Preview: Top 25 Illini of all time

Over the next couple of months leading up to March Madness, Orange and Blue News is counting down our top 25 Fighting Illini basketball players of all time.

From the Whiz Kids to the Flyin' Illini and beyond, we break down the iconic players to come through the University of Illinois.

Overall, our list includes three first-team consensus All-Americans, seven members of the Wooden Award All-American team, and three national players of the year. Two from our top 25 won the Bob Cousy Award as the nation's top point guard.

The first group of rankings from 21-25 will be released soon, but first up, we preview the list and discuss some of the criteria for compiling the our top 25.

We considered six players for the number one spot on the list. Most of them were part of the winningest teams in program history.

Really, you could make a strong argument for any of the six to top the list. Our pick should generate considerable discussion, and it's not a unanimous selection among the Orange and Blue News staff.

We also reached out to others in the Illinois media to get an outside perspective, both from reporters who have been around a long time to the newbies on the beat.

In the end, we decided on a player at No. 1 who is iconic and was the leader of one of the great teams in NCAA history, a team that grabbed the attention of the national audience with their flare and style of play.

Winning matters, which is a major reason Tom Brady and Michael Jordan are considered by most people to be the greatest ever in their sport.

Our top 25 comes from several different eras, but many of the names are from the iconic Fighting Illini teams. Five teams stand out as the greatest

The "Whiz Kids" of the pre-war years were a national sensation and they started a long winning tradition at Illinois. The 1942-43 team under Coach Douglas Mills posted a 17-1 record (12-0 Big Ten) and were widely considered the best team in the nation.

Harry Combes took over the program in 1947 and posted a 318-150 record over 20 seasons. Over the next five seasons, Combes' teams would finish in the top 5 of the final AP poll three times. He also led the team to a No. 8 ranking in 1962-63.

Legendary coach Lou Henson built a powerhouse team with Illinois kids, and his 1983-84 squad went 26-5 (15-3 Big Ten). Longtime fans will remember that team for the game they lost on Kentucky's home floor in the NCAA Tournament regional finals.

Lou was back on the national scene again in 1988-89 with arguably the most talented Illinois team of all time, the "Flyin' Illini" We found a spot in our top 25 for multiple players from the squad that went to the Final 4. It's still painful to re-watch the put-back by Michigan's Sean Higgins to end the Illini's run in the national semifinals.

Finally, Illinois was cooking with Weber in 2004-05. Bruce Almighty took over the program from Bill Self and guided the Illini to a No. 1 ranking in his second season. The chemistry and swag of that team may have been the best of all. Again, multiple players from that squad are high on our list of all-time greats.

Let's be real. Basketball has dramatically changed since James Naismith invented the game at the YMCA School (later named Springfield College) in Springfield, Mass. in 1891.

But do you judge players according to how they competed against their peers, or how their overall talent and skill set measures up against modern players? Probably a bit of both.

It's hard to top the accolades of guard Ray Woods, who suited up for the Fighting Illini from 1915-1917. He was a first team All-American selection in all three of his varsity seasons and the national player of the year in 1917. He led the team to a national title in 1915, and is on the Illinois All-Century Team that was selected in 2005.

Another example is Illinois Athletics Hall of Famer and multi-sport athlete Chuck Carney. (1920-22). Like Woods, Carney was a first team All-American and national player of the year. In 1920, he averaged an unheard of 15.8 points per game, a number that wouldn't be bested until Whiz Kid Andy Phillips put up 16.9 ppg in 1942-43.

But the game was still evolving. Even though it had caught fire and became a popular game in a relatively short amount of time, the skill level of the players and the commitment to the game was miniscule compared to what it would become in the decades ahead.

As the game grew and reached a national audience on radio and then television, the athleticism and skill level of the players increased exponentially. Naismith wouldn't recognize the game his invention has become, with players racing up and down the court and soring over the rim. It's apples and oranges.

We made a judgement call on how to evaluate the old-timers that we believe is appropriate in a modern context, while still respecting the accomplishments of players in the early years of the sport.

Recent star Malcolm Hill came in 26th, and it pains us to leave him off the list. Hill left as the No. 3 scorer in program history, and he carried the team during some thin years before the recent revival of the program. Of all the players we considered, Hill was the toughest evaluation.

Another tough call was high-scoring forward Rick Schmidt, who put up big number for the Illini during another rough patch in the programs' history from 1972-75. Schmidt is a member of the 1,000 point club and he averaged 15.3 points per game during his Illini career.

The next two out were guards Rod Fletcher (1950-52) and Tal Brody (1963-65). Fletcher was a first team All-American in 1952 and he helped lead Illinois to back-to=back Big Ten titles. A member of the Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame, Brody landed on All-American teams as a senior and was the No. 12 pick in the 1952 NBA Drat. He had a long professional career in Israel.

Others who just missed include Whiz Kid member Gene Vance, who later was the Athletic Director at Illinois, and first-round NBA Draft pick Don Sunderlage. Sunderland left as the programs' all-time leading scorer.

More recently, prolific three-point shooter Corey Bradford and guard Demetri McCamey were considered but not listed.

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