RE: Should #3 be retired ?
There is no doubt that Thornton's #3 will one day be retired and hang from the rafters at Kaplan. The only question is when; my own guess is two-four years after he graduates
when a major ceremony can be held...not the year his W&M career ends.
By the way...men and women's basketball are the only sports at W&M where numbers are retired...a strange fact. There is an unusual exception, perhaps unique at W&M from any other university: In football, The great W&M two-way guard and 1942 first team AP All-American, Gerrard "Buster" Ramsey on W&M's greatest football team, wore #20. Since
his last game in 1942 no W&M football player has ever worn Number 20...to this day.
It has never been officially retired and hangs nowhere, but it is a fact no coach has ever issued it to a player since Ramsey last played.
Perhaps when the revitalized Zable Stadium open in 2016 it would be an appropriate time
on opening day to officially retire it.
In my opinion he and Jeff Cohen are the two greatest players in W&M history.
Three years ago Bill Chambers, Cohen's coach at William and Mary, was guest at a small luncheon held at W&M Hall to which I was invited and, in response to questions from some of us, spoke at length about Cohen. He said that Cohen, who was 6-8 and weighed about 235 pounds, was the best rebounder he ever saw and called him fearless and extremely physical, able to jump like a man several inches taller with long, powerful arms.
Chambers said that Cohen scored many points on rebound putbacks, but noted that he also had a deadly hook shot and, surprising to us, a very good outside shot that today would be three-point shots. I also remember Bill saying that Cohen was tireless on the court, had very good speed for his size, and that he rarely took him out of close games for a breather, claiming that Cohen never got tired. He also said Cohen was best in the biggest games
and that if he had played for a big-time team in a big conference he would be remembered today as one of the top players of his time.
Perhaps some of this was his old coach pumping up his one-time star player, but I went into the record books and found some stunning figures that support Chambers' claims.
First of all, he scored 2003 points in 103 games (19.4 ppg in an era in which there was no 3-point shot) and had an astounding mark of 1679 rebounds. That's 16.3 rebounds a game!!
Even if you throw out a third of them considering the more liberal rebound rules of the era,
that's still close the 12 rebounds a game! So Cohen, in effect, averaged well over a double double every game of his career on average!
He is one of just a handful of players in college basketball players to score 2000+ points and 1500+ rebounds in career
He also had some incredible individual game performances-
*In a game where W&M snapped a West Virginia 57-game Southern Conference winning streak (an era when WVa had Jerry West) at the old Norfolk Arena, a game where West scored 44 points, Cohen scored 38 points and had 24 rebounds.
*In the Southern Conference Tourney Semi-Final a year later in Richmond, Cohen again scored 38 points with 22 rebounds, again defeating the Mountaineers and this time snapping
a fifteen game Tourney winning streak
*In his final home game at old Blow Gymnasium, Cohen scored 49 points, still the Tribe record, had 16 rebounds as W&M defeated Richmond.
*He was twice a Helms first-team All-American and never missed a game in his four years at W&M, playing and starting in 103 consecutive games.
These facts and figures, backed up by Bill Chambers' comments, are why I hold that Cohen
and Marcus Thornton are W&M's co-greatest players ever.
It would be appropriate that, when the day comes, Marcus' #3 should be put up right next to
Jeff Cohen's #52.
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