The Decade that was: The best players

Over the next few weeks, I will be looking back at the past 10 years of college basketball and remembering the best players, the heroes, the villains and a few other random ideas I have. For these purposes, the 10 years I will be looking at are the seasons that begun in 2000-2009. You only had to play one year in this range to be eligible but more weight was given to those who played the majority of their career in said decade.

With that, let's get to our first list of the best players this decade. I have my top 2 teams each made up of 5 players. Much like the All-American teams, no favoritism toward position was given. Also, after a long internal debate, I decided to give everyone a fair look for the list, even those that only played one year. At first, there was going to be a two year requirement but I realized it would be excluding a majority of the top players to roll through college basketball this year.

Let's get to the first team in no particular order:

G - Juan Dixon, Maryland

- 16.1 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists
MOP 2002 NCAA tournament

Dixon is definitely the first guard I would pick from the decade. Not only was he a great scorer, he was an awesome defender (2.4 steals per game, the same number of turnovers he averaged) and a leader for the Terps.

G - Jameer Nelson

-16.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 5.7 assists

A player with a similar style to Dixon, Nelson burst onto the scene his senior year but he was only doing what he had been doing his whole career at St. Joe's. He was a great 4 year player although he had to do most of it under the radar.

F - Carmelo Anthony

- 22.2 points, 10 rebounds

Melo left a major mark on college basketball by leading the Cuse to a national title in 2003. He went on to be in one the best draft classes in NBA history and left Syracuse fans wondering just how many titles they could have won with the likes of Anthony, Warrick, McNamara and others.

F - Kevin Durant

-25.8 points, 11.1 rebounds, 40% 3 point

Another freshman who had a monster year before leaving for the NBA, Durant captivated the fans of college basketball during 2007. The wiry player could score from anywhere, as he had 30 of 35 games over 20 points.

F- Tyler Hansbrough

-20.2 points, 8.6 rebounds

We touched on Hansbrough in the last post as he will go down as one of the best ACC players of all time. Hansbrough was a steady contributor for all 4 years of his career and ended his career as the leading scorer in the ACC.

Second Team:

G: Chris Paul: Wake Forest
G: JJ Redick: Duke
F: Adam Morrison: Gonzaga
F: Blake Griffin: Oklahoma
F: Shane Battier: Duke

The second team is headlined by a pair of Dukies in Redick and Battier. We have no one and dones on the list, as both Griffin and Paul stayed for their sophomore seasons before leaving for the greener pastures of the NBA. We also have a great individual rivalry between Redick and Morrison (although the two teams never met and both had their season end in disappointment).

The second team was a hard decision as their were many great players left (TJ Ford, Ty Lawson, Joakim Noah, Michael Beasley, Ben Gordon, etc).

Any egregious errors? Any changes you would make?