NCAA Basketball: Is Sabrina Ionescu the best college player of all time?

NCAA Basketball has had many great players in its history, and some of them have gone on to become Hall of Fame pro players. It’s hard to say who is the best player of all-time but could Oregon Women’s guard Sabrina Ionescu.

Women’s NCAA Basketball has nowhere near the following on the scale of the men’s game. There are obviously the Connecticut’s and Baylor’s who are always good and have the fan following, and there are newer powers such as Mississippi State and Oregon.

Oregon Women’s Basketball may have the single greatest college basketball player to ever play, at any level. Sabrina Ionescu is the only Division I player, men’s or women’s, to score 2,000 points, have 1,000 assists and 1,000 rebounds. She has the most triple-doubles in NCAA history…across any level. The guard put up 26 in her career, the next closest is Kyle Collinsworth from BYU, who put up 12. The next closest women’s player is Chastadie Barrs of Lamar, who put up just nine. Shaquille O’Neal, one of the greatest centers of all-time, put up just six triple-doubles in his career.

Ionescu won the women’s Wooden Award this season and played in three NCAA Tournaments. She led her team to the only Sweet 16’s and Elite Eight in their history. Before Ionescu, the Ducks had not made the NCAA Tournament in 12 years. Before the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament due to the coronavirus, Ionescu’s Ducks were 31-2 and slated to be a top-four seed in the tournament, aiming for their first national championship in school history.

It’s easy to say Ionescu was part of a good team and everybody equally contributed and helped out. Of course, this was the case, nobody gets to 2,000/1,000/1,000 on their own, but what if I said Ionescu made everybody around her a better player and the Ducks are nowhere near 31 wins without her? It’s a plausible theory, isn’t it?

Ionescu was able to parlay her career into being the first overall pick of the WNBA draft. Think of some of the all-time women’s basketball greats, such as Sue Bird, Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi, and Maya Moore. None of them ever accomplished what Ionescu has in college. However, Moore is a 4x WNBA champion, so Ionescu has her work cut out for her in the pros.

It’s not about women’s or men’s basketball. Ionescu is one of the most talented players in the world today, and the WNBA is about to get a good look at how good she is.