Soriano and St. John’s Big Men

If we're talking pros....

1. Billy Paultz, 3 time ABA all star, 1 championship, slid over to NBA, 15 yr career, 12 ppg 8 rpg.

2. Leroy Ellis 14 yr career, 10 ppg 8 rpg, 1 championship, backup on great Lakers and Baltimore teams.

3. Jayson Williams became one of the to rebounders in NBA for 3 or 4 seasons. 1 all star appearance, 8 year career upended literally by Steph.
 
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Almost all of SJU‘s best big men are actually forwards. The two best centers would be Zawoluk and Ellis. Le Roy started his career as an awkward 6 ft 11 inch beanpole but Lapchick developed him to a dominant center. His senior year averages of 23, 5 points a game and 16,5 rebounds are by far the best in SJU history
Zawoluk on the other hand was a star the moment he stepped on the court for SJU. His teams only lost 15 games during his career, the final loss to Kansas in the 52 NCAA final. He averaged about twenty points a game for his three years at SJU and were he allowed to play four years back then his scoring totals would be unreachable. He is also the only SJU center to make first team All American.
 
GardenCity62 said:
Almost all of SJU‘s best big men are actually forwards. The two best centers would be Zawoluk and Ellis. Le Roy started his career as an awkward 6 ft 11 inch beanpole but Lapchick developed him to a dominant center. His senior year averages of 23, 5 points a game and 16,5 rebounds are by far the best in SJU history
Zawoluk on the other hand was a star the moment he stepped on the court for SJU. His teams only lost 15 games during his career, the final loss to Kansas in the 52 NCAA final. He averaged about twenty points a game for his three years at SJU and were he allowed to play four years back then his scoring totals would be unreachable. He is also the only SJU center to make first team All American.
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GardenCity, glad to see you giving Leroy Ellis his due. IMO absolutely the best center in St. John's history. (Those 16.5 rpg in his senior year included an all-time SJU single-game number of 30.)

And then there's a guy whose name I don't remember seeing in any post, which I find hard to believe (espeically since he's my all-time favorite Johnnie): the great Sonny Dove -- a consensus All-American, our 2nd greatest rebounder (behind George Johnson), and the 4th player selected in the 1967 NBA draft.
 
redken1 said:
GardenCity, glad to see you giving Leroy Ellis his due. IMO absolutely the best center in St. John's history. (Those 16.5 rpg in his senior year included an all-time SJU single-game number of 30.)

And then there's a guy whose name I don't remember seeing in any post, which I find hard to believe (espeically since he's my all-time favorite Johnnie): the great Sonny Dove -- a consensus All-American, our 2nd greatest rebounder (behind George Johnson), and the 4th player selected in the 1967 NBA draft.
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He was on my list reken1. I mentioned him, Ellis and George Johnson as worthy guys from way back. Dove is also my first favorite Johnnie; and he finished second in all time rebounding while playing one year less than Johnson.
 
NCJohnnie said:
He was on my list reken1. I mentioned him, Ellis and George Johnson as worthy guys from way back. Dove is also my first favorite Johnnie; and he finished second in all time rebounding while playing one year less than Johnson.
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Thanks for pointing that out to me, NCJohnnie. Am glad to hear how highly you think of him. He was a gem and I find it sad that fewer and fewer fans seem to remember him. But we were the lucky ones: we got to see him play.
 
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NCJohnnie said:
He was on my list reken1. I mentioned him, Ellis and George Johnson as worthy guys from way back. Dove is also my first favorite Johnnie; and he finished second in all time rebounding while playing one year less than Johnson.
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Still both are forwards. Mel Davis averaged 17.7 and 15.1 rebounds per game over his 2 season career before a knee injury caused him to miss senior year. He wasn't a center either, but was a monster rebounder.
 
Beasts of the East said:
Still both are forwards. Mel Davis averaged 17.7 and 15.1 rebounds per game over his 2 season career before a knee injury caused him to miss senior year. He wasn't a center either, but was a monster rebounder.
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True that Sonny was more of a forward than a low-post certer, but at 6-7 he was the closest they had to a 5. He was flanked in the forecourt by 6-6 Bobby McIntyre and an undersized (6-2!) Bob Duerr. And yes, Mel Davis was a monster on the boards.
 
Zendon Hamilton as a four year player has some of the best offensive stats off any big man since the start of the original Big East. Soriano the last two years has been very impressive. Walter Berry I don't consider a Center but neither was Magic Johnson until he played it in the finals when Jabbar went down. Either way Berry was one of the greatest scorers in the Big East era. Robert Werdann is one of my favorites but he was injured a lot and never realized his potential. Wennington is solid and a member of our Final Four team.
 
Marillac2 said:
Owens was as good of a college player as any of them. I wish he was a little more disciplined while he was here, but that fell more on the staff.

Soriano is so steady. I’m really going to miss him next year. My only criticism of him before the season was that, while he was very good, he wasn’t a star. He’s really knocking on that door now IMO.
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Tariq Owens was unequivocally not as good as any of them. Not even close.
 
dk423 said:
Great call.

Other guy I was also thinking of was Hardy. I'd say it's less as good of a candidate as Champ or Soriano since he was only year for two years. But he was also unheralded as a juco and his senior year was a huge difference.
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David Cane, my all time favorite development story. But Champagnie and Hardy all good examples. Gotta also include Dom Pointer on that list.
 
Andrew said:
I remember going to a Stepinac-CTK CHSAA city championship game about five years ago. CTK had Cockburn and Cisse and Stepinac had RJ Davis, Adrian Griffin and his brother Alan. Stepinac won and Cockburn played well. The guy guarding him caught my eye. Joel appeared more like 6'8 at this point but he was battling Cockburn hard. I had never heard of him and had no idea he was a D1 player but his effort impressed me. I remember seeing Slice at that game. I think it was right before he was dismissed. There is a picture of Joel blocking Kofi's shot in this article.

https://davesjoint.net/2018/03/12/s...-christ-the-king-in-david-vs-goliath-matchup/
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Joel looks skinny in that pic
 
Beasts of the East said:
Still both are forwards. Mel Davis averaged 17.7 and 15.1 rebounds per game over his 2 season career before a knee injury caused him to miss senior year. He wasn't a center either, but was a monster rebounder.
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Dove was a forward by height but he played center two of his three years and played it better than lots of 6’10-11” guys.To me performance and position played should be what counts. Kind of like Walter Berry playing center as a senior.
 
NCJohnnie said:
Dove was a forward by height but he played center two of his three years and played it better than lots of 6’10-11” guys.To me performance and position played should be what counts. Kind of like Walter Berry playing center as a senior.
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Actually was at CHSAA final at Fordham arena w Sonny, a senior, battling at center v sophomore Lou Alcindor aka Kareem AJ. Big height differential obviously, but Sonny battled in a loss by about ten points as I recall. Saw Dove a lot and he’ll always be one of my SJ favorites.
 
paultzman said:
Actually was at CHSAA final at Fordham arena w Sonny, a senior, battling at center v sophomore Lou Alcindor aka Kareem AJ. Big height differential obviously, but Sonny battled in a loss by about ten points as I recall. Saw Dove a lot and he’ll always be one of my SJ favorites.
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I've always said you have great taste. (I was unable to get to that CH:SAA final game, but had friends who did and who came back raving about Sonny. So I was a fan before I ever saw him play.)
 
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