Is he not easily the greatest player to come out of the state… And secondly how did he not end up a Razorback? This was before my time so I don’t know the history behind all I know is I have a great auntie that went to UCA with Scottie
Scottie was a good 6-1, 150-pound high school player that helped Hamburg get to the regionals and went to UCA as a manager, not as a player because he did not have any offers,
The UCA coach took him on a manager as a favor for his high school coach.
When UCA had injuries, he was used to practice with the team and eventually got playing time.
He grew to 6-7, 210.
After his sophomore season he began to call and try to get into contact with Coach Nolan Richardson and Coach Andy Stoglin.
I know this because I used to be a manager for both Eddie Sutton and Nolan Richardson and answered calls from noon-1 p.m. each weekday while basketball secretary Terry Mercer - who still is with the program - went to lunch.
I talked to Scottie on many occasions and passed on the messages.
Nothing ever came of it, but I always wondered what if?
NBA stats indicate that Scottie is certainly the greatest player to cone out of Arkansas. Not sure about the “easily” part. Here are the stats for two most productive players to come out of Arkansas.
Games. PPG RPG. APG. FG% 3FG% FT%
Scottie Pippen. 1178 16.1 6.4 5.2. 47.1 32.6 70.4
Joe Johnson 1276 16.0. 4.0 3.9 44.1 37.1. 80.2
was pretty good, too.
1979-1991
Five-time NBA All-Star. A two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year
NBA Career Averages:
15.6 pts
4.7 rbs
3.6 assists
50.2 FG
83.1 FT
28.2 3-point percentage
My pick would be Sidney Moncrief. His problem was his NBA career was spent in Milwaukee and he never had a Michael Jordan on his teams. But all things considered, his numbers are pretty equal to Pippen. But you couldn’t go wrong with either of them or Joe Johnson.
wow great insight dudley
No question about it.
I can’t imagine how good some of those Hog teams would have been with Scottie on board…
Dudley? Was he on scholarship then at UCA? Nolan could not have offered him or encouraged him to transfer, could he? I assume Scotty would have needed some financial help and could not have just “walked on” for free trying to earn a scholarship.
Isn’t this speculation kind of like the folks that lament that FedEx started in Little Rock and all Little Rock had to do to keep that struggling start-up company from moving to Memphis was build a second runway at the LR Airport. Nice to think about but could never have happened.
Excellent analogy. It seems both the Fedex and Pippen topics come up with the same frequency.
Sidney far and away. Absolute best.
Iso Joe has got to be included in this conversation.
To me it has to be Super Sid, but then I’m old.
Oh it could have happened, proven by the point that they did build a second runway at Adams Field later, but too late to keep FedEx.
I’m pretty sure Don Dyer, who I knew approximately forever since he was at Henderson before UCA and his son is about my age, got Scottie as much money as he could at an NAIA school. Of course Scottie would have had to redshirt because of the transfer, and players did not routinely leave school early then. Michael Jordan was a rarity, having left UNC after three seasons. No one-and-dones then. I think since Scottie was initiating the contact, Nolan could have made some kind of offer.