Top Ten Valpo Players of All Time

[NativeCheesehead]

So with little to no news for the next few weeks, I figured I'd start a new Top Ten list every Sunday and let us debate.

We'll start with the big one. Name the top ten Vu players of all time, to you, in order. I'm going to dwell on this a bit and post mine later.

[Chairback]

Bryce Drew
Alec Peters
Bruce Lindner
Lubos Barton
Ryan Broekhoff
Raitis Grafs
Tracy Gibson
Casey Schmidt
Dan Oppland
David Redmon

[vu72]

I would think John Wolfenberg and Chuck Kriston should be on the list somewhere.

[usc4valpo]

Morris Smith over David Redmon

[M]

1. Alec Peters
2. Bryce Drew
3. Ryan Broekhoff
4. Lubos Barton

[78crusader]

Recency bias is at work here to exclude those who played 50+ years ago. Dick Jones, who played guard for Gene Bartow, deserves a place on this list.

Paul

[VUGrad1314]

I know this is super recent but is it too early to consider JFL for this list? If it is I think he's certainly on his way there. It will be interesting to see where he stands in another year or two.

[crusadermoe]

On performance...definitely Chuck Kriston over Raitis.  We kept waiting for him to live up to that talent.  Kriston was drafted if I recall his 2020 HoF bio.  He scored 19 ppg as a guard before the 3-point shot.

And yes, JFL is on pace to easily break into the Top 10 and very likely the Top 5.

[valpotx]

On performance...definitely Chuck Kriston over Raitis.  We kept waiting for him to live up to that talent.  Kriston was drafted if I recall his 2020 HoF bio.  He scored 19 ppg as a guard before the 3-point shot.

And yes, JFL is on pace to easily break into the Top 10 and very likely the Top 5.

Raitis scored 1,621 points, had 841 rebounds, and 228 blocked shots.  Even though he tried 2/3 of the time, he is definitely top 10.  If he would have tried 100% of the time, just think of the numbers that he would have put up!

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/raitis-grafs-1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raitis_Grafs

I'll never forget the first time that I ran into Raitis and Antti at a frat party early on in our FR years.  It was tied to a Halloween party, and they were dressed as huge skeletons...well, they were dressed as skeletons, but were just huge

[VUGrad1314]

This is hard from me because my Valpo fandom and memories begin with Bryce Drew so if I were to make a list I would probably make a list that would make a lot of people upset by my ignorance of the older generations.  So I'd be considering a lot of names for this list that many of you would scoff at as being top 10 all time. I almost feel like since we were two different programs it's better to do a Pre-Homer and Post-Homer top 10.

[bbtds]

I only got about 50 years of following Valpo basketball so take my list with a grain of salt. Although if you throw in my uncle's 23 before I was born you could probably say it qualifies as covering many, many years. :-)

John Wolfenburg, certainly
Tom Haeberle
Rob Cavanaugh
Bryce Drew
Raitis Grafs
Tracy Gipson
Bruce Lindner
Ryan Rowdy Broekhoff
Alec Peters
Javon Freeman Liberty

Ooops, forgot the Czech, Lubos Barton.

[FWalum]

I only got about 50 years of following Valpo basketball so take my list with a grain of salt. Although if you throw in my uncle's 23 before I was born you could probably say it qualifies as covering many, many years. :-)

John Wolfenburg, certainly
Tom Haeberle
Rob Cavanaugh
Bryce Drew
Raitis Grafs
Tracy Gipson
Bruce Lindner
Ryan Rowdy Broekhoff
Alec Peters
Javon Freeman Liberty

Ooops, forgot the Czech, Lubos Barton.

I think you have to have this guy on the list:
Robert "Bob" Dille
Twice Indiana collegiate scoring champion. PIC magazine and Helms All- American in '43, and LOOK magazine All-American in '43, '44 and '45. Boston Garden all-star team in '44, and MVP of college all-star game. Played professionally with Detroit Falcons.

[VUGrad1314]

After the first 6-8 names I genuinely had trouble filling this out. I could see several players that could make an argument for inclusion at the end of this list.)

Since I've been following the Crusaders Roughly 1995 (in no particular order)

Bryce Drew

Alec Peters

Ryan Broekhoff

Javon Freeman-Liberty (Some of you might think this is a bit early. I don't. Single season steals record and I feel he's on pace to be the best player this program has ever seen.)

Lubos Barton

Raitis Grafs

Vashil Fernandez (name a better rim protector we've ever had)

Dan Oppland

Shaun Huff (Was a big fan of his Hit a bunch of big shots and was a go to scorer.)

Kevin Van Wijk (Big men have been underrated throughout our history and deserve some love Plus, being of Dutch heritage on my mother's side I have a bias toward the Dutchman.) He might have been the best low post scorer we've had since Raitis, though Johnson was pretty good in the post too.

Honorable Mention:

Brandon Wood (would have made this list had he stayed One of the best pure scorers Valpo has ever had)

Cory Johnson (Was tough to leave off this list. If Van Wijk wasn't the best in the post since Raitis this guy was.)

Matt Kenney (Same with Johnson. Excellent pure shooter. Hit several big shots. Would consider moving him in for Huff.)

Erik Buggs (Great point guard One of the best we've seen. Could challenge for that tenth spot)

Keith Carter (Same as Buggs but with more scoring ability Could challenge for that tenth spot)

Tevonn Walker (Mono took a lot from him but he was easily the most equipped to handle the MVC transition of anybody on the roster and deserves more looks for this list than he will get). Could challenge for that tenth spot.

Ryan Fazekas (probably would have made this list if he had played a full four years. Elite shooter.)

Watch list (Kids that aren't there yet but will probably be knocking on the door in another year or two:

Donovan Clay

Ben Krikke

Jacob Ognacevic