austin nba的八卦，Yahoo名人娛樂都在討論

矮個子的籃球夢，一直被低估的C.J. McCollum。

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是的，大家不要懷疑，照片中那個運球的矮個子，就是現在拓荒者雙槍之一，C.J. McCollum。

當時高中時期的他身高僅有5呎2吋(約157公分)，可能比電腦或手機螢幕前的我們都要矮一顆頭。

這種身高，別說美國，就連在台灣，你聽到他說他想要成為職業籃球員，相信你的反應不會是鼓勵，而是嘲笑。

畢竟不到160公分的身高，在籃球場上真的太不起眼。

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當然了，故事沒有就此結束，C.J. McCollum沒有因為自己的身高不如人就放棄，他依然刻苦練球，而上天似乎感受到他的決心，高中四年讓他從5呎2吋長到6呎3吋(約189公分)，整整長高了32公分。

只不過，因為之前受限於身高的關係，C.J. McCollum即使高四表現非常優異，卻依然不被NCAA傳統名校看好，最後他加入了一間名不見經傳的Lehigh大學。

C.J. McCollum沒有此灰心喪志，在Lehigh大學始終努力練球，即使默默無名，依然努力提升自己。

一如以往，不被任何人看好，但是比任何人都努力。

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C.J. McCollum籃球路的交叉點，出現在2012年，當時，他大三，Lehigh正準備打NCAA錦標賽。

結果，Lehigh在64強，也就是第一輪，碰到的對手是由Coach K帶領的藍魔鬼，Duke大學。

C.J. McCollum再次面臨沒人看好的逆境之中，而他面對逆境的態度，也跟以往一模一樣。

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C.J. McCollum在The Player’s Tribune網站中寫道：「當大家知道我們要在第一輪碰到Duke，整個學校都瘋了。」

「有一天，我正從校外宿舍要走去學校，正巧看到一個女籃隊的鄰居就在對街，我就走過去跟她打招呼。」

「她說，『嘿，C.J.，怎麼樣？第一輪打Duke興奮嗎？』」

「打Duke不興奮，打敗他們才會。」

「她有點翻我白眼，『對啦，但誰要去守Austin Rivers？』」

「嗯…我。」

「她說：『哦，祝你好運。』」

「我該說謝謝？」

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「女籃隊員說：『嘿，如果你有時間的話，你覺得你可以幫我把我的電話號碼給他嗎？』(指Rivers)」

「我永遠都不會忘記那個景象。那重重傷了我的自尊心。不過我可以理解她為什麼不看好我們，畢竟我們只是第15種子(Duke第2)，但是我在那個星期還是不斷告訴所有人，我們可以擊敗Duke。」

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在那個星期，C.J. McCollum告訴教練，如果他可以拿下30分並送出5助攻，他們就可以贏。

結果那一場比賽，他拿了30分6助攻。

默默無名的Lehigh，擊敗赫赫有名的Duke，震驚全美，而C.J. McCollum之名，也隨著這件事在一夜之間響徹全美。

比賽結束回到更衣間，C.J. McCollum手機頓時湧進上百條留言。

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C.J. McCollum回憶那場比賽，直說他在比賽開始沒多久，就覺得手感發燙。

事實上，整場比賽，就看C.J. McCollum一直殺進殺出，鼎鼎有名的Duke大學，沒人守得住他。

賽後Coach K直言，C.J. McCollum是全場打得最優秀的球員。

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之後，C.J. McCollum成為Lehigh大學史上第一個，也是唯一一個打進NBA的人。

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⚠️後來Austin Rivers在2012梯第10順位被紐奧良黃蜂給選去，他也是那一屆Duke選秀順位表現最好的球員。

⚠️至於C.J. McCollum在2013梯第10順位被波特蘭拓荒者給選去，他在Lehigh大學打滿四年，用超強的得分能力證明了自己的價值，成功成為樂透球員，創造一個勵志的故事。

且他現在已經是聯盟頂級的得分好手，拓荒者招牌雙槍之一。
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快艇失去了Chris Paul，但他們後續補強動作頻繁，仍在西區保持不容忽視的競爭力！

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快艇以如此白菜價，兩年1230萬，第二年球員選項的合約得到歐洲最佳控衛Milos Teodosic，他可是被多數人視為目前NBA聯盟外的最佳籃球員，充滿著相當高的籃球智慧與傳球視野，而弱點可能就是防守不夠好。

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但快艇禁區有DAJ坐鎮，或許能將傷害降低不少，加上有看過去年里約奧運的人都知道，Teodosic絕對有能力在這最高殿堂打球，且組織能力相當驚人。

對於失去CP3這樣組織天王後，補進Teodosic可以讓快艇在進攻端仍保有流暢度，並能控制好節奏。

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除此之外快艇、金塊、老鷹也完成三方交易（促成先簽後換的運作模式），快艇送出老將Jamal Crawford，然後得到金塊過去當家小前鋒Danilo Gallinari(3年6500萬)，一舉解決了過去一直以來在側翼端的戰力不足。

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Gallinari是一名非常好用的球員，有高度、有準度，且他也能打無球做埋伏，補進他，代表快艇新球季仍能讓人期待。

因為加上他與Teodosic，快艇還有從火箭那得到的Patrick Beverley、Lou Williams和Sam Dekker與Montrezl Harrell，再配上原隊裡的Blake Griffin、DeAndre Jordan、Austin Rivers、Wesley Johnson，快艇的陣容深度其實很夠。

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我認為應該還會有後續交易，可能是這夏天，不然就是新球季交易截止日前，因為後場球員還是有點多，要是我是快艇總管，我會嘗試把Austin Rivers當籌碼交易掉，但Doc有可能這樣幹嗎？

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不過就整個夏天的操作，快艇已經把CP3的離開傷害盡可能降到最低了，他們在西戰線上還是保有競爭力，只要BG健康，拿到季後賽門票應該是沒問題。

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快艇陣容恐將分崩離析，大家將各奔東西？

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隨著Chris Paul重磅的被交易到休士頓火箭後，所有人都在看，洛杉磯快艇整支球隊到底會不會被拆散？

目前有消息傳出J.J. Redick沒有意願再留在快艇，將以自由球員身分投入自由市場。

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這位快艇昔日的當家射手，雖然現在已經33歲，但像他這樣的無球跑位的三分球好手，職業生涯還能很長，會是許多球隊想增添外圍火力的進補好對象。

J.J.已經連續三年都締造三分球至少200轟的成就，且三年命中率都至少42.5%以上，這一點相當不簡單，這也是他這夏天很棒的一個履歷，肯定會有不少球隊向他報價。

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而相信J.J.會很感恩自己曾經與CP3共事，真的就在他來到快艇後，不論是數據、準度、自信都比以往有了很大的提升，才讓人真正看到當年杜克不可一世的神射進攻武器，在NBA終於是兌了現。

如果J.J.真的如消息所傳出的不願留快艇，那他這夏天應該會是自由市場很夯的球隊拼圖，只不過會落腳何處，真的猜不出來.....

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至於Blake Griffin，現在CP3已經離開了，他有沒有可能因此留隊？現在快艇自己方面是保有著信心，但真的會那麼樂觀嗎？

如果留在快艇，雖然多了Patrick Beverley、Lou Williams兩個後衛，還有Montrezl Harrell、Sam Dekker和Kyle Wiltjer、Darrun Hilliard、DeAndre Liggins這些小將。

一時之間快艇感覺多了很多戰力，但球場上最多只能擺五人，且快艇球迷最了解，沒有CP3的快艇，競爭力到底差多少？很多人都低估了CP3他超凡的領導力與主宰力。

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快艇現在陣容將可能會是：

C - DeAndre Jordan
PF - Montrezl Harrell
SF - Sam Dekker / Wesley Johnson
SG - Jamal Crawford / Lou Williams
PG - Patrick Beverley / Austin Rivers

