Breakout Season: Grayson Allen Continued NCAA Championship Game Surge

There was little doubt Duke's Grayson Allen, despite a Louisville scholar punching him while down on the floor, would be up and running as an All-American competing in the NCAA playoffs this campaign while compiling the largest one-season scoring average increase in ACC history. Allen, who averaged 21.6 points per game, posted a modest 4.4 mark a year ago as a freshman. Allen didn't "trip up" and wound up ranking sixth on the following list of first-time All-Americans posting increases of at least 14 ppg from the previous season:

Allen was averaging a modest 3.9 ppg entering last year's Final Four prior to becoming an overnight sensation by erasing a nine-point, second-half deficit virtually by himself to spark a rally against Wisconsin in the NCAA championship game. From a historical perspective, only one unsung player in history had more of a Final Four impact than Allen, who finished with 16 points in the final after contributing nine in the national semifinals against Michigan State. Nothing compares to the version of Washington coming "out-of-the-valley forge" when UCLA's Kenny Washington was instrumental in helping venerable coach John Wooden capture his first NCAA Tournament championship in 1964. Washington, the only player with a single-digit season scoring average (6.1) to tally more than 25 points in a championship game, scored 26 points in a 98-83 triumph over Duke in the final. Teammate Gail Goodrich contributed 27 points as he and Washington became the only duo to each score more than 25 in an NCAA final.

Although Washington became the only player to score 25 or more points in a final and not be named to the All-Tournament team, he wasn't rebuffed again the next year. Washington, averaging a modest 8.9 points per game entering the 1965 Final Four, scored a total of 27 points in victories over Wichita State and Michigan as the Bruins successfully defended their title en route to 10 crowns in 12 years under Wooden. Washington joined teammates Goodrich and Edgar Lacey on the 1965 All-Tournament team with co-national players of the year Bill Bradley (Princeton) and Cazzie Russell (Michigan).

In 1969, UCLA was without two-time All-Tournament team selection Lucius Allen because of academic problems, but the Bruins got another significant increase in point production at the Final Four from an unlikely source. Guard John Vallely averaged 22 points in victories against Drake and Purdue after arriving at the national semifinals with a 10.2-point average. Allen is the only freshman on the following list of six championship team rank-and-file players to average fewer than eight points per game entering the Final Four before seizing the moment and averaging double digits in scoring in their last two games with an increase of more than 7 ppg from their pre-Final Four scoring mark:

NOTE: Washington State junior guard Kirk Gebert, who scored 21 points in a 39-34 loss against Wisconsin in 1941 final to finish the year with a 6.6-point average, is the only player other than Washington with a single-digit season average to score more than 20 points in a title game.

ESPN analyst Dick Vitale has good reason comparing Allen to former Ohio State standout John Havlicek. But Allen will need to keep on improving at a comparable dramatic pace upon reaching the professional level to join the following "Magnificent 7" list of All-Americans (including Havlicek) who posted career scoring averages more than five points per game higher over more than 10 NBA seasons than they did in multiple college campaigns: