My Top 10 Titans

This is the 18th season I have been around Illinois Wesleyan basketball. Since my freshman year at IWU in 1989-90, I've had the pleasure of seeing some tremendous players wear the green and white.

I took time recently to rank my personal Top 10. It was a tough task, because a) the situations each player played in were so different, and b) it is just generally difficult to compare a point-guard to a post player, etc. So the following is my Top 10 list with each player evaluated solely on his own merits ("all things equal", so to speak)...

1. Zach Freeman (2007)
2. Bryan Crabtree (1997)
3. Korey Coon (2000)
4. Jeff Kuehl (1990)
5. Adam Dauksas (2006)
6. Chris Simich (1996)
7. Luke Kasten (2003)
8. Keelan Amelianovich (2006)
9. Brent Niebrugge (1998)
10. Steve Kuehl (1993)

The decision between my top 3 was extremely difficult. I almost chickened out and listed a 3-way tie for first. All things considered though, I give Zach the slight nod as the best Illinois Wesleyan player I've ever seen.

How good are the guys on the list? There are two CCIW Most Outstanding Players who aren't on it -- David Caldwell (1991) and John Lipic (1994). Steve Kuehl and Luke Kasten are the only members of my top 10 that did not win the M.O.P...Kuehl should have won it in 1992 and Kasten lost out to a tremendous season by Wheaton's Joel Kolmodin in 2003.