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View Full Version : Wayman's not one of the all-time college hoops greats?



NMSooner'80
2/17/2012, 02:30 PM
This was also discussed on KREF a couple of weeks ago, around Signing Day, and I forgot to make a post about it on various OU boards.

I may live in Albuquerque, and I also work for UNM, but there is NO WAY I could honestly say that Steve Alford (current UNM coach) belonged on a "greatest of all-time" list over Tisdale. That's absurd. The only thing that Alford has going for him over Wayman is a national title, and I think that Wayman could have gotten that had he stayed for his senior year. Heck, I don't even think Alford would say he was better as a player than Wayman was.

There was also such a bias against Billy Tubbs back then in the non-Oklahoma media that I think the "talking heads" failed to give Wayman his due. For some reason, Billy was labeled as a mediocre coach, mainly because he didn't play slow-it-down basketball. So I think people figured Billy "just rolled the ball out there" (and did no coaching), and thus Wayman was considered one-dimensional. If you saw him play, you knew better.

And of course, the papers in the Big 8 region took their cues from the Kansas City Star, which dumped on OU and labeled us an outlaw program. The OU teams of that era were just a little too flashy and successful for their staid, "a football school can't be good at hoops" attitudes in the KC area. The pro-Beaker (KU) leaning papers were the worst, from what I recall, and that semi-retired idiot named Chuck Woodling took the occasion of Wayman's death to dredge up a one-sided account of the '84 game in the Phog. Even some KU fans in the Lawrence area thought that was out of line.

The book that listed those players, which I believe came from Sports Illustrated, would have been on my Christmas wish list in a heartbeat. Since they screwed up that badly, I refused to consider getting one.

It's also a shame that Wayman's good career stats in the NBA were forgotten by those who should know better. He had a nice NBA career; just played on a bunch of lousy teams in the pros.

Any "best college players of all time" list that fails to include Wayman is a joke, pure and simple.

picasso
2/19/2012, 12:29 AM
Agreed! He was also left out of ESPN's top freshmen of all time segment they did years ago. They got an earful from me via email. Wayman was the first consensus true frosh All American ever!!!!!

NMSooner'80
2/19/2012, 01:35 PM
Agreed! He was also left out of ESPN's top freshmen of all time segment they did years ago. They got an earful from me via email. Wayman was the first consensus true frosh All American ever!!!!!

It also didn't help that ESPN seemed to openly try to downgrade our good teams back then, because we didn't play their "approved" style of basketball. Around the time that Wayman left, we lost several recruits to the Big East, or so it seemed, because we weren't one of their favored programs.