Dick Vitale lists Bradley great Hersey Hawkins among his Top 50 college players

[Da Coach]

Dick Vitale has co-written a new book titled ???Dick Vitale??™s Fabulous 50 Players & Moments in College Basketball??? . Hersey Hawkins is listed #38, too low for the taste of this writer--

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2008/dec/17/vitales-got-right-idea/

His top 5 are-
1) Michael Jordan
2) Ralph Sampson
3) Christian Laettner
4) Patrick Ewing
5) Danny Manning

He says he did not consider pro careers in making this list, only their performance in college. Interesting that he has Manning 5th and Hawkins 38th, when Hersey beat out Manning for many of the Player of the Year awards in 1988, and only because Manning went on a tear, and lead Kansas to the National Championship did he persuade enough voters that he won a couple of the POY awards that allowed voting after the NCAA Tournament.

http://www2.kusports.com/news/2008/dec/17/vitales-got-right-idea/

[tornado]

That is a great story....
especially this part........... that I had never heard before........

"Hawkins gave the greatest college basketball performance I’ve ever witnessed ...Covering the Cal-Irvine Anteaters,
I watched Hawkins trigger a frightful gasp from the Peoria crowd when he was whistled for his third foul with 9:45 left
in the first half, by which time he had scored 23 points. Hawkins sat out the rest of the first half and still managed to
torch UCI for 51 points in a 139-119 victory for the Braves.
The Anteaters’ volunteer assistant in charge of defense, former Bob Knight assistant Andy Andreas, quit after the game.
Bradley coach Stan Albeck had Hawkins running figure 8s around screens all night long. He would catch it, shoot it, score it.

Later that season, Hawkins lit up Detroit, long after Vitale coached at the school, for 63 points."