還有剩下比較稚嫩的DeAndre Liggins、Kyle Wiltjer、Darrun Hilliard，整體陣容老實講，就我而言，快艇的競爭力是下滑不少，即使BG歸隊也是，且Doc Rivers的用人，有時讓人很難懂，這都是變數。

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Patrick Beverley的防守是很棒，但CP3同樣也是防守尖兵，而最重要的是PB沒有CP3那樣超巨的領導與組織能力，這一點是影響最大的。

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快艇是要著重於未來才對，如果要衝當下，Jamal Crawford或Austin Rivers至少要賣掉一個，讓後場不要那麼擁擠，並在小前鋒上做出補強，那還有一點點機會。

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快艇這交易會賺，主要還是原本失去CP3什麼都得不到，但他硬是給快艇生出了一堆籌碼，這確實將CP3離開的傷害盡可能降低了。

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假使BG留快艇，快艇的核心主幹還是差不多現在這樣，那可能也是只是季後賽後段班的球隊，現在就看BG到底想不想換換環境衝擊總冠軍。

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如果BG也沒辦法留下，我認為快艇就會全力推動重建了，這也是他們找來Jerry West的目的。

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For those who were there at McDonough Gymnasium on August 4, 1994, few will forget the arrival of a 6-0 freshman guard who needed no introduction. The rumors of Allen Iverson's arrival to the Kenner Summer League were true, and by game's end, Iverson had scored 40 points. By the Sunday afternoon final, before an overflow crowd inside the gym and a crowd of those outside who could not get in, Iverson finished a combined 99 point effort in three days against some of the best collegiate talent in the city. This, of course, from a player that had not played organized basketball in over a year.

The Allen Iverson years had begun.

A brief profile can't do justice to tell the story of one of the greatest pure athletes ever to attend Georgetown, a man without peer in his talent over two years at the collegiate level. Just a year before his Kenner debut, few would have imagined Allen Iverson ever playing college basketball.

Iverson was not only a 31 point a game guard for Bethel HS, but a football player of tremendous skill. As a quarterback and defensive back his sophomore season, he produced nearly 1,600 yards offense and 13 INT's. By his junior year, he accounted for 2,204 yards, 21 touchdowns by rush or interception, and 14 touchdown passes. In a region which has produced NFL quarterbacks such as Michael Vick and Aaron Brooks, there are those who will still say "Bubbachuck" Iverson was better than both of them. Schools such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Duke, and three dozen other top programs across two sports were vying for perhaps the greatest two-sport star the Tidewater had ever produced.

When he led Bethel to the state title, someone asked what it was like to win the title. "I'm going to get one in basketball now," which he did. In late February, 1993, en route to the state title he had promised, Iverson was one of a large group of Bethel teammates at a Hampton bowling alley when a fight broke out between students from rival schools trading racial insults. Three people were hurt in the aftermath. Despite conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses and no clear evidence linking him to the crime, Iverson was one of four black students arrested.

Racial tensions were heightened when the prosecutors passed on a misdemeanor assault charge and charged Iverson with three counts of felony "maiming by mob", which carried a 20 year prison sentence. Despite video evidence which did not place Iverson in the crowd at the time of the fight, he was convicted in a racially charged case.

The 20 year sentence was later reduced to five, and Iverson was granted clemency by Gov. Douglas Wilder three months later, sending Iverson to a detention program at an alternative high school. (The original charges were thrown out by the Virginia court of appeals in 1995.)

In the spring of 1994, with Iverson still in detention, his mother approached John Thompson with a plea to help her son get to college and start a new chapter of his life. Though Thompson had passed on a number of troubled players in the past, he offered Iverson a scholarship in April of that season, contingent upon his completion of high school and his legal release, which was granted 48 hours before his Kenner debut.

By his debut in a Georgetown uniform in November 1994, Iverson had been the subject of intense national media attention. In the Hoyas' annual exhibition with Fort Hood, Iverson scored 36 points, five assists, and three steals in 23 minutes. Local columnists were in awe.

