Big East Basketball: Top 50 players from the legendary 2010-11 season

HOUSTON, TX - APRIL 04: The Connecticut Huskies react after defeating the Butler Bulldogs to win the National Championship Game of the 2011 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament by a score of 53-41 at Reliant Stadium on April 4, 2011 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images) /

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NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 11: Alex Oriakhi /

The making of the list

I originally intended to do a top 25 list, but I was worried about keeping out some really good players. With 16 teams on the list, I wanted to honor all of them on this rankings, while placing them where I believe they should be. The first 25 players will have a little summary, while the second half will go a little more in depth.

I have to have full disclosure on how I completed these rankings so that everyone reading knows where I’m coming from. I’ll be 25 years old once this current season ends, so I would’ve been 18 when the 2010-11 season occurred. I certainly remember a good amount of the Pitt games of course, so I have to rely on the great journalism over the season.

A special shoutout goes to the great men and women who not only covered the 2010-11 basketball season who gave me ample amount of resources but just sports in general. We take it for granted at the present time, but their work is vital in just remembering how great sports were. So thank you for your work.

Criteria for the rankings

There are a million ways to judge and rank the players, so here are some key points I looked at when looking at the players:

Overall team performance
Impact of the player on their team
Conference play
Analytics
Postseason efforts

Based on these key points, some players received a boost while others were docked. Providence, in particular, was affected, as a high number of players on this list had their best games against the Friars. Those defensive issues had to come into play.

I tried to not rely too heavily on stats (statistics used for this list came from Sports-Reference), with more of a reliance on how much they impacted both the team and the win/loss record.

This season was truly a throwback in college basketball, as the vast majority of the key players were upperclassmen. There were some underclassmen who made an impact, but most the vets made the league what it was. There were four new coaches coming into the season and had to deal with a number of future Hall of Fame coaches.

I hope everyone enjoys the list, and let us know at Busting Brackets how you would rank these players, from top to bottom. Now without further ado, here are the top 50 players from the best college basketball season in recent memory.

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