Tourney Outcasts: Multiple-Year 1st-Team All-Americans DNP in NCAA Playoffs

A storybook ending for three-time NCAA consensus first-team All-American forward Doug McDermott failed to materialize. McDermott appeared in three NCAA tournaments with Creighton but never reached a Sweet 16. He may have been hampered by a curse as the lone player leading the nation in scoring average while playing for a team reaching the NCAA title tilt is Clyde Lovellette, who carried Kansas to the championship by supplying four of the five highest-scoring games in the 1952 playoffs.

It doesn't take a genius to deduce All-American players are all-important to teams. Since the national tourney expanded to at least 32 teams in 1975, only two consensus first-team All-Americans never appeared in the NCAA playoffs - Houston guard Otis Birdsong (1977) and Minnesota center Mychal Thompson (1978).

At least McDermott participated in national postseason competition. Terry Dischinger averaged 28.3 points per game in his three-year varsity career with Purdue in the early 1960s, but he is the only two-time consensus first-team All-American since World War II never to compete in the NCAA Tournament or NIT. Dischinger also endured a star-scorned nine-year NBA career without playing on a squad winning a playoff series. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year as a member of the Chicago Zephyrs in 1962-63 despite playing in only 57 games as he skipped many of the road contests to continue his education. His dedication to the classroom paid off as he became an orthodontist.

Hall of Famer Billy Cunningham averaged 24.8 points per game in his three-year varsity career with North Carolina in the mid-1960s, but he also never appeared in the NCAA tourney or NIT. How good were the players in that era if Cunningham never was a consensus first-team All-American? Auburn's Charles Barkley was an All-American but lost his only NCAA playoff game in 1984. Following is a look at Dischinger and three other multiple-year NCAA consensus first-team All-Americans since the mid-1950s never to participate in the NCAA Tournament: