Clay Henry: Options Abound For All-Time Starting 5

The assignment was to pick my all-time starting five from the 100-year history of Arkansas basketball.

That sounds simple, but do you play with a 3-point line and with a shot clock? Most of those 100 years there was neither. Can you dunk? There were some years dunks were not allowed.

OK, that’s silly stuff. Forget rules. This is anything you want.

And, I’m allowing hand checking, so Corey Beck and Clint McDaniel are lethal weapons that would toy with the opposition on this mythical Arkansas team.

I’d love to know how many points Marvin Delph would score in today’s game. He did not get three points for all of those bombs—and some say that’s mostly what he shot—during his four years (1975-78).

Delph is seventh on the school’s all-time scoring list with 1,742 points. Todd Day leads with 2,395 and played in the 3-point era (1989-92) in a fast-paced game. Day had 226 3-pointers.

How many of Delph’s 253 field goals were threes? And, with a shot clock and added value for a bomb, would Delph have gotten more chances?

Again, I’m delaying the task. It’s sort of silly, but that’s the sort of thing I think about laying awake at night, perhaps just looking for a different angle.

It’s really not hard to pick a starting five for my mythical team. I’ll get some help from the NBA. It’s sort of a cop out, falling back to their pro career.

Read more from Clay Henry on his all-time Razorback men’s basketball starting five on Hogs+ today.