MIA: Simmons Could Be Third First-Team A-A in Last 40 Years Out of NCAAs

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). Acclaimed LSU freshman Ben Simmons appears bound to join Birdsong and Thompson as the third missing first-team A-A despite much of the media treating him as if he is superior to Tigers titan Pete Maravich. Simmons, apparently forcing LSU's coaching staff to moonlight as truant officers, should have attended North Carolina, which knows how to "educate" players without them wasting their time attending class.

Actually, if the SEC wasn't so mediocre, the Bayou Bengals likely would have finished the campaign with an overall losing record although their non-league schedule was full of cupcakes. Suggest the CIA use film of LSU's embarrassing exit in the SEC Tournament if it needs more "enhanced interrogation" techniques. No preseason prognosticator saw this possibility looming but Simmons may end up with the dubious distinction of joining LaRue Martin (Loyola of Chicago '72), Doug Collins (Illinois State '73) and Thompson as the only #1 overall draft picks failing to appear in the NCAA tourney.

Terry Dischinger, another celebrated Big Ten Conference player, 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 while skipping many of the road contests to continue his education. Unlike Simmons, Dischinger's dedication to the classroom paid off as he became an orthodontist.

In the ACC, 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? In the SEC long before Simmons' pencil-thin team success, Auburn's Charles Barkley was an All-American but the "Round Mound of Rebound" lost his only NCAA playoff game in 1984. Following is a look at Dischinger, Maravich and two other multiple-year NCAA consensus first-team All-Americans since the mid-1950s never to participate in the NCAA Tournament: