Hall of Fame Round of 64: Pete Newell Bracket, Part II

Check out the full bracket here.

To check out the original nomination thread, click here. 

For those who love the Hall of Fame and want to track all these posts, click here or right next to the timestamp where it says "Hall of Fame".

This post's matchups: Desmond Bishop vs Geno Carlisle, Russell White vs Ed Gray

We continue on with the top half of the Joe Kapp bracket; top two matchups were posted this morning, and now we move onto the bottom two this afternoon. Polls for these matchups close next Friday at midnight. The athlete matchups are above, the athlete descriptions and polls are after the jump. Please read, vote, and debate in the comments.

#5 Desmond Bishop vs #12 Geno Carlisle

via media.scout.com

People remember Marshawn owning things on the offensive end in that UW game, but they might forget that Bishop was a one man wrecking crew on D (16 tackles and the game clinching INT). Throughout 2006 he was our defensive leader, and we certainly missed that fire in 2007.

The Firey Emotional and Vocally Inspiring Leader - this type of leader is emotional.  He’ll also have big time emotional celebrations after a big play, inspiring his teammates with confidence and energy.  But what makes this type of leader different from the Firey Emotional Cocky Leader is his ability to emotionally pick up his players.  He’s the one prowling the benches, screaming, and inspiring his teammates with words and speaches to find the heart within them to play harder and not quit.  An example of this type of leader from last year’s team would be Desmond Bishop. 

via www.ibiblio.org

From Wikipedia:

Carlisle sat out the 1996-1997 season at Cal, as required by NCAA transfer rules. During his junior season (1997-1998), he led the team in scoring and was named to the Pac-10 All-Newcomer team. As a senior, he averaged 15.9 points and 3.9 assists, and led the California Golden Bears to the post-season National Invitation Tournament title in March 1999. Carlisle converted a three-point play with 4.7 seconds left to lift the Bears to a 61-60 victory over Clemson in the tournament's championship game. He led the team in assists, and set a career high with 10 against Southern California, and scored at least 25 points six times, with a season-high of 29 in a win over North Carolina. Carlisle made 27 consecutive free throws from February 29 to March 6. He was selected honorable mention All-Pac 10 and was team co-Most Valuable Player of the Year.

LeonPowe discusses Carlisle: 

Once said " "It may sound cocky, but the only player in Chicago who is better than me is Michael Jordan."

Led Cal to the 1999 NIT title.

Once led my friend (at the end of that NIT Game) to say "You know, for better or worse, we’ll win or lose with Geno." He then made a cringing motion and sort of gagged.

Carlisle did make the game winning shot though.

Unbelievably, Geno Carlisle has an 8 minute highlight reel on YouTube which includes about 90 seconds of Cal highlights (and then a bunch of stuff from his stints in Turkey, Long Beach, Italy and Portland). I could find no such thing for Lamond Murray or KJ. Craaaazy. Enjoy the freakishness.

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#4 Russell White vs #13 Ed Gray

via www.crespifootball.com 

LeonPowe: Superman. One of the 3 best running backs (some would argue the best ever) to play at Cal. Finished in the top 5 in Heisman as a junior. Carried Cal to a #7 National ranking at the end of the 1991 season. Hurdled a Purdue player well before anyone else did it.

Tightwad Hill elaborates:

Cal's all-time leading rusher was perhaps the biggest recruiting coup in school history. Controversy surrounded White's decision to move from Crespi HS to Berkeley, since he was a Prop 48 student who had not achieved a qualifying SAT score. A summer of tutoring revealed that Russell was dyslexic, and he would go on to earn his degree in social welfare in four years with a B average.

He would also go on to become Cal's all-time leading rusher, behind 1,000 yard efforts in 1991 and 1992. Fifteen times he rushed for at least 100 yards in a game, including a 229-yard effort in Cal's record setting 52-30 beatdown of USC in 1991. With White, the Bears reversed a decade of futility and won back-to-back bowls in 1990 and 1991. His '91 season, with 1,177 yards rushing and fourteen touchdowns earned White first-team All-America honors from the Walter Camp Foundation and the FWAA.

Now thanks to Prd74, we all get to bask in Russell's greatness a little; his freshman campaign in 1990 had some great moments, including a 99 yard kickoff return against Miami in the first video and an utterly insane run starting at 4:24 in the second vid.

via images.usatoday.com

LeonPowe should move into the CGB Commenter Hall of Fame, if we ever erect it: 

Lots of basketball players are versatile. They can score, they can handle the ball, they can rebound, they can defend, they can pass.

Then there are the specialists. Maybe you have a 3 point shooter like Pat Garrity. Or a rebounder like Reggie Evans. or a shot blocker like Max Zhang.

Ed Gray was the specialists’ specialist. Not a great ball handler – horrible defender, never really passed the ball much – not even that great a shooter, but man, his one skill? he had it in spades. Ed Gray was a scorer.

During the 2 seasons he played at Cal (1995-96 and 1996-97) when Ed had the ball in his hands, you knew two things were going to happen. 1, he was going to shoot, and 2, the ball had a good chance of going on, or he was going to shoot free throws. The funny thing is I don’t remember Ed being that particularily good at any one offensive skill – he was a good, not great 3 point shooter. He was a good, not great mid range shooter. He didn’t post up (as a 6’2" shooting guard). And he could get to the rim well, but not Dwyane Wade style. And yet, all these balls would drop for him. I do remember he did have a particularily sick hook dunk over someone, but other than that, I really don’t remember any signature baskets by him.

Now, having said that, I’m underselling Ed Gray. Remember this guy averaged 15 ppg as a JUCO transfer his first year playing with Shareef Abdur-Rahim and then with ’Reef leaving to the NBA Ed EXPLODED – leading the Pac-10 in scoring at 24/game, including an incredible 48 points against WSU where he broke his foot on his 47th and 48th points coming down too hard off a dunk. Unfortunately these proved to be his last points in a Cal uniform – but the team he was on (featuring Randy Duck, Tony Gonzalez, Sean Marks, Anwar McQueen and others) went on to make a Sweet Sixteen run under then first year Coach Ben Braun.

This sounds like I’m underselling Ed Gray a little bit – so his credentials:

1. Pac-10 Player of the Year. (How many did we ever have at Cal? 3? 4? Jason Kidd, ’Reef . . .and Sean Lampley?)
2. Led the Pac-10 in scoring (again, how many did we ever have at Cal? Lamond Murray?)

If you’re an nba fan, you’ve probably seen one of those games where Ben Gordon cannot be stopped. A muscular 6’2" shooting guard who has nothing else to his game, but every shot he puts up is going in. Ed Gray’s senior year was like an extended version of that. I just remember him going on sick scoring runs, where he’d drop 6, 8, 10, 12 points in a row on consecutive shots. Just coming up the court and knowing that no matter what defender or how many defenders the opposition threw at him, Ed was going to get a bucket – it was pretty awe-inspiring.

 

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