All-Decade Teams 

All right, the raison d'etre for this blog, or at least its title - all-decade teams for college basketball's best.  In putting these together, the goal is a lineup that balances selecting the best individual players while putting together a lineup that would actually fit together on the floor.  Because it's kind of silly for the "bench" player to be the sixth best person from the school - I pick the starters for every team first, then 3 bench players, then, for the same reason, the last 2 bench players.   I try to pick each team to be as good as possible, but again, with an eye towards making sure that all four teams (1st, 2nd, 3rd and HM) are competitive.

Imagine there is a single coach or GM who is trying to get as many wins out of the four squads as possible - like a high school tennis team - while trying to make each team as good as possible, i.e. no cheating and dropping your best players down a team.  Given the diminishing size of front court players and proliferation of 3 and even 4 guard lineups in college basketball over the last couple decades, this issue arises the most with regard to point guards.  For instance, you could make a strong argument for a starting UNC outside trio of Lawson, Felton and, say McCants; with Marshall, Ellington, and Barnes on the 2nd team.   But I'd rather split up Lawson and Felton - so that the 2nd team has a point guard that could start on most other 1st teams.  It's not like there would be a big downgrade (if at all) with a 1st team of Lawson (or Felton), McCants and Barnes. 

Each player can only be selected once - which unfortunately does advantage the one-and-done assembly line schools (i.e. Kentucky) - and that usually means their last season even if it is not their best statistical season, but not always.

So those are the rules of this silly made-up mental exercise/procrastination tool, and here is the first team...