The Great Bill Walton

 This is from 2019:

It was back in 1995 or 1996 that Bill Carmody, still an assistant coach for the Princeton men's basketball team, came into TigerBlog's office and announced that "the greatest college basketball player of all-time is in the men's room."

It took TigerBlog a second to remember that Nate Walton was a Princeton recruit and so his father, Bill Walton, could have been in Jadwin Gym. It was only once he thought of who the greatest college basketball player of all time probably was that he put two and two together.

You can make a serious case that Bill Walton is the greatest college basketball player ever. Playing in the early 1970s, when freshmen were still ineligible for varsity, Walton won three national Player of the Year awards while leading UCLA to the 1972 and 1973 NCAA titles, including a 21-for-22, 44-point night against Memphis in the 1973 final. As a senior in 1974, UCLA lost four times, including having its 88-game winning streak stopped by Notre Dame 71-70 and then falling to North Carolina State 80-77 in two overtimes in the NCAA semifinals, ending a run of seven-straight championships for the Bruins, who would win again in 1975.

TigerBlog watched all three of those games on TV. The game against Memphis was just a case of sheer domination. The Notre Dame game was high on drama as the streak ended. The game against North Carolina State - led by David Thompson, who was basically Julius Erving and Michael Jordan combined before he hurt his knees - is one of the two best in college history, along with Duke's 104-103 win over Kentucky in the 1992 East final.

Walton would lead the Portland Trailblazers to the 1977 NBA title, and the 1977-78 Blazers started out 50-10 before Walton broke his foot, something that hindered him the rest of his career. Included in that start was a 107-106 win over the Knicks at the Garden on Dec. 10, a game TB attended.

Walton was big and strong and the best passing big man who ever played. Were it not for the injuries to his foot, he would be remembered in the same way that Bill Russell is as an NBA player.

UCLA, by the way, would win only one NCAA title since 1975, and that would be in 1995. The next season, 1996, saw Princeton knock off the Bruins 43-41 in the opening round. Nate Walton was a high school senior then.

Nate would be a first-team All-Ivy League selection after leading Princeton's most improbable Ivy championship team ever, the 2001 Tigers, who were led by a rookie head coach (John Thompson III) and a revamped lineup after Chris Young signed a professional baseball contract, Spencer Gloger transferred out and a few other projected rotation players weren't able to play.

Despite that, Princeton beat Penn 68-52 in Jadwin Gym on the final day of the regular season to win the title. On that night, where a Princeton win meant the championship and a Penn win would have meant a tie and a playoff game, Walton had one of the greatest stat lines of all time - nine points, eight rebounds, seven assists, six steals.

As TB looks back on all of the athletes he's known at Princeton, he'll always have a special fondness for Nate Walton, a natural leader who made every player on the court better, all while also having a great sense of humor about it all.

Clearly, Walton had a great experience at Princeton. And clearly his father is extremely proud of that.

If you saw Princeton's 67-66 win over Arizona State last weekend, you heard Bill Walton's commentary on the game. Much of it centered on Nate and his time here, and the lifelong respect that grew out of it for his father as far as Princeton and Princeton basketball are concerned.

Bill Walton passed away over the weekend. He was 71 years old.

He was as much a larger than life figure as anyone who has ever entered TigerBlog's orbit. One story that TB didn't mention in his piece in 2019 was about the time that Walton once left his gloves in TB's office after one of Nate's games.

Bill called and emailed and confirmed that he would be picking them up prior to the next game. The gloves made up about five percent of the time he was speaking. The rest? That would be anything and everything, with a running commentary of pretty much any subject that popped into his head.

He was a fascinating person with interests that spanned pretty much every corner of human existence. What you saw on TV is what TB saw in his office. 

He was all of that, and, again, perhaps the greatest college basketball player ever. To everyone who knew him, especially his family, TigerBlog sends his deepest condolences. 

And for Nate, TigerBlog doesn't have the words. It's unlikely anyone does. 

TB is thinking about you, and the giant man you've lost. He was ultra proud of you — something he made clear that day he came to get his gloves.