Bob Lutz: Where do the 21st century stars rank in Shocker history?

I had the bright idea 14 years ago to try and rank every Wichita State basketball player from 1 through the end. Around 290 players during the Shockers’ modern era, which for our purposes started in 1951-52, when Ralph Miller took over as coach.

The list we’re introducing this season of the all-time Shockers’ Top 100, isn’t quite as ambitious. But it was just as difficult because, in case you’ve missed it, a lot has happened in the past 14 years. And a lot of really good Shocker basketball players have come through during the Mark Turgeon and Gregg Marshall eras.

The Shockers have reached two Sweet 16s and a Final Four since we last put a list of all-time greats together. They’ve beaten Kansas, put together a 35-0 streak, took Kentucky to the wire in an all-time NCAA Tournament classic and knocked off top-seeded Gonzaga on the way to their first Final Four in 48 years.

So the Top 100 list looks vastly different from the top 100 players on the 2002 list.

Forward Vernon Smith, from Newton, was No. 100 in 2002. He started for the Shockers’ Final Four team in 1964-65 and was a fine player. But he’s no longer in the Top 100 because of the evolution of Shocker basketball.

Quite a few players from the previous Top 100 dropped off the list, in fact, because so many good players have been coming out of WSU over the past 14 years. Some great players. Some who will rank extremely high on the new list.

Of course, lists are subjective. We took into account a lot of factors when putting this list together, weighing factors such as statistics, team success and intangibles. We did our best to avoid taking into consideration post-WSU professional careers, attempting to limit the criteria to what these players did while at Wichita State.

We hope you enjoy this list and that it elicits debate. Friendly debate, mind you. It’s fun to look at Shocker basketball through a historical perspective and the challenge here was to integrate so many new players into this list.

So, let’s get started with the list, which will run weekly for the next 10 weeks. Please send us your thoughts at sportsdesk@wichitaeagle.com. Is a player too high? Too low? Missing altogether? We want to hear from you.

This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 3:04 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Where do the 21st century stars rank in Shocker history?."