before settling down to watch his son put up his Dukes and take the kitties to their first dance.

Go! Go! Go! Benton Rangers!

 

[DwaynePurvis00]

If he were 4 inches shorter, he wouldn’t be as good.🙄

 

[RossMackey]

Great praise, but too bad Chris didn’t get to watch his own dad. My dad and I did, when Doug Collins was a 6-footer playing on the sophomore team for Benton, Illinois, while their varsity was ranked No. 1 for all of Illinois and going 61-2 over two years. Doug would grow to 6-6 and became a first-team All-American for Illinois State, a Sports Illustrated cover boy, an Olympic team star, the No. 1 pick in the 1973 NBA Draft, a four-time NBA All-Star, Michael Jordan’s first and last hand-picked coach and a Hall of Fame television analyst, all before settling down to watch his son put up his Dukes and take the kitties to their first dance.

Go! Go! Go! Benton Rangers!

gotta love southwestern Illinois!

...more Benton love: George Harrison's big sister Louise emigrated from England to Benton in the 1950s, where she lived for decades... George came to visit her in the summer of 1963, just as he and his three Scouser pals were on the verge of changing the world.

Legend has it George played a couple times at the local VFW hall during his visit-- wouldn't THAT have been something to see!

 

[New Pal Boiler]

gotta love southwestern Illinois!

...more Benton love: George Harrison's big sister Louise emigrated from England to Benton in the 1950s, where she lived for decades... George came to visit her in the summer of 1963, just as he and his three Scouser pals were on the verge of changing the world.

Legend has it George played a couple times at the local VFW hall during his visit-- wouldn't THAT have been something to see!

Great praise, but too bad Chris didn’t get to watch his own dad. My dad and I did, when Doug Collins was a 6-footer playing on the sophomore team for Benton, Illinois, while their varsity was ranked No. 1 for all of Illinois and going 61-2 over two years. Doug would grow to 6-6 and became a first-team All-American for Illinois State, a Sports Illustrated cover boy, an Olympic team star, the No. 1 pick in the 1973 NBA Draft, a four-time NBA All-Star, Michael Jordan’s first and last hand-picked coach and a Hall of Fame television analyst, all before settling down to watch his son put up his Dukes and take the kitties to their first dance.

Go! Go! Go! Benton Rangers!

did John Malkovich go to high school with Doug Collins?

 

[Born Boiler]

gotta love southwestern Illinois!

...more Benton love: George Harrison's big sister Louise emigrated from England to Benton in the 1950s, where she lived for decades... George came to visit her in the summer of 1963, just as he and his three Scouser pals were on the verge of changing the world.

Legend has it George played a couple times at the local VFW hall during his visit-- wouldn't THAT have been something to see!

Louise and her family lived in Benton the same five years my family did, and George arrived on my ninth birthday. No one had any idea who he was. He stayed two weeks, visiting, camping and even performing a couple times. Four months later, the Beatles suddenly topped the U.S. charts, then went on “Ed Sullivan.” Beatlemania made me jump into guitar lessons in the same shop George had bought records, but I soon quit and went back to playing sports and “army.” Dumb kid.

Louise passed away just a year ago, but Benton still has a historical marker and a mural of George along I-57. His visit led to a few books and was featured in Smithsonian Magazine in May 2020.

 

[Born Boiler]

did John Malkovich go to high school with Doug Collins?

John Malkovich lived next door to Doug Collins and was my junior high classmate. He kept arguing that Collins one day would be better than Rich Yunkus, the star center of Benton’s 61-2 teams from 1965-1967 who got over 200 scholarship offers. Yunkus was an All-American senior when Collins was still only on the sophomore team, so I thought no way. Well, Yunkus did become an All-American for Georgia Tech -- he wanted to be an engineer -- and he’s still Tech’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, but Malkovich wound up right after all.

Both Yunkus and Collins were coached by Rich Herrin, who won over 600 games at Benton, then over 200 at SIU, where Walt Frazier had led the Salukis to the 1967 NIT championship. Later came Bruce Weber and Matt Painter, and now we have Lance Jones here, a nice full circle for Purdue and Southern Illinois, even if George King didn’t try hard enough to get Yunkus to be an engineer here and join his new guy named Rick Mount.

 

[New Pal Boiler]

John Malkovich lived next door to Doug Collins and was my junior high classmate. He kept arguing that Collins one day would be better than Rich Yunkus, the star center of Benton’s 61-2 teams from 1965-1967 who got over 200 scholarship offers. Yunkus was an All-American senior when Collins was still only on the sophomore team, so I thought no way. Well, Yunkus did become an All-American for Georgia Tech -- he wanted to be an engineer -- and he’s still Tech’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, but Malkovich wound up right after all.

Both Yunkus and Collins were coached by Rich Herrin, who won over 600 games at Benton, then over 200 at SIU, where Walt Frazier had led the Salukis to the 1967 NIT championship. Later came Bruce Weber and Matt Painter, and now we have Lance Jones here, a nice full circle for Purdue and Southern Illinois, even if George King didn’t try hard enough to get Yunkus to be an engineer here and join his new guy named Rick Mount.

Crazy … sort of like Janis Joplin and Jimmy Johnson graduating high school together.

 

[MetMyWifeAtHarrys]

Oden over Hummel is lols

 

[RossMackey]

John Malkovich lived next door to Doug Collins and was my junior high classmate. He kept arguing that Collins one day would be better than Rich Yunkus, the star center of Benton’s 61-2 teams from 1965-1967 who got over 200 scholarship offers. Yunkus was an All-American senior when Collins was still only on the sophomore team, so I thought no way. Well, Yunkus did become an All-American for Georgia Tech -- he wanted to be an engineer -- and he’s still Tech’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder, but Malkovich wound up right after all.

Both Yunkus and Collins were coached by Rich Herrin, who won over 600 games at Benton, then over 200 at SIU, where Walt Frazier had led the Salukis to the 1967 NIT championship. Later came Bruce Weber and Matt Painter, and now we have Lance Jones here, a nice full circle for Purdue and Southern Illinois, even if George King didn’t try hard enough to get Yunkus to be an engineer here and join his new guy named Rick Mount.

Great stuff!

As awesome as it would have been to have this kind of talent alongside Rick Mount, IMO it begs an even more mind- boggling question:

How in hell did Illinois not land either of these two legendary players?

Perhaps similar to how Indy’s Oscar Robertson somehow slipped thru both Purdue’s and Indinia’s fingers, only to end up at Cincinnati…..

 

[Born Boiler]

Crazy … sort of like Janis Joplin and Jimmy Johnson graduating high school together.

Sure was. Malkovich was a built-in entertainment center even then. Nationally, the Class of ’72 also included Christie Brinkley, Kim Basinger and Ellen Barkin -- imagine being seated by them in study hall -- as well as John Travolta, David Lee Roth, Nancy Wilson, Oprah Winfrey, Al Roker, Ron Howard, Walter Payton and Jerry Seinfeld. One wild year for school kids.

 

[Born Boiler]

Great stuff!

As awesome as it would have been to have this kind of talent alongside Rick Mount, IMO it begs an even more mind- boggling question:

How in hell did Illinois not land either of these two legendary players?

Perhaps similar to how Indy’s Oscar Robertson somehow slipped thru both Purdue’s and Indinia’s fingers, only to end up at Cincinnati…..

Imagine The Big O playing here with Lamar Lundy, give or take a year

 

[nitrowars]

That's really good when you consider Edey only had seven points in the first half