Indiana Basketball: All-time starting live under head coach Bob Knight
By Bryan Mauro
Forward – Calbert Cheaney (1989-1992)
Cheaney is currently the Director of Player Development for head coach Mike Woodson at Indiana University. The small forward/wing/guard is another player to have played in the NBA after his career at Indiana was over. Even though he played in the NBA the guard was one of the greatest college basketball players of all time. I am sure this will be a hot topic but Cheaney is the best player to ever wear Hoosier red, and is the best player in Big Ten history. Once you find out why it will all make sense.
Indiana never won a title while they had Cheaney but he did play in a final four and had one of the best individual seasons in NCAA history. The forward was the first left handed player to ever play for coach Knight and during his tenure the Hoosiers spent 50 weeks in the top 10 and 38 in the top 5. They also won 105 games in the four years that Cheaney was on the roster. That is the most wins over a four year period of any player under coach Knight. The forward was an elite scorer from the second he arrived in Bloomington. He scored over 30 points 13 times, and averaged 22.3 points his senior season. All of that culminated in Cheaney breaking Steve Alford’s scoring record and the forward taking sole possession of scoring with 2,613 points. That record still stands today.
The 2,613 points is the most in the Big Ten as well. No other player in the league has come close to scoring that many points and it is a record that likely won’t fall for awhile. Cheaney was awarded a second team All-American in 1991, a third team All-American in 1992, and his senior year in 1993 he was a first team All-American. The 1993 season also saw him win Big Ten Player of the Year, and all 12 National Player of the Year awards. The forward used that to become the sixth overall pick of the NBA draft to the Washington Bullets. Cheaney would be the star on this hypothetical starting five as well. This time the Hoosiers can finish the deal and win a hypothetical championship.