The 19 Most 90s College Basketball Players Of the 1990s
By Tully Corcoran
A thousand images pop up when you hear “the 1990s.” Personally, I think of third-generation Camaros, Dana Carvey, and “skip protection,” but we all have our things. Things that just stuck because, for one reason or another, they fit perfectly into their time and place.
These are those things, as concerns college basketball. These are the college basketball players who represented the zeitgeist of the 1990s the best, through their attitudes, their hair, and through sheer fate and chance.
Bryant “Big Country” Reeves, Oklahoma State (1991-95)
Man, oh man. “Big Country” or as coaches sometimes call him, “Country,” looked like a cartoon version of an Oklahoma sheriff and would beast on fools in the post.
In 1995, Country, who weighed around 300 pounds and came from an Oklahoma town of 200, was a full-blown phenomenon, and he led Oklahoma State to the Final Four.
He was taken sixth overall by the Grizzlies in the 1995 NBA draft, and averaged 13 points and seven rebounds in six NBA seasons.
Toby Bailey, UCLA (1994-98)
Try to think of something more 90s than an open-court reverse dunk. You can’t. And open-court reverse dunks were Toby Bailey’s thing.
That’s a beautifully executed reverse dunk, in the 90s style, for a team that would go on to win the national title.
Felipe Lopez, St. John’s (1994-98)
There have been a lot of “Next Michael Jordans” over the years, but one of the first was Felipe Lopez, a Dominican-born guard who played at Rice High School in New York. What nobody knew at the time was that his fame as a high school kid was just the beginning of an explosion in coverage of basketball prospects.
Lopez played at St. John’s from 1994-98 and, as you already know, did not turn out to be the next Michael Jordan. Still, he was pretty good. Lopez was a first-team All-Big East pick as a senior, was a first-round draft pick in 1998 and played in the NBA until 2002.
Harold Miner, USC (1989-92)
Before Felipe Lopez, there was Harold Miner, who had a bald head, could really jump, and thus became known as “Baby Jordan.” Miner’s coach at USC, George Raveling, said that was the worst thing that ever happened to Miner, who was the national player of the year in 1992, but whose pro career amounted to little more than a couple of Slam Dunk championships.
Baron Davis, UCLA (1997-99)
As far as anyone seems to be able to tell, Baron Davis invented the Signing Day “hat ceremony” in 1997, when he displayed hats from Kansas, Duke, Georgia Tech and UCLA, and chose the Bruins one.
If video of this survives, I haven’t been able to find it. In any case, the hat ceremony is one of the most enduring cultural contributions from any player in the last 30 years.
Jeff Boschee, Kansas (1998-2002)
That Boschee’s Kansas career aligned perfectly with the peak of the Boy Band Era makes him a 90s creation, even though Boschee didn’t really hit his stride until he ditched the shaved-head look in favor of one of the most perfect boy-band coiffures ever visited upon college basketball.
You could have slipped Boschee into 98 Degrees and nobody would have noticed.
Keith Van Horn, Utah (1993-97)
We’re still having the “next Michael Jordan” debate, but in the 90s there was still an expectation of finding the next Larry Bird. Bird had only just retired in 1992, and so every skilled 6-foot-9 white guy was at some point or another expected to be next.
Van Horn’s college career began two years after Bird’s retirement, and by the time the Mavericks took him second overall, he was every bit as much Baby Bird as Harold Miner was Baby Jordan.
Van Horn didn’t quite live up to that, but he did average 18.3 points per game over nine NBA seasons. Plus, he wore long socks.
God Shammgod, Providence (1995-97)
Today, basketball is all about shooting, but in the 90s the big thing was “handles.” For a variety of reasons, getting your shoulders past a defender was more difficult then, and having a dazzling array of dribble moves was a popular way to overcome that.
Nobody, perhaps ever, had better handles than God Shammgod, who, as Bleacher Report explains in this video, invented a crossover move that is all over the NBA today.
Shammgod and Austin Croschere led Providence to a surprise Elite Eight run in 1997. His NBA career didn’t last long, but his legend endures.
Glenn Robinson, Purdue (1992-94)
People forget this, but Glenn “The Big Dog” Robinson averaged 30 points and 11 rebounds per game as a junior at Purdue. That alone does not make him especially 90s, but his style of play, his nickname, and the fact that his career ended with a loss to a Duke team led by Grant Hill is about as 90s as it gets.