"Hang his number up in the rafters," wrote Tom Knott of the Washington Times. "He's better than most of the point guards in the NBA right now."

"I saw Lew Alcindor, Austin Carr, Moses Malone, Alonzo Mourning, Albert King, Ralph Sampson and Patrick Ewing play in high school," said the Post's Thomas Boswell. "Now, I have two memories on my first impression top shelf. The man who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Allen Iverson."

Iverson opened the 1994-95 season in Memphis, TN in a 97-79 loss to defending NCAA champion Arkansas, scoring 19 points. Six days later, he scored 31 in a nationally televised game with DePaul, followed by 30 four days later against Providence, leading the team in scoring 22 times that season. His only game under double figures for the season (and his career) was a game where he played only ten minutes in a loss at Villanova, a game Georgetown coach John Thompson threatened to forfeit when a group of Villanova students paraded through the Spectrum in black and white-striped prison garb, with a sign comparing Iverson to O.J. Simpson.

"You accept certain ribbing, but there is a line," Thompson said after the game. "I can condone any Christian university sitting and watching that happen...If that happens [again], I going to walk. It that simple." Such fan behavior was not seen thereafter.

Later in the season, with President Bill Clinton in attendance, Iverson scored 26 as the Hoyas routed Villanova, 77-52. He followed it up with 21 to beat Syracuse, 28 versus St. John's, 31 in a Big East tournament opener with Miami (a game that saw Iverson outscore the entire Hurricane team at the end of the first half), and 27 versus Connecticut in the semis. In the NCAA regional, he scored 24 in the loss, but held Jeff McInnis to 1 for 8 shooting. By season's end, Allen Iverson had been named Big East Player of the Week nine times, Rookie of the Year, a second team all-conference selection, and honorable mention All-America recipient. Having led the Hoyas in points and steals en route to the school's first NCAA regional appearance since 1989, Iverson was already a star. By 1996, he would become nothing less than a sensation.

The leaser of a talented team that featured four future NBA stars, Allen Iverson dominated the 1995-96 season as no Hoya has done before or since. Adept at the crossover dribble that became his NBA trademark, lightning quick to the basket, and able to score on opponents at will, Iverson was largely unstoppable. Even more impressive was an effort to improve his shooting touch, for despite averaging 20.4 points as a freshman in 1994-95 (2nd all time for a Georgetown rookie), Iverson only shot 39 percent from the field, 23 percent from three, and 19 percent from three in Big East play. For his sophomore season, his field shooting increased to 48 percent, his three point mark to 36 percent. The results were striking.

In the pre-season NIT versus Temple, Iverson shot 50 percent for 24 points and a career high 10 rebounds. After a 23 point effort against Georgia Tech, he scored a career high 40 against Arizona, one of two 40+ point games that season. In Big East play, Iverson could ring up points with ease, such as the game where he scored 21 points in only 20 minutes against Rutgers.

In the final three months of the season, Iverson led the team in 21 of the team's 25 games: 40 against Seton Hall, 39 against St. John's, 34 against Providence. He scored 30 in a wild win over Memphis, and followed it up two nights later with 26 in an upset of #3 Connecticut. For the game, Iverson totalled 26 points, 8 steals, and 6 assists, including a soaring dunk past Ray Allen and the Huskies. It was the highest ranked team any Georgetown team had defeated since 1988. His best performance of the season might have been a 37 point, 8 rebound, and three steal effort against #6 ranked Villanova, playing only 27 minutes. The 106-68 win represents the sixth largest margin of victory and the largest margin ever by a Georgetown team against a top 10 opponent.

Iverson was capable of an off game; unfortunately, two came at particularly inopportune times for the Hoyas' hopes for a national title. Entering the 1996 Big East Final with a #1 seed on the line, Iverson shot 4 for 15 and the Hoyas lost by one, 76-75. As a result of the loss, Georgetown was seeded #2 behind top ranked UMass, and in the regional final between the two teams Iverson struggled with a 6 for 21 effort in the loss. For the season, though, his statistics were astonishing: his 926 points broke the then-record by 124 points. He set new single season marks in field goals, field goal attempts, three pointers, three point attempts, steals, minutes, and scoring average (25.0), the latter of which ranked 7th in the nation that season. The Big East's defensive player of the year, he was named a consensus All-American amidst numerous other awards.

