BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana basketball fans who identify players by decade most likely associate Devonte Green with the 2010s.
That makes sense. Green began his career when Tom Crean was still head coach in 2016. He played one season for Crean before he finished his career with three seasons under Archie Miller.
Green’s career just barely broke into the 2020s as his final season was the 2019-20 season. One in which the Hoosiers went 20-12 – the best overall record in the Miller era, albeit in a losing Big Ten campaign.
Green had his best scoring season in 2020, averaging 10.8 points, but some of his underlying numbers dropped. He set his career-high for field goal percentage as a freshman and nearly hit his low as a senior. Green had higher rebounding, assist, steals and blocks averages in other seasons as a Hoosier.
All part of the deal when it came to Green. His inconsistency was consistent in its way. In 2020, he had 11 games where he failed to reach double-figure scoring. He also had eight games where he scored 16 or more points, including a high of 30 points in a game against Florida State.
Green also embodied the streakiness of shooters. He had nine games where he shot at least 50% from 3-point range – all but one of those games with at least three attempts from the field. There were nine games where he shot 20% or less from 3-point range – all but one with at least three attempts from the field.
It was a wild season – one with merit and demerits, but Green’s production got him into the top 16 ahead of some other candidates.
In terms of comparisons to other Indiana players who qualified (20 minutes per game for one season or 64 games in the 2020s) for the best of the 2020s having played just one season, Green had more win shares than Myles Rice, Parker Stewart, Kanaan Carlyle and Bryson Tucker. He averaged more points per game than Joey Brunk and the aforementioned quartet.
In categories that weren’t cumulative for the decade, Green did fairly well. He had the 12th best win shares average and the 14th best peak win share total – with just one season for a sample size. In other words, a lot of other players had more than one season to best him and they couldn’t.
Green, and his fellow 2020 seniors, never got a chance to finish his career properly. Indiana might have made the 2020 NCAA Tournament and positioned themselves to solidify a spot with an 89-64 Big Ten Tournament victory over Nebraska.
That game is remembered for something far more ominous – the awakening of the country to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Big Ten Tournament was canceled the next day and the NCAA Tournament along with it shortly afterwards.
That abrupt end – and the many changes that have happened in the world of college athletics since – perhaps make it seem like Green and players from that period belong to a different era. However, Green did play in the 2020s and did so well enough in his lone season to crack the top 16.
Previous men’s basketball top 16 players of the 2020s
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