Sports
The College Basketball Shaqtionary – Mid-Major Madness
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Everything you need to know about our game’s finest Shaqs
In the fall of 1989, a young man walked on campus at Louisiana State University hoping to make an impact on the upcoming college basketball season.
Of course his aspirations were loftier than that. He wanted to one day play in the NBA, win a few championships, and star in Kazaam. But at that point, he was probably focused on the 1989-90 season.
Shaquille O’Neal had no idea that he was the first in a long line of Shaqs or that he would be the namesake for dozens of basketball players for decades to come.
Shaq played his first game on Nov. 15, 1989 against Southern Mississippi. Before that night, nobody named Shaq had ever played Division I college basketball, according to sports-reference.com. And no other Shaq came along for nearly 20 years after that.
20 years where Shaquille O’Neal was the only Shaq ever in basketball.
Or roughly the amount of time it takes for a dominant big man to rise to stardom, inspire couples to make some Shaq babies, and let those Shaq babies grow up to play college basketball.
That first new Shaq was Shaquille Johnson in 2008, who was a four-year player at Marshall and averaged 9.3 points per game.
From there, the Shaq-volution was on. 24 more Shaqs have followed Shaq Johnson, making this, undoubtedly, the Shaq Era of College Shaqsketball.
To properly analyze the Shaqs, I’ve provided a Table of Shaqs for you, listing all of college basketball Shaqs in Shaq-ological order. All stats are from sports-reference.com, so if you have a problem with listed heights and weights, @ them, please.
Shaq-ellaneous notes:
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