If he could somehow have stayed four years, Iverson undoubtedly would have shredded the Georgetown record books. But whatever hopes existed for Iverson to resist the lure of the NBA were short lived, particularly with the news that one of his sisters had fallen ill. Seeing the opportunity to take care of his family's medical needs, Iverson announced for the NBA draft soon after the end of his sophomore season, becoming the first Georgetown player in the Thompson era to do so. The compact that had bound so many great Hoya players to a four year commitment--from Ewing to Williams, Mourning to Mutombo--had now been broken.

The first pick in the 1996 NBA draft, Iverson signed a $3.9 million contract with the Philadelphia 76ers and a ten year, $50 million deal with Reebok. His effort on the court is well known and respected, but for all the media portrayals of Iverson as the anti-hero, an icon of a "Hip Hop Nation" that ran counter to the NBA's carefully constructed marketing image, or as a symbol of all that is allegedly wrong in professional basketball, he remains remarkably well-grounded.

Married for six years and the father of two, Iverson is fiercely loyal to his teammates and to his childhood friends. He considered it an honor to play for the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 when other NBA stars passed on the offer, and maintains a number of charity events to benefit his local community. In comparison to his NBA career, his years at Georgetown were largely free of the intense media and personal scrutiny, providing at least two years where he could grow as a person as well as a basketball player.

His arrival and exit at Georgetown is still a source of debate in some circles, but his performance on the court is not. Allen Iverson found a home, even briefly, at the Hilltop, and remains one of its brightest stars. "In my heart, I know I'm a basketball player," Iverson said following his 2006 NBA trade, "being that I know I can play with the best of them."

From that first Kenner League game on 1994, no one has doubted it since.

至2008歷時十年，2018最激勵人心的故事!
Respect for D Rose
我想這就是所謂的堅持！

勘誤啟示:
2015-16賽季應該是42勝40敗，不是20敗
感謝Austin Shih大大提醒!
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大家好，我是 Gary G腿🍗
好久不見了！
提醒您最近天冷多添衣物，喝熱湯溫水蓋厚棉被

謝謝大家觀看！
覺得不錯的話歡迎訂閱按鈴鐺
也分享給所有喜歡Rose的朋友
讓我們一起回味這精采故事!

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資料來源及音樂:

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Derrick-Rose-Emotion-Chicago-Bulls-Adidas-170198656.html

https://nypost.com/2016/06/25/how-derrick-rose-escaped-and-inspired-the-deadly-city-that-shaped-him/

https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/rosede01.html

https://www.nba.com/bulls/gameday/derrick-rose-bulls-and-growing-chicago

Macklemore x Ryan Lewis "WINGS"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAg3uMlNyHA

Chance the Rapper - Cocoa Butter Kisses
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sCaE1rPP9w

Fabolous - My Time ft. Jeremih
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAFWA7qxC0E

Diddy - Dirty Money - Coming Home ft. Skylar Grey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ImCpNqbJw

For those who were there at McDonough Gymnasium on August 4, 1994, few will forget the arrival of a 6-0 freshman guard who needed no introduction. The rumors of Allen Iverson's arrival to the Kenner Summer League were true, and by game's end, Iverson had scored 40 points. By the Sunday afternoon final, before an overflow crowd inside the gym and a crowd of those outside who could not get in, Iverson finished a combined 99 point effort in three days against some of the best collegiate talent in the city. This, of course, from a player that had not played organized basketball in over a year.

The Allen Iverson years had begun.

A brief profile can't do justice to tell the story of one of the greatest pure athletes ever to attend Georgetown, a man without peer in his talent over two years at the collegiate level. Just a year before his Kenner debut, few would have imagined Allen Iverson ever playing college basketball.

