The top 25 men’s college basketball players of the past 25 years

The men’s college basketball offseason offers an opportunity not only to reflect on the previous season, but to look back at nostalgic moments in the history of the sport. But sometimes, those conversations are complicated by a boundless time frame. How can one compare players or teams from the 1980s to players or teams from the last few years? The game has changed — dramatically — and that makes it difficult to have any fruitful conversations.

That’s why we’ve decided to launch a series that focuses only on the past 25 years of college basketball. Any team, player, coach or moment who was part of the sport between the 1998-99 and 2022-23 seasons is eligible. The rest? That’s someone else’s problem.

For the first installment of our “25 in 25” series, we present the top 25 Division I college basketball players over the past 25 years.

It was a challenging endeavor.

First, this goes beyond résumés. It’s about talent, skill, dominance and impact. The past 25 years feature an interesting mix of stars: from veterans who bucked the 1990s trend of turning pro right out of high school to young players who lasted a season in the one-and-done era. The latter group has an advantage here, because we can only imagine what they might have done with three or four years of college basketball, while the former is competing for spots against a strong list of their peers who also enjoyed significant achievements, longevity and consistency.

In both cases, we’ve made a strong attempt to select the best men’s college basketball players of the past 25 seasons.

Career stats: 25.8 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 1.9 BPG, 1.9 SPG
Career highlights: Wooden Award, first-team AP All-American, Big 12 Player of the Year, Big 12 All-Defensive Team

The only blemish on Durant’s résumé from his lone season of college basketball was his failure to reach the second weekend of the NCAA tournament (the Longhorns lost to USC in the second round). But an effortless offensive output — Durant connected on 40% of his 3-point attempts, 50% of his shots inside the arc and 82% of his free throw attempts — punctuates one of the greatest performances within the sport over the past 25 years.

Career stats: 14.2 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 4.7 BPG, 1.4 SPG
Career highlights: National championship, Wooden Award, Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA tournament, first-team AP All-American, SEC Player of the Year, SEC Defensive Player of the Year

Davis gave John Calipari his lone NCAA title as a two-way force who made 65% of his shots inside the arc and led the nation in blocks (186). That season, the decorated Wildcats lost just two games (on a buzzer beater at Indiana, and against Vanderbilt in the SEC tournament) and beat their NCAA tournament opponents by an average of 11.8 PPG.

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