ACC Basketball: Top Players From Each Team This Century, Part 1

This is the first installment of a new series that takes a look at the best players of the 21st century (2000-present) for each Division I team, starting with ACC Basketball.

With only the NBA Playoffs and the WNBA regular season to hold us over until the fall when it comes to actual on-court basketball action, the offseason is the perfect time to dive head first into fun discussions that there is not always room for in the chaos of the season.

An idea I have been mulling over for a while now is a breakdown of the best players since 2000 by each program, which is obviously a subject that deals with hundreds of names over a period of nearly two decades.

So, to help streamline the process, I have decided to break the series up into chunks, spending two articles each on the power and almost-power conferences and one apiece on the most important mid-major leagues.

I will choose a position-less starting five plus a few bench players for each squad. These rankings are certainly subjective, so feel free to @ me with your thoughts on who should be included or how wrong (or right!) you think I am.

The selections will be based on a player’s whole career, so a four-year starter will have had more chances to rack up accolades, stats, and notable moments than someone who left for the NBA after one season.

But, someone like Carmelo Anthony or Anthony Davis accomplished just about all you can in their freshman seasons and had no reason to come back to school, so context will be taken into account.

National and conference awards and honors, championships (both regular season and tournament-wise), statistical rankings, and advanced stats will all be taken into account, but this will not be solely “facts”-based.

Sometimes a player just has a certain quality about them that makes them more notable than a player with a similar skill set and resume.

Also, professional performance is not to be factored into the discussion.

So, before we drown too deeply in rules and regulations, onto the first list!