Iverson was not only a 31 point a game guard for Bethel HS, but a football player of tremendous skill. As a quarterback and defensive back his sophomore season, he produced nearly 1,600 yards offense and 13 INT's. By his junior year, he accounted for 2,204 yards, 21 touchdowns by rush or interception, and 14 touchdown passes. In a region which has produced NFL quarterbacks such as Michael Vick and Aaron Brooks, there are those who will still say "Bubbachuck" Iverson was better than both of them. Schools such as Arkansas, Kentucky, Duke, and three dozen other top programs across two sports were vying for perhaps the greatest two-sport star the Tidewater had ever produced.

When he led Bethel to the state title, someone asked what it was like to win the title. "I'm going to get one in basketball now," which he did. In late February, 1993, en route to the state title he had promised, Iverson was one of a large group of Bethel teammates at a Hampton bowling alley when a fight broke out between students from rival schools trading racial insults. Three people were hurt in the aftermath. Despite conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses and no clear evidence linking him to the crime, Iverson was one of four black students arrested.

Racial tensions were heightened when the prosecutors passed on a misdemeanor assault charge and charged Iverson with three counts of felony "maiming by mob", which carried a 20 year prison sentence. Despite video evidence which did not place Iverson in the crowd at the time of the fight, he was convicted in a racially charged case.

The 20 year sentence was later reduced to five, and Iverson was granted clemency by Gov. Douglas Wilder three months later, sending Iverson to a detention program at an alternative high school. (The original charges were thrown out by the Virginia court of appeals in 1995.)

In the spring of 1994, with Iverson still in detention, his mother approached John Thompson with a plea to help her son get to college and start a new chapter of his life. Though Thompson had passed on a number of troubled players in the past, he offered Iverson a scholarship in April of that season, contingent upon his completion of high school and his legal release, which was granted 48 hours before his Kenner debut.

By his debut in a Georgetown uniform in November 1994, Iverson had been the subject of intense national media attention. In the Hoyas' annual exhibition with Fort Hood, Iverson scored 36 points, five assists, and three steals in 23 minutes. Local columnists were in awe.

"Hang his number up in the rafters," wrote Tom Knott of the Washington Times. "He's better than most of the point guards in the NBA right now."

"I saw Lew Alcindor, Austin Carr, Moses Malone, Alonzo Mourning, Albert King, Ralph Sampson and Patrick Ewing play in high school," said the Post's Thomas Boswell. "Now, I have two memories on my first impression top shelf. The man who became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Allen Iverson."

Iverson opened the 1994-95 season in Memphis, TN in a 97-79 loss to defending NCAA champion Arkansas, scoring 19 points. Six days later, he scored 31 in a nationally televised game with DePaul, followed by 30 four days later against Providence, leading the team in scoring 22 times that season. His only game under double figures for the season (and his career) was a game where he played only ten minutes in a loss at Villanova, a game Georgetown coach John Thompson threatened to forfeit when a group of Villanova students paraded through the Spectrum in black and white-striped prison garb, with a sign comparing Iverson to O.J. Simpson.

"You accept certain ribbing, but there is a line," Thompson said after the game. "I can condone any Christian university sitting and watching that happen...If that happens [again], I going to walk. It that simple." Such fan behavior was not seen thereafter.

Later in the season, with President Bill Clinton in attendance, Iverson scored 26 as the Hoyas routed Villanova, 77-52. He followed it up with 21 to beat Syracuse, 28 versus St. John's, 31 in a Big East tournament opener with Miami (a game that saw Iverson outscore the entire Hurricane team at the end of the first half), and 27 versus Connecticut in the semis. In the NCAA regional, he scored 24 in the loss, but held Jeff McInnis to 1 for 8 shooting. By season's end, Allen Iverson had been named Big East Player of the Week nine times, Rookie of the Year, a second team all-conference selection, and honorable mention All-America recipient. Having led the Hoyas in points and steals en route to the school's first NCAA regional appearance since 1989, Iverson was already a star. By 1996, he would become nothing less than a sensation.

