Gonzaga's Best Player Ever???

Over the last 15 years, the two kings of west coast basketball without question have been Arizona and Gonzaga. I will not bore you with their records.

And without question the person with the best professional basketball career to come out of Gonzaga is John Stockton.

But who is the best player ever during his time at Gonzaga?

For my money it is Frank Burgess. Sadly, Mr. Burgess passed away last year at the age of 75, at the time, he was still an active Federal Judge.

He shares the great history of Gonzaga basketball along with the likes of, Morrison, Santangelo, Frahm, Calvary, Dickau, Stepp, Turiaf, Raivio, Pargo and Bouldin, as well as the above named Stockton and a cast of many other fine players.

But when you look at what he accomplished at Gonzaga, perhaps Burgess was the best.

1. In the 1960-61 season he lead the nation in scoring with a 32 point per game average.

2. In his career at Gonzaga, seven times he scored over 40 points in a game. (Remember he had no 3-point line in his day, to score even more.)

3. He still holds the school's single game scoring record of 52 points in a game against UC Davis.

4. But often overlooked, he always played great defense, something lots of scorers, fail to do.

It is a shame that more of us do not honor the game, with the history of the game. As we go along with this blog, I hope to enhance your knowledge with a little bit of past west coast basketball history.

Comments, even criticism, always welcome, or emails at crawscorner@gmail.com