Written by Mike Perry

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My entire life, whenever a discussion has come up regarding the best pure shooter in college basketball history the name Rick Mount has been thrown in the mix. Mount, it has been said, could do things from the perimeter with a basketball that had to be seen to be believed.

One such trick Mount supposedly pulled off took place when he would shoot by himself. It has been said that Mount could graze the back of the rim with his outside shots, causing the ball to bounce through the net and right back to him…meaning he did not need a rebounder to practice his outside shooting. People said he could do this about 90 percent of the time.

Mount was already a legend in the state of Indiana when he graduated from Lebanon High School and enrolled at Purdue University. There he put up amazing numbers. Mount played college ball in a different era, when freshmen were not allowed to play on the varsity squad and before the 3-point line was in effect. Regardless, he averaged 32.3 points in his collegiate career, shooting 49.8 percent from the floor and scoring 2,323 career points.

Also, during his Boilermakers career he was said to have never lost a post-practice game of H-O-R-S-E against his teammates…a game played with the unique rule that a shot was not good if it touched any part of the iron and did not hit nothing but net.

Scripps Howard News Service did a poll a few years back of 30 current and 10 former college coaches, asking them who they thought was the best outside shooter in college basketball history. Mount won the poll with ease.

However, this writer never saw Rick Mount play the game. Many times, as the years pass, a player’s on-floor exploits get more and more incredible in peoples’ memories. While there is no doubt Mount could shoot the rock, but it is difficult to think he is the greatest of all time. Mount played in the early-to-mid 1960’s and the game of basketball was much different back then. The defenders Mount faced, no doubt in my mind, were not as athletic or talented as they are today. Film study, tendencies, over-playing, etc., these things were not part of the NCAA Basketball lexicon back then as much as they are now. No one can dispute this.

The greatest pure shooter this writer has ever seen played in the Mid-American Conference. He was the kind of guy that was in range when he stepped off the team bus and, even though he played one season before the conference had adopted the 3-point line, put up amazing scoring numbers shooting primarily from distance.

I first saw this guy in high school. His Stow Bulldogs were playing Hudson, and no one could defend this 6-foot-4 freak of nature who could score from anywhere on the floor. A few years back I saw another Ohio prep player that tore up the competition while playing at Upper Sandusky High School, Jon Diebler. Diebler would routinely drop 50-plus on his opponents (one of the worst high school leagues in the state, the Northern Ohio Basketball League), but Dave Jamerson at Stow was on another level. He scored something like 24,453,197,003 points in high school before moving on to play collegiately at Ohio University.

At OU Jamerson was instant offense. He scored 14.0 points per game in just 23.9 minutes per contest as a freshman and just got better and better as his career moved on. After his second year on campus resulted in a redshirt, Jamerson came back with a vengeance. He ripped through the MAC for the next three years, mostly with a silky-smooth jumper that seemed to feather through the net. As a sophomore he scored 17.3 points per game while connecting on a gaudy 40.2 percent of his 3-pointers. His junior year those numbers increased to 19.0 ppg and 40.7 percent from beyond the arc, but his senior season was far and away the best season a MAC player has had in my lifetime.

In 28 games during the 1990-91 season Jamerson averaged 38.3 minutes per game. He shot 45.9 percent from the floor and an incredible 43.2 percent from 3-point range. He averaged 31.2 points per game and ended his collegiate career with a MAC record 2,336 points. In his career Jamerson connected on 239 of 570 3-pointers (41.9 percent) and hit 369 of 436 free throws (84.6 percent).

Rick Mount remains a legendary figure while Jamerson is a mere afterthought. In fact, other than people in Ohio I would wager not a lot of people really know who Jamerson is. Mount washed out with the Indiana Pacers in the ABA after being drafted in the first round and never really had a solid year as a professional. Jamerson, drafted by Miami and traded to Houston, was a journeyman NBA player that did not even score 500 career points.

But he provided MAC fans with a lot of amazing memories. Anyone that can hit 14 3-pointers in one game, as Jamerson once did against Charleston in a 60-point performance, deserves to be honored and remembered. Jamerson’s number is retired at Ohio University, but I think it would be a good gesture if the league would honor Jamerson in some way as well. In 41 years he is the best shooter I have ever seen.