The leaser of a talented team that featured four future NBA stars, Allen Iverson dominated the 1995-96 season as no Hoya has done before or since. Adept at the crossover dribble that became his NBA trademark, lightning quick to the basket, and able to score on opponents at will, Iverson was largely unstoppable. Even more impressive was an effort to improve his shooting touch, for despite averaging 20.4 points as a freshman in 1994-95 (2nd all time for a Georgetown rookie), Iverson only shot 39 percent from the field, 23 percent from three, and 19 percent from three in Big East play. For his sophomore season, his field shooting increased to 48 percent, his three point mark to 36 percent. The results were striking.

In the pre-season NIT versus Temple, Iverson shot 50 percent for 24 points and a career high 10 rebounds. After a 23 point effort against Georgia Tech, he scored a career high 40 against Arizona, one of two 40+ point games that season. In Big East play, Iverson could ring up points with ease, such as the game where he scored 21 points in only 20 minutes against Rutgers.

In the final three months of the season, Iverson led the team in 21 of the team's 25 games: 40 against Seton Hall, 39 against St. John's, 34 against Providence. He scored 30 in a wild win over Memphis, and followed it up two nights later with 26 in an upset of #3 Connecticut. For the game, Iverson totalled 26 points, 8 steals, and 6 assists, including a soaring dunk past Ray Allen and the Huskies. It was the highest ranked team any Georgetown team had defeated since 1988. His best performance of the season might have been a 37 point, 8 rebound, and three steal effort against #6 ranked Villanova, playing only 27 minutes. The 106-68 win represents the sixth largest margin of victory and the largest margin ever by a Georgetown team against a top 10 opponent.

Iverson was capable of an off game; unfortunately, two came at particularly inopportune times for the Hoyas' hopes for a national title. Entering the 1996 Big East Final with a #1 seed on the line, Iverson shot 4 for 15 and the Hoyas lost by one, 76-75. As a result of the loss, Georgetown was seeded #2 behind top ranked UMass, and in the regional final between the two teams Iverson struggled with a 6 for 21 effort in the loss. For the season, though, his statistics were astonishing: his 926 points broke the then-record by 124 points. He set new single season marks in field goals, field goal attempts, three pointers, three point attempts, steals, minutes, and scoring average (25.0), the latter of which ranked 7th in the nation that season. The Big East's defensive player of the year, he was named a consensus All-American amidst numerous other awards.

If he could somehow have stayed four years, Iverson undoubtedly would have shredded the Georgetown record books. But whatever hopes existed for Iverson to resist the lure of the NBA were short lived, particularly with the news that one of his sisters had fallen ill. Seeing the opportunity to take care of his family's medical needs, Iverson announced for the NBA draft soon after the end of his sophomore season, becoming the first Georgetown player in the Thompson era to do so. The compact that had bound so many great Hoya players to a four year commitment--from Ewing to Williams, Mourning to Mutombo--had now been broken.

The first pick in the 1996 NBA draft, Iverson signed a $3.9 million contract with the Philadelphia 76ers and a ten year, $50 million deal with Reebok. His effort on the court is well known and respected, but for all the media portrayals of Iverson as the anti-hero, an icon of a "Hip Hop Nation" that ran counter to the NBA's carefully constructed marketing image, or as a symbol of all that is allegedly wrong in professional basketball, he remains remarkably well-grounded.

Married for six years and the father of two, Iverson is fiercely loyal to his teammates and to his childhood friends. He considered it an honor to play for the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 when other NBA stars passed on the offer, and maintains a number of charity events to benefit his local community. In comparison to his NBA career, his years at Georgetown were largely free of the intense media and personal scrutiny, providing at least two years where he could grow as a person as well as a basketball player.

His arrival and exit at Georgetown is still a source of debate in some circles, but his performance on the court is not. Allen Iverson found a home, even briefly, at the Hilltop, and remains one of its brightest stars. "In my heart, I know I'm a basketball player," Iverson said following his 2006 NBA trade, "being that I know I can play with the best of them."

From that first Kenner League game on 1994, no one has doubted it since.