Calbert Cheaney wins Greatest IU Basketball Player of All-Time Bracket

  • 04/14/2020 11:12 am in

The Greatest IU Basketball Player of All-Time Bracket, a weeks-long joint project between Assembly Call and Inside The Hall, has finally reached its conclusion.

Monday’s championship matchup in the bracket between No. 1 seed Calbert Cheaney from the Bob Knight Post-1985 region and No. 3 seed Isiah Thomas from the Bob Knight Pre-1985 region went final on Tuesday morning, with Cheaney reigning supreme.

The matchup wasn’t close. With 4,511 votes cast via Twitter poll on Inside The Hall’s Twitter page, Cheaney defeated Thomas with 72.4 percent of the vote.

It was a final blowout victory for Cheaney in the bracket, cementing his place among those IU fans who voted as the greatest Hoosier men’s basketball player of all-time.

On his way to the bracket title Cheaney defeated six other IU basketball alums, including the final victory over Thomas.

Cheaney defeated No. 16 seed Michael Lewis in the Round of 64 with 98 percent of the vote (2,382 total matchup votes), No. 9 seed AJ Guyton in the Round of 32 with 96 percent of the vote (3,076 total matchup votes), No. 4 seed Alan Henderson in the Sweet 16 with 97 percent of the vote (2,105 total matchup votes), No. 2 seed Steve Alford in the Elite 8 with 80 percent of the vote (4,000 total matchup votes) and No. 2 seed Victor Oladipo with 81 percent of the vote (3,314 total matchup votes) prior to his meeting with Thomas.

Once again, among the factors that were considered by fans when voting to reduce the field from 68 former Hoosiers to just one were: Impact on winning at IU, statistical achievement, how they represented the program and university and qualitative impact on the culture and tradition of IU basketball overall.

Some of the standout statistics from the entire Greatest IU Basketball Player of All-Time Bracket event were:

– 129,635 total votes cast on Twitter for 66 total matchups (including play-in games).
– An average of 1,964 votes cast per matchup.
– A high-point of 4,936 votes cast in the Elite 8 matchup between No. 1 seed Yogi Ferrell and No. 2 seed Victor Oladipo in the Post-Bob Knight region.
– One double-digit seed, No. 12 George McGinnis in the Pre-Knight region, reaching the Sweet 16.
– One No. 1 seed (Cheaney), two No. 2 seeds (Bellamy and Oladipo) and one No. 3 seed (Thomas) reaching the Final Four.

A final version of the 2020 Greatest IU Basketball Player of All-Time Bracket can be found below.

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