Every week leading up to the reveal of the nominees for the Class of 2020 for the Ultimate Hoops Hall of Fame, we’ll feature a possible candidate for the upcoming induction class. None of these articles will focus on anyone who has already been nominated for the Hall of Fame but has yet to be inducted. If you want to learn more about those candidates, you can visit the Hall of Fame section of our blog.

Today we’re focusing on UH Arizona veteran Donald Didlake.

The case for Didlake

Didlake is arguably the most accomplished played in UH Arizona. He is certainly in the top three (more on that later) and that’s the main reason he’ll be considered in this upcoming nomination cycle. You can add up all of the resumes from players that have been playing in Arizona and make separate cases for who’s had the best career, but Didlake’s main case comes from his dominance of Arizona open leagues over the course of this decade.

Didlake started playing in the Tempe Open League in the Spring of 2010 and won the championship in his first UH season, averaging 15.4 points on 62% shooting from the field and 50% from deep. This all culminated into a season-high 30-point performance on 12-13 shooting in the championship game. He followed that up with back-to-back titles, winning again in the summer, which included a game where he had 16 points, 25 assists and 10 steals (the 25 assists in one game is still a record in the Tempe Open League). He then rebranded and played with Team Breakdown in the Fall 2010 season and won another title in Tempe, going three-for-three in his first three UH seasons. He averaged 9.1 assists that season, which is his career-high over the course of a season (he’s played in 48 seasons in his UH career).

That type of dominant pace was unsustainable (even Alex Scales has gone a couple seasons/tournaments without winning a title), but Didlake has been consistently good since the first game he played on April 22, 2010. From the Spring of 2010 through the Fall of 2018, Didlake won 11 open titles in 44 seasons, including two separate occasions where he won three in a row. His career open averages are 16.6/6.1/6.5 with shooting splits of 50/36/70.

Over the course of his open career, he won a title on average once every four seasons. It’s extremely fitting that he’s played in four seasons outside of the open league and won one title over that span, the 2019 Summer Gilbert Vet League title with Wheelchair Mafia. He ventured into the Gilbert Draft League this season, his first draft league, and averaged 12.9/8.3/8.3, with Cut Throat losing in the first round of the Arizona Draft Tournament.

His 12 titles are tied for the fourth-most in UH Arizona (along with Fred Dudley), and Didlake has the most wins in all of UH Arizona with 311. That gives him a career winning percentage of .710.

The case against Didlake

As I mentioned before, there’s a bit of a logjam of UH Arizona candidates with Brandon Walker already getting nominated twice and Dudley also having a very strong case. Once you get three candidates from one region with similar resumes, it can start to have unintentional rippling effects to the other candidates. Naturally debates will spark about who’s more deserving: Dudley or Didlake? Didlake or Walker? Walker or Dudley?

Walker has the upper hand of already being nominated, so that pits Didlake and Dudley more fiercely against each other. Here’s the basics of their resumes:

Didlake: 438 games played, 311 wins (.710 winning percentage), career averages of 16.1/6.1/6.5 with shooting splits of 50/36/69

Dudley: 356 games played, 263 wins (.738 winning percentage), career averages of 26.2/8.5/5.5 with shooting splits of 51/37/80

Those are pretty similar. If you value longevity, you would take Didlake, and if you value pure numbers, you would take Dudley. The great equalizer is Dudley’s national title with X Over, one of the most significant titles in UH history, while Didlake has had little success at national tournaments.

Looking at Didlake individually, his track record at national tournaments is the biggest weakness on his resume. He’s played in four tournaments (all in Vegas) and has a career record of 4-10, losing all three elimination games he’s played in. His numbers also dip on the national stage quite significantly, while Dudley has shined on the big stage on multiple occasions.

As I stated in the article about Dudley a few weeks ago, Walker not getting inducted in the first two years will damage Dudley and Didlake’s chances of getting nominated this year, and it will significantly hurt their chances of being inducted this year as well. I have no doubts both will end up in the Hall someday, but they may have to wait a bit.