All-Decade: Celebrating the best of the best

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Jul 27, 2020



We should probably apologize for being late.

In 2008, we released our first All-Decade team to celebrate the greatest Division III men’s and women’s basketball players who took the court from 1997 through 2007. Those were our first 10 years on the internet under the current management. Set the clock 10 years ahead and we should have released our second All-Decade team two years ago.

In another sense, though, this feels perfectly timed.

At a time when most sports headlines report what has been lost, we could all use something to celebrate. Putting this All-Decade team together allowed us to do that, to look back on the best players over the past 10 years and remember why we love sports.  

We're releasing our women's All-Decade team now, and then the men's team later in the year.

Since we’re running late, we considered anyone who played at the Division III level at any point from the beginning of the 2009-10 season through the end of the 2019-20 season. Otherwise, we used the same structure as always for All-Americans. There are five teams with five players each, selected to balance frontcourt and backcourt players.

We started the selection process with our all-time list of All-Americans. We looked at outstanding single seasons and consistent excellence over the course of a career. We tried to weigh an individual's own accolades and her team's success in the NCAA Tournament. Nearly all the players on the women's team were D3hoops All-Americans multiple times. Nearly all made first-team All-American at least once. Nearly all reached the Big Dance multiple times.

There are at least a dozen more players whom we could have put on our team. Leaving special players off the list is the hardest part, especially when you get down to the final selections. Their omission doesn't diminish their accomplishments.

For those who made our team, we gave each one a separate profile page listing her major accomplishments. We asked their head coaches what made these players elite. We found links to archived coverage, including columns we wrote, game recaps provided by schools, and the occasional video. In the age of social media, we were also able to find most of the players honored here. We asked them to reflect on how their basketball careers have shaped their lives and what they remember most fondly about their time in Division III.

We had a lot of fun putting this team together and putting aside the worries of today, at least for a little while.

We hope you’ll enjoy it, too.