Stephon Marbury, Georgia Tech (1995-96)
A couple highly 90s things about Stephon Marbury: He went to the same high school as Biggie, and he was thought of as “the next great NYC point guard” which was a topic people seemed to care about back then.
But mainly, Marbury was a style of point guard — physical, ball-dominating, volume-shooting — that was en vogue at a time when defensive players could get away with a lot more.
Larry Johnson, UNLV (1989-91)
Because of NCAA eligibility rules, “Grandmama” had to wait until Larry Johnson was in the NBA, but Johnson laid the groundwork at UNLV, where he led teams whose brashness, style and 1990 national championship were something of a preview of the Fab Five that was following right behind them.
Christian Laettner, Duke (1988-92)
There is not much left to say about Christian Laettner, but here’s something: We all think of Duke as a traditional power, as we should, but Duke didn’t become Duke until Mike Krzyzewski became the coach in 1980, and Duke didn’t really become Duke until Laettner led the Blue Devils to championships in 1991 and 1992.
Not only is Laettner responsible for the signature sports moment of the 1990s, he had the most 90s haircut it is possible for a human to have had.
Allen Iverson, Georgetown (1994-96)
No move is more 90s than the crossover, and no player is more associated with the crossover than Iverson, whose 1995 Georgetown team played in some of the coolest and most 90s uniforms ever to grace college basketball.
As a pro, Iverson was an iconic part of the Bling Era, which was more of an early aughts thing, but began in the late 90s (the Cash Money Millionaires released “Bling Bling” in 1999).
The Entire Fab Five, Michigan (1991-93)
The shorts I’m wearing right now hang below my knees, and that’s because of the Fab Five. But what can be said about the Fab Five at this point that hasn’t already been said 10,000 times? Forget college basketball or even sports as a whole. No discussion of popular culture in the 90s can be considered comprehensive unless it includes a long bit on the Fab Five.
Alas, baggy uniforms were an exceedingly 90s thing that has greatly receded since about the middle of the 00s. The trendiest basketball players now, once again, wear their shorts well above the knee, and jerseys today fit more like undergarments than anything Jalen Rose wore in 1992.
Vince Carter, North Carolina (1995-98)
This was when I found out about Vince Carter:
Watch the up, up and away, the Elevator Man.
Corliss Williamson, Arkansas (1992-95)
I thought of Corliss Williamson as “the college Karl Malone.” Williamson had a pretty good NBA career of his own, but it was that out-of-nowhere Arkansas run in the mid-90s that made him a star.
Under Nolan Richardson, Williamson led Arkansas to back-to-back national championship game appearances, including a win over Duke for the 1994 national championship.
Williamson was the ultimate steady hand on a “40 minutes of hell” Arkansas squad that wore Converse shoes during that moment in the mid-90s when Converse made semi-popular basketball shoes.
Remember the Kevin Johnsons?
Of course you do.
Shaquille O’Neal, LSU (1989-92)
Shaq really wasn’t that great in college, which is wild to think about. I mean, he was a two-time All-American, and he was the National Player of the Year in 1991, and there is a 900-pound Bronze statue of him on LSU’s campus, so it’s all relative, here.
It’s just you’d have thought with a player like that the Tigers would have gotten past the second round.
Anyway, Shaq is a 90s icon, and it started at LSU.
Cherokee Parks, Duke (1991-95)
How did Duke do this? How did Duke replace Christian Laettner with a guy who looked just like Christian Laettner, except with an even more 90s haircut?
Cherokee Parks had the same haircut as every sitcom kid in 1994.
Parks was better in college than I remembered. He averaged 19-9 as a senior in 1995 and played 11 seasons in the NBA.
Donyell Marshall, UConn (1991-94)
As this excellent 1994 feature by Chris Fowler explains, Donyell Marshall not only was tall, with long arms and fingers, he was the only player in the country who might have been as good as Glenn “Big Dog” Robinson at that particular moment.
The most 90s thing about Donyell Marshall, though, is that he stayed at UConn for a hilarious three years. This is a 6-9 guy with a 7-foot wingspan who averaged 11-6 as a freshman and came back, then averaged 17-8 as a sophomore and came back again.
Finally, after a junior season in which he averages 25-9, Marshall figures it’s time to try the NBA, and gets taken fourth in 1994, behind Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill.
It was a different time. It wasn’t unusual for juniors to leave for the NBA, but sophomore departures were rare (and vaguely controversial), one-and-dones weren’t really a thing, and it would be another year before Kevin Garnett started the modern preps-to-pros thing.