Build Your Best College Hoops Team of the Last 20 Years for $15

I’ve seen one of these floating around recently regarding the NBA, so I figured with it being one of the worst days of the year as a sports fan and  no one working, let’s fire one up for college hoops.

The premise is simple. You have a $15 budget to come up with the best team of the last 20 years of college basketball. Each player is based strictly on their best collegiate year, not NBA success and not college career. Just one year.

While positions have gone away in hoops, it doesn’t make sense to take 5 wings or 5 bigs in order to succeed over the course of a year, so keep your team realistic. There will be a winner, who gets absolutely nothing from this make believe game.

So who am I taking to form my team? The first pick is easy with Tim Duncan. He’s an easy guy to build around as he gives you scoring, rebounding and rim protection, while being able to shoot from 10-12 feet out, so you can a 4-out, 1-in offense. After him I’m taking another $5 guy in Shane Battier, who people forget was really damn good in college. Again, he provides defense – a key here – and the ability to stretch the floor.

After those two I’m taking Carmelo, Buddy Hield and Derrick Rose. Melo and Buddy provide more shooting, giving me 3 solid shooters from behind the arc while also strong rebounders from their positions. Rose is obviously playing point and utilizing drive and kicks as he was a decent passer at Memphis.

My concern is defense on the wing in Melo especially, but having Battier and Duncan behind them helps ease that pain. Biggest toss up for me was going with Battier as my second guy or wanting Jay Williams to run point and have those spots set.

So the question is simple. What five do you have as the best team? Tweet me your teams @barstoolreags