We discussed the criteria for picking the players on the all-decade teams in the intro to this series.
You can find that, and the All-Decade First Team, right here. The All-Decade Third Team is here, while the decade’s All-Legacy Team is at this link.
ALL-DECADE SECOND TEAM
JIMMER FREDETTE, BYU
Jimmer Fredette became an absolute sensation by his senior season at BYU. A native of Upstate New York, Jimmer was fine as a freshman and good as a sophomore, when he averaged 16.2 points for the Cougars. He exploded nationally when he set a McKale Center record for point scored by putting up 49 on Arizona. He finished the year averaging 22.1 points and .7 assists, setting the stage for an unbelievable senior season.
Jimmer became a national sensation as a senior. It really started in mid-December, when he scored 33 points in a win over that same Arizona team. Three weeks later, in the Mountain West opener on the road at UNLV (who was good at the time), he had 39 points and hit seven threes. Six days later, he scored 32 points in the first half and finished with 47 on the night in a win over BYU’s archnemesis, Utah.
Then things really got crazy.
He had 42 at Colorado State in late January and, just four days later, he put up 43 points on Kawhi Leonard’s San Diego State game in a battle of top ten teams.
From that point forward, he was appointment viewing despite the fact that you needed to find grainy, choppy internet streams to be able to watch him. He was Trae Young, but A) his team was good, and B) you could only watch him by digging through reddit for feeds that would, quite often, crash midway midway through the game.
His crowning achievement probably came during the Mountain West tournament, when Jimmer scored 52 points against New Mexico (who, again, was good at the time). We never got a chance to see what that BYU team could accomplish thanks to an honor code violation that ended Brandon Davies’ season, but for four months, Jimmer Fredette was the single biggest story in college basketball.
Coming from BYU, that’s saying something.
JOHN WALL, Kentucky
John Wall was the start of a new era of Kentucky dominance.
The 6-foot-4 North Carolina native was John Calipari’s first elite point guard recruit at Kentucky, and he turned in a season for the ages. He averaged 16.6 points, 6.5 assists and 4.5 boards while leading a loaded roster to SEC regular season and tournament titles. If Kentucky doesn’t end up shooting 4-for-32 from three in the Elite Eight against West Virginia, than there is a very real chance that we never have to ask ourselves the question, “What if Gordon Hayward’s 50-foot prayer actually went in?”
I think what’s more interesting, however, is that Wall almost didn’t make it to Kentucky. When he was in high school, there was speculation that he actually would be eligible for the 2009 NBA Draft the same way that high schoolers like Anfernee Simons and Hamidou Diallo have been eligible. He was a fifth-year senior that turned 19 before the cut-off.
How different would Calipari’s tenure at Kentucky have been if Wall had never made it to campus?
BUDDY HIELD, Oklahoma
Hield’s career arc as a college player is fascinating.
As a freshman, he was considered something of a role player, a guy that would be a piece on a good team. As a sophomore, Buddy had his breakout season, and for the next two years, he put up right around 17 points per game as a good, all-Big 12 caliber player that looked to be on the fringes of the NBA’s radar.
Hield declared for the draft after his junior season and was told that he needed to improve on his handle, his ability to be more than just a set shooter. So he did. A notoriously hard worker who lives in the gym, Hield turned himself from Buddy Hield into #BuddyBuckets. As a senior, he averaged 25.0 points and 5.7 boards while shooting 46.5 percent from three on more than eight attempts per game while leading the Sooners to a 29-win season that culminated with a trip to the Final Four.
That hasn’t been the end for Hield, who has outperformed everyone’s expectations in the NBA – he’s averaging 21.4 points for the Kings this season – but none of us should be surprised by now.
We’ve saw, up close, the amount of work that Hield puts in and how he can change his game to fit what his team needs from in.
This is no different.
JARED SULLINGER, Ohio State
Sullinger entered college basketball as a top five prospect in the Class of 2010, and he sure did live up to the hype.
As a freshman, Sullinger was one of the very best players in the sport. He averaged 17.2 points and 10.2 boards while anchoring an Ohio State team that was, far and away, the best team in college basketball during the 2010-11 season. Imagine trying to guard Sullinger and his ample backside 1-on-1 in the post before snipers like Jon Diebler, William Buford and David Lighty were sitting beyond the arc, just waiting for a clean look at the rim.
That Ohio State team went 34-3. They were the last team to lose a game that season, going undefeated until a trip to a top 10 Wisconsin team in mid-February, and took down both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles before earning the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament and promptly losing to Kentucky in the Sweet 16.
Sullinger was a first-team All-American and, surprisingly, opted to return to school for his sophomore year. He was just as good that season, and while Ohio State was not, the Buckeyes still managed to win 31 games and get to the Final Four. They’ll always be remembered as the team that lost the other semifinal the year an Anthony Davis-led Kentucky team played Louisville.
FRANK KAMINSKY, Wisconsin
Kaminsky is quintessential Bo Ryan.
An under-recruited, three-star big man from Chicago, Kaminsky get to Wisconsin as a freshman and proceeds to spend two seasons buried on their bench behind the likes of Jared Berggren and Mike Bruesewitz. No one expects much of anything out of his junior season until, four games in, he goes off for 43 points against North Dakota.
From that point on, Kaminsky’s a star.
He helps lead the Badgers to the Final Four that season, where they lost to Kentucky in the national semifinals, and follows that up with a Player of the Year season as a senior in which he averaged 18.8 points, 8.2 boards and 2.6 assists while shooting 41.6 percent from three for a team that ended Kentucky’s pursuit of a 40-0 season with one of the most memorable and fun Final Four games of the decade.
Kaminsky would go on to be a top ten pick in the draft and has carved himself out a nice little NBA career. He’s currently averaging 10.5 points and 5.3 boards for the Phoenix Suns and will end up making more than $25 million in his professional career when it’s all said and done.
Not bad for a kid that couldn’t play over this guy for two years.
