Method Man said:

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Acie Law was better than both of them.

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Just talking the last decade, for me it is Acie Law at the top but then right below, there a tier of guards that I have all very fond memories of: Dominique Kirk, Donald Sloan, Elston Turner, Alex Caruso, and now Admon Gilder.

I definitely see potential in TJ Starks to maybe work his way into my heart to join that group below Acie. Somebody would have to really have a super special season to ever supplant Acie.

Rank them please

Law
Caruso
Gilder
Sloan
Kirk
Turner

Hardest choice was Gilder ahead of Sloan.

I got
Law
Sloan
Caruso
Turner
Gilder
Kirk

Really Turner is a wild card because he's a better scorer than the others. Could argue for him over Caruso.

How would y'all rank them if only considering defense?

That's hard to say because of different defenses. Gilder certainly seems able to lock people down on the rare occasion we ask him to. And Sloan and Law weren't asked to guard the other teams best player in part to help them save energy for offense and in part because they had teammates who were better at it.

But, we can only judge by what we can see, so I'd say Kirk, Roland and Dash were all better than Gilder but he's not far behind them. He's better than Sloan or Law.

I didn't notice you also had Caruso above Sloan. I love Caruso, but no.

What's your reason? I think there's a valid argument either way.

bobinator said:

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Sloan was better than Gilder, maybe if Gilder balls out of control this year he might pass him, but I don't even think that one is very close right now.

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If you compare stats between Gilder and Sloan through their junior years, I would give Gilder the slight edge. He had a higher 3FG%, generated more steals and had a higher scoring average. Other stats were pretty comparable.

Sloan had a great senior season but you also have to consider that Gilder was less than 100% for half his junior season.

Caruso before Sloan and Gilder after Sloan.

What are we talking about here stats only, better player at Aggieland, better impact on the program or best player after their tenure at A&M?

I rank them all #1

Sur enjoyed their basketball

I love Sloan but you seem to be overeating him

Sloan was first team all conference in a much better conference and carried us to wins at the end of games. How is he overrating him?

Yeah, in no world was Caruso overall better than Sloan.

He was likely a better "game manager", but in college hoops if one guard is putting up 18/game and the other is putting up 8/game, there's really no debate.

Sloan had the "Baptism" slam dunk in Waco...that puts him #1 in my book.

Yep. He was playing a lot from his freshman year.

free_mhayden said:

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Yeah, in no world was Caruso overall better than Sloan.

He was likely a better "game manager", but in college hoops if one guard is putting up 18/game and the other is putting up 8/game, there's really no debate.

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I get the stats argument, though if I was building a college team and had to choose between either a senior Sloan or a senior Caruso, I feel like I'd have a really hard time choosing.

What if you were tied and there were two minutes left on the clock?

While I liked Caruso's dunk on Henderson cmon.

mallen said:

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If you compare stats between Gilder and Sloan through their junior years, I would give Gilder the slight edge. He had a higher 3FG%, generated more steals and had a higher scoring average. Other stats were pretty comparable.

Sloan had a great senior season but you also have to consider that Gilder was less than 100% for half his junior season.

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Yeah but we're not comparing them just through their junior years. Like I said, if Gilder comes back and has a great senior year, then I could see him possibly passing Sloan. But right now, Sloan was better.

We can parse out what "better" means I guess, and whether we're talking about at their best or over the course of their whole college careers, but really either way I think Sloan was definitely better than Caruso, and so far better than Gilder.

Method Man said:

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While I liked Caruso's dunk on Henderson cmon.

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BTW, I think I'd go with your ranking.

Law -> Sloan -> Caruso

I just had to think about it some on Sloan versus Alex. But Sloan's scoring was so much better, I agree with the Sloan pick.

Now in terms of the dunks, Caruso's actually was a bit more technically impressive to me than the Babtism. because Alex was dribbling around his back and dunking on a guy in traffic. And the guy he dunked on was ole Marshall.

Sloan's dunk was all by himself, but the huge extra brownie points he gets is while Caruso only dunked on one trash player, Sloan dunked on an entire trash fanbase.

Pumpkinhead said:

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free_mhayden said:

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Yeah, in no world was Caruso overall better than Sloan.

He was likely a better "game manager", but in college hoops if one guard is putting up 18/game and the other is putting up 8/game, there's really no debate.

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I get the stats argument, though if I was building a college team and had to choose between either a senior Sloan or a senior Caruso, I feel like I'd have a really hard time choosing.

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18pts a game for Sloan as a senior in a tough Big 12.

8pts a game for Caruso as a senior in a mediocre SEC.



The only case you could make for building around Caruso instead of Sloan is if you had 2-3 other scorers on the team and didn't need Alex to score.

free_mhayden said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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free_mhayden said:

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Yeah, in no world was Caruso overall better than Sloan.

He was likely a better "game manager", but in college hoops if one guard is putting up 18/game and the other is putting up 8/game, there's really no debate.

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I get the stats argument, though if I was building a college team and had to choose between either a senior Sloan or a senior Caruso, I feel like I'd have a really hard time choosing.

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18pts a game for Sloan as a senior in a tough Big 12.

8pts a game for Caruso as a senior in a mediocre SEC.



The only case you could make for building around Caruso instead of Sloan is if you had 2-3 other scorers on the team and didn't need Alex to score.

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Ya'll sold me. Sloan over Caruso.

free_mhayden said:

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The only case you could make for building around Caruso instead of Sloan is if you had 2-3 other scorers on the team and didn't need Alex to score.

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Agreed. Like there's one specific scenario where you'd rather have Caruso, but Sloan was clearly a better all around player.

Sloan punched a few throughout his time.

Not quite there yet. What I'm having a hard time with is Gilder belongs above Sloan

free_mhayden said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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free_mhayden said:

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Yeah, in no world was Caruso overall better than Sloan.

He was likely a better "game manager", but in college hoops if one guard is putting up 18/game and the other is putting up 8/game, there's really no debate.

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I get the stats argument, though if I was building a college team and had to choose between either a senior Sloan or a senior Caruso, I feel like I'd have a really hard time choosing.

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18pts a game for Sloan as a senior in a tough Big 12.

8pts a game for Caruso as a senior in a mediocre SEC.



The only case you could make for building around Caruso instead of Sloan is if you had 2-3 other scorers on the team and didn't need Alex to score.

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BTW, mhayden, I am not sure the schedule that Sloan played his senior year in the Big 12 was really that much more difficult than what Caruso faced his senior year.

That 2015-2016 season when Caruso was a senior, their non-conference schedule included Gonzaga, Syracuse, Texas, Baylor, Kansas State, and Iowa State. It was a pretty impressive non-con strength of schedule which is a large reason of why the Ags got a 3-seed that season.

A&M actually went 4-1 versus the Big 12 that season, losing only to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Sweet Sixteen.

As I said in my last post, ya'll talked me into ranking Sloan over Caruso. But I don't think there was that strong an argument for devaluing Caruso's senior year stats. The overall SOS that season was pretty solid.

Sloan's non-conference included #19 Clemson, #8 WVU, #22 Minnesota and @ #22 Washington.

He also went up against 3 #1 teams in conference play (Texas and Kansas twice).

All of that after watching his friend break his leg in the aforementioned Washington game.

I think Sloan is clearly better than Caruso without even worrying about their schedules. I know offseason threads are all about getting lost in the weeds, but I don't see how anyone could make a logical case for thinking Caruso is better than Sloan except in the one specific hypothetical where you already have a few other really good scorers on your team, but nobody that can pass the ball particularly well.

I also think the same thing about thinking Gilder is better than Sloan at this point.