Duke basketball: Ranking the Top-10 players from the 1990’s
434. Scouting Report. Thomas Hill. 4. player. Pick Analysis. Guard. 1989-93
Duke basketball Top-10 players of the 1990s No. 4: Thomas Hill
- Four seasons at Duke (1989-93)
- Two-time National Champion (1991, 1992)
- Three-time Third Team All-ACC selection (1991, 1992, 1993)
Thomas Hill, no relation to Grant Hill, is one of the most underappreciated Duke players of the 1990s.
He might not have received all the accolades that the top players earned in the championship seasons of 1991 and 1992 but he was a ‘glue guy’ that helped the team reach all of its goals.
Hill’s freshman season did not yield much results with 3.4 points and 2.2 rebounds in just 12.6 minutes per game but he crashed the season in 1991 and never looked back.
The Los Angeles native started 23 of the 39 games Duke played during his sophomore year and averaged 11.5 points — third on the team only behind Christian Laettner and Bill McCaffery — on 55.2-percent shooting from the floor and 40.4-percent from 3-point range.
The statistics only grew for Hill as the Blue Devils looked to pull off back-to-back championships as, again, he was the second leading scorer behind Laettner on the 1992 title team at 14.6 points per game with 3.4 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1.7 steals as the shooting numbers (53.4% FG, 40.7% 3-PT) remained strong.
Duke was not able to pull off the 3-peat in 1993 with the departure of Laettner but Thomas Hill still put up impressive numbers with a career-high 15.7 points and 4.7 rebounds per contest.
Yes, the Blue Devils were a juggernaut in the early 1990s but do not forget that Thomas Hill was a major reason why.