Building A Champion: The Three-G Offense

Walt Frazier is one of the 50 greatest players in the history of the NBA.

Many know him for his Just For Men Commercials. But many more around these parts know him as the greatest basketball player in SIU men's basketball history.

Say what? You didn't know The King of the Frazierisms was a Saluki. Well now you know.

Don't feel bad, my mother (a New York City native) didn't know that either.

Frazier is the lead guard of my three-guard offense of fun. He only played two years at SIU, but averaged more than 17.7 points and grabbed 10.6 rebounds was the point guard for the school's only basketball national championship. Yes, at one point the NIT was a bigger deal than the NCAAs. Deal with it.

On my team of stars, Frazier will be joined in the backcourt by the school's second leading scorer, Kent Williams. Kid Kent scored 2,012 points in his four-year career at SIU and it was his teams that helped jump-start this era of Saluki hoops.

You can't sneeze at a guy who started all four years and led the team in scoring from 1999 to 2003.

The third guard on the list is Greg Starrick. Shocked? Don't be.

Starrick owned the charity stripe and ranks 14th on the all-time scorers list with 1,428 points from 1970-72. He averaged 22 points per game in his career, second all team in career scoring and he also owns the school's top free-throw percentage, connecting on 90.9 percent of his freebies.

He led the nation in FT percentage in 1971 and 1972 and everyone knows how important clutch free-throw shooting is down the stretch of the ballgame.

Starrick also makes the list because he's the color guy for SIU basketball, and if he gets wind of this list and finds himself off it, he'll probably kill me.

So Greg, if you find The Big Dead Sidebar, there is much love for you here.

The Frazier-Williams-Starrick connection should score a lot of points in this tournament where guard play is key.

I'm sure you're wondering where the likes of Jamaal Tatum, Darren Brooks, Tony Young, Chris Lowery, Troy Hudson, Bryan Mullins, Wayne Abrams, Paul Lusk,Mike Glenn and Stetson Hairston are.

Well, some of those guys will make the bench squad. Some of them won't.

Stay tuned.