[letthebighogroot]

In my book, a "team player" does what is needed to help his team win games, whatever that may be. If that is scoring points, making assists, grabbing rebounds, or shutting down the other team's best player on defense, the team player does what is needed.

Now, Todd May was easily the best scorer on both his Virgie and his Pikeville College teams. If they needed him to score 30-40 points for his team to have the best chance to win, then how is that not being a team player? Like another poster mentioned on here, many great players in history have had high PPG averages and took a lot of shots. I only consider that selfish if the player in question is hurting the team by taking all those shots. With regard to May, that was certainly not the case. Bottom line, would you want a fairly even shot distribution amongst your starters, or would you want the best player taking the majority of the shots?

In the end, one has to remember that you can't control who you play with. All you can do is your best as a player to help your team win. VanHoose had a better supporting cast, so he didn't have to do as much for his team to win. May did.
If the roles were reversed, and VanHoose didn't have such good players around him, he likely would have averaged more points but may not have his championship ring. And vice versa for May.

In the end, if you disregard May's better stats and VanHoose's championship, I go by what I saw when I watched them play. And even though VanHoose was a terrific inside player, he didn't have May's outside shooting ability. Having seen them both in person, I am confident in saying that May was the better player.

My post said nothing about a May/Vanhoose comparsion. I qouted college stats for May, not high school. Having said that, How many NAIA players are D1 scholarship athletes that leave and go the NAIA route so they can be "the man" ? Point being, I'm sure May was in most cases doubled teamed, leaving a man open, (if you're averaging 29 shots a ballgame they aren't all good ones) So to answer your question, If I were coaching I would want the best shot, not the one my best player could take with 2 or 3 guys on him. And in response to your "not everyone can control who they play with" statement. Mr. May had 2 opportunities to do that. Maybe he felt like he wouldn't get a chance to chuck 30 shots a game at UK or Wake.