It is probably going to happen either at some point over the next three days or perhaps during the NCAA Tournament or even the NIT.
La Salle’s Lionel Simmons has held third place on the Men’s NCAA Division I Career Scoring List for 10,600 days and Campbell’s Chris Clemons – with at least two games, but probably more, remaining – is well within striking distance.
As of Thursday morning, Simmons (3,217) has an 81-point lead over Clemons (3,136), who currently resides in sixth place. Clemons has Doug McDermott (3,150) and Alphonso Ford (3,165) to pass before he sets his sights on the L-Train. Just beyond Simmons is Freeman Williams in second (3,249).
(I hope you don’t have to ask who sits atop the list or how far ahead he is, but in case you do -- Pete Maravich, 3,667 points, in just 83 games over three seasons.)
Top seed Campbell (the regular season champion which is assured of at least an NIT bid) opens Big South Tournament play Thursday at 6 p.m. against Hampton. (Clemons torched the Pirates for 48 points the last time they met on Feb. 13.) A win gets the Fighting Camels – we kid you not – into a Friday 6 p.m. semifinal against Garnder-Webb or High Point. The Final is 1 p.m. Saturday. Radford (2) and Winthrop (3) are the high seeds on the other side of the bracket.
Campbell’s NET rating is 222 (of 353 schools), so they probably wouldn’t hang around too long in any postseason tournament unless they got an unlikely NCAA play-in game for No. 16 seeds.
But Mike Daum and his South Dakota State team could be a different story.
Daum has also broken the 3,000-point mark this season and -- at 3,026 -- has some spots he can move up himself.
The Jackrabbits – again, we kid you not – open Summit League tournament play Saturday at 6 p.m. against Western Illinois. Their semifinals and Final are set for March 11 and 12.
SDSU (NET 101) would get a higher seed than Campbell in the NCAA Tournament and therefore get a more winnable game. And a long NIT run would not be out of the question with the second-level competition that is left after the NCAA gets their 68.
As we lament the possibly dropping of Simmons down a notch (or two), we figured it would be as good a time as any of see where the other City 6 2,000-point scorers rank on the DI scoring list.
The rankings below are generated by the Sports Reference College Basketball site. Their point totals in some cases are different than what the NCAA recognizes, but we sided with SRCBB for our purposes. (You can read the SRCBB explanation here, at the bottom of the page.)
The point totals and rankings are complete and updated through last night (Wednesday, March 6), during which there was quite a bit of movement concerning former Big 5 players:
> Steve Black (La Salle) was passed by Northern Kentucky’s Drew McDonald, who had 19 points in a win over Detroit;
> Donnie Carr (La Salle) and David Hawkins (Temple) were passed by Charlotte’s Jon Davis, who tallied 29 in a loss to Rice;
> That all comes on the heels of last Sunday, when Marshall’s Jon Elmore (20 in a win over North Texas) nudged another La Salle icon -- Tom Gola -- down a notch, from 79th place to 80th.
Here are all 22 City 6 players to score 2,000 points and where they currently rank among Division